The romance is musical, aesthetic, and sensational. It is not written virginibus puerisque, but the effect is a moral one. Some of the characters may be recognised, but I have avoided direct personality.
And now comes the last scene of all, and it is with a sorrowful heart I pen these lines, for Memory flies back to the bright days of our early friendship, when, boys together, we never found "the longest day too long," and whispers, in mournful tones, "Ah! what might have been." But it was not to be, and I bow in silent submission to the Omnipotent Will. Some months before the end came the never strong constitution of my friend began to give forth ominous signs of an early break-up. The once-active brain became by degrees more lethargic, and the work which at one time could be executed with rapidity and force became a task not to be undertaken without effort. The vivid, humorous imagination of the Peripatetic Philosopher assumed a more sombre hue, yielding itself up to the unravelling of psychological puzzles. The keen vein of playful satire which was so marked a feature of his mental calibre turned into a bitterness that but reflected the disappointed mind of this son of genius; and hence, for upwards of six months, from the opening of the year 1881 to the day of his death in the August of that year no literary work of consequence was done with the exception of the Mystery of Major Molineux, which opened in his usual finished style, but which through force of untoward pecuniary circumstances was wound up suddenly, leaving the mystery as mysterious as ever. But above all other matters that occupied his thoughts during the few weeks preceding his death--and the one which may be set down as the chief cause of that death, was the compulsory sequestration of his estate by Aaron Waxman, usurer (since gone to render his account before the Almighty Tribunal), which meant the loss of his position in the Public Library. All these mental troubles came upon the broken-down body in a cluster, and the burden was too heavy to bear. Struggling against his bitter fate--the more bitter that he knew he was himself greatly to blame--he fell by the way, crushed in mind and body, and the bright spirit passed away from the weakly tenement of clay which held it, to, let us hope, more congenial realms, leaving behind it a blank in the social and literary circles it was wont to frequent, which cannot be filled up, for that spirit was sui generis. The illness which immediately caused his decease commenced with an attack of pleurisy, and this developing into congestion of the liver, and finally into erysipelas, carried him off in the space of one short week. Indeed he had, during the last year of his life, suffered so frequently from attacks brought on by a disordered liver, that little heed was given to the final attack till a day or two previous to his death, when the wife, who had so unwearyingly attended him night and day, found that matters were more serious than anticipated and sent for an old companion and friend of her husband's, Dr. Patrick Moloney. From the beginning he held out little hopes, as the constitution was sadly worn out, and the mental worry of the latter weeks had completed the task of dissolution. But the dying man himself did not evidently realise his position even up to the time of the insensibility which preceded death setting in, for only a few hours before his decease he remarked jocularly to his watchful wife, "When I get up I will be a different man with a new liver," and then asked for and put on his coat. But the end came upon him rapidly. Losing his speech he beckoned for pencil and paper, and seizing hold of the sheets moved his hand over them as if writing. Shortly afterwards the mind began to wander, but still the hand continued moving with increasing velocity, and every now and then a futile attempt to speak was made. But the tongue could not utter what the fevered brain wished apparently to explain; and then, by degrees, the arms grew weary, the body fell back on the pillows, the large, beautiful eyes, with a far off gaze in them, opened widely for a second--then closed--and all was over on this earth with Marcus Clarke. At 4 o'clock on the afternoon of Tuesday, 2nd August, 1881, he died, aged 35. Reader, let us draw the veil over this sad scene. The sorrow caused by the passing away of so bright a spirit is too mournful to dwell upon.
Australian Scenery
What is the dominant note of Australian Scenery? That which, is the dominant note of Edgar Allan Poe's poetry--Weird Melancholy. A poem like "L'Allegro" could never be written by an Australian. It is too airy, too sweet, too freshly happy. The Australian mountain forests are funereal, secret, stern. Their solitude is desolation. They seem to stifle in their black gorges a story of sullen despair. No tender sentiment is nourished in their shade. In other lands the dying year is mourned, the falling leaves drop lightly on his bier. In the Australian forests no leaves fall. The savage winds' shout among the rock clefts, from the melancholy gums strips of white bark hang and rustle. The very animal life of these frowning hills is either grotesque or ghostly. Great gray kangaroos hop noiselessly over the coarse grass. Flights of white cockatoos stream out shrieking like evil souls. The sun suddenly sinks, and the mopokes burst out into horrible peals of semi-human laughter. The natives aver that when night comes, from out the bottomless depths of some lagoon the Bunyip rises, and in form like a monstrous sea-calf, drags his loathsome length from out the ooze. From a corner of the silent forest rises a dismal chant, and around a fire, dance natives painted like skeletons. All is fear-inspiring and gloomy. No bright fancies are linked with the memories of the mountains. Hopeless explorers have named them out of their sufferings--Mount Misery, Mount Dreadful, Mount Despair. As when among sylvan scenes in places "Made green with the running of rivers, and gracious with temperate air," the soul is soothed and satisfied, so, placed before the frightful grandeur of these barren hills, it drinks in their sentiment of defiant ferocity, and is steeped in bitterness.
Australia has rightly been named the Land of the Dawning. Wrapped in the midst of early morning her history looms vague and gigantic. The lonely horseman, riding between the moonlight and the day, sees vast shadows creeping across the shelterless and silent plains, hears strange noises in the primeval forests, where flourishes a vegetation long dead in other lands, and feels, despite his fortune, that the trim utilitarian civilisation which bred him shrinks into insignificance beside thecontemptuous grandeur of forest and ranges coeval with an age in which European scientists have cradled his own race.
There is a poem in every form of tree or flower, but the poetry which lives in the trees and flowers of Australia, differs from those of other countries. Europe is the home of knightly song, of bright deeds--and clear morning thought. Asia sinks beneath the weighty recollections of her past magnificence, as the Suttee sinks jewel-burdened upon the corpse of dread grandeur, destructive even in its death. America swiftly hurries on her way, rapid, glittering, insatiable even as one of her own giant waterfalls. From the jungles of Africa, and the creeper-tangled groves of the Islands of the South, arise, from the glowing hearts of a thousand flowers, heavy and intoxicating odours, the Upas-poison, which dwells in barbaric sensuality. In Australia alone is to be found the Grotesque, the Weird, the strange scribblings of Nature learning how to write. Some see no beauty in our trees without shade, our flowers without perfume, our birds who cannot fly, and our beasts who have not yet learned to walk on all fours. But the dweller in the wilderness acknowledges the subtle charm of this fantastic land of monstrosities. He becomes familiar with the beauty of loneliness. Whispered to by the myriad tongues of the wilderness, he learns the language of the barren and the uncouth, and can read the hieroglyphs of haggard gum-trees, blown into odd shapes distorted with fierce hot winds, or cramped with cold nights, when the Southern Cross freezes in a cloudless sky of icy blue. The phantasmagoria of that wild dreamland termed the Bush interprets itself, and the Poet of our desolation begins to comprehend why free Esau loved his heritage of desert sand, better than all the bountiful richness of Egypt
Learning