CHAPTER XV.

JOURNALISM AND POLITICS.

In reviewing books I took the keenest Interest in the “Carlyle Biographies and Letters,” because my mother recollected Jeanie Welch as a child, and her father was called in always for my grandfather Brodie’s illnesses.  I was also absorbed in the “Life and Letters of George Eliot.”  The Barr Smiths gave me the “Life and Letters of Balzac,” and many of his books in French, which led me to write both for The Register and for The Melbourne Review.  I also wrote “A last word,” which was lost by The Centennial in Sydney when it died out.  It was also from Mrs. Barr Smith that I got so many of the works of Alphonse Daudet in French, which enabled me to give a rejoinder to Marcus Clark’s assertion that Balzac was a French Dickens.  Indeed, looking through my shelves, I see so many books which suggested articles and criticisms which were her gifts that I always connect her with my journalistic career.

Many people have consulted me about publishing poems, novels, and essays.  As I was known to have actually got books published in England, and to be a professional journalist and reviewer, I dare say some of those who applied to me for encouragement thought I was actuated by literary jealousy; but people are apt to think they have a plot when they have only an incident, or two or three incidents; and many who can write clever and even brilliant letters have no idea of the construction of a story that will arrest and sustain the reader’s attention.  The people who consulted me all wanted money for their work.  They had such excellent uses for money.  They had too little.  They were neither willing nor able to bear the cost of publication, and it was absolutely necessary that their work should be good enough for a business man to undertake it.  I am often surprised that I found English publishers myself, and the handicap of distance and other things is even greater now.  If stories are excessively Australian, they lose the sympathies of the bulk of the public.  If they are mildly Australian, the work is thought to lack distinctiveness.  Great genius can overcome these things, but great genius is rare everywhere.  Except for my friend Miss Mackay (Mrs. F. Martin), I know no Australian novelist of genius, and her work is only too rare in fiction.  Mrs. Cross reaches her highest level in “The Masked Man.” but she does not keep it up, though she writes well and pleasantly.  Of course poetry does not pay anywhere until a great reputation is made.  Poetry must be its own exceeding great reward.  And yet I agree with Charles Kingsley that if you wish to cultivate a really good prose style you should begin with verse.  In my teens I wrote rhymes and tried to write sonnets.  I encouraged writing games among my young people, and it is surprising how much cleverness could be developed.  I can write verses with ease, but very rarely could I rise to poetry; and therefore I fear I was not encouraging to the budding Australian poet.