Hamilton Mackinnon

“ His tales of the early days of the colonies, and his very striking novel, His Natural Life, made a deep impression here. We were always expecting another powerful fiction from his pen. I fear he has not left any finished work, and I regret the fact all the more deeply that I have been allowed the privilege of reading a few chapters of a novel begun by Mr. Marcus Clarke, under the title of Felix and Felicitas. The promise of those chapters is quite exceptional; they equal in brilliancy and vivacity the best writing, of Edward Whitty, and they surpass that vivid writer in construction. ”

“ I discovered at twenty years of age that the pleasurable path I had trodden so gaily led to a hospital or a debtors' prison, that love meant money, friendship an endorsement on a bill, and that the rigid exercise of a profound and calculating selfishness alone rendered tolerable a life at once deceitful and barren. ”

“ His father, William Hislop Clarke, a barrister-at-law, was recognised as a man of ability, both professionally and as a littérateur, albeit eccentric to a degree. Of his mother little is known beyond that she was a beautiful woman, of whom her husband was so devotedly fond that when her death occurred some months after the birth of the subject of this biography, he isolated himself from the world, living afterwards the life of a recluse, holding of the world an opinion of cynical contempt. ”

“ 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 ”

“ Marcus Clarke may turn out to be a man of one book, and out of his element in any atmosphere but that of convict and penal settlements. He shows, however, too much knowledge of human nature generally to make us think this at all likely, and if so, he must be hailed as a valuable recruit to the ranks of novelists of the day. ”

“ In other words, he began his Bohemian career in Australia with a zest not altogether surprising in one who had been negligently allowed to drift into London Bohemianism. And naturally, a youth with such exceptional powers of quaint humour, playful satire, and bonhomie became a universal favourite wherever he went, much, unfortunately, to his own future detriment. But, in due course, a change came of necessity o'er this Bohemian dream, when the ready cash was no longer procurable without work. ”

“ Both were morbidly sensitive; both broodingly pathetic; both sarcastically humorous; both socially reckless; both literary Bohemians of the purest water--sons of genius and children of impulse. That the deep feeling for the dead poet and friend lasted till death with Marcus Clarke was evidenced by his frequently repeating when in dejected spirits those pathetically regretful lines of the "Sick Stockrider"--
I have had my share of pastime and I've done my share of toil. And life is short--the longest life a span ”

“ Nothing could have shown more assuredly the deep feeling and regard felt by Marcus Clarke for Lindsay Gordon than pathetic preface he wrote for the posthumous edition of the poet's works (an extract from which preface is given in this volume under the title of "The Australian Bush") when the poet himself put an end to his life, to the horror of the community, which did not learn till after the heartbroken poet's death that it was only the want of the wherewith to live upon which drove one of the brightest geniuses Australia has seen into a suicide's grave. ”

“ Surely, in the face of such encouragement, a genius, well nigh suffocated by the denseness of the quasi-intellectual atmosphere surrounding it, should have seized the opportunity to move from scenes clouded over with trouble, and from a community which gave but a feeble response to its bright efforts? But, somehow, it did not, or could not. Returning to the year 1876, an event happened which deeply affected Marcus Clarke. ”

“ Tyrone, and in 1658 Thurloe wrote to Henry Cromwell, desiring him to give Colonel Clarke land in Ireland for pay.
With an inherited delicate constitution, and without the love-watching care of a mother, or the attention of sisters, he passed his childhood. And that the absence of this supervision and guidance was felt by him in after years, we have but to read this pathetic passage from a sketch of his:--
To most men the golden time comes when the cares of a mother or the attention of sister aid to shield the young and eager soul from tile blighting influences of wordly debaucheries. ”

“ Notwithstanding, however, all this aray of talent the venture was not financially a success, as at that time, the taste for journalistic literature was very much more limited than now, and a writer, however gifted, had then a poor chance of earning a livelihood by the efforts of his pen. While thus rapidly rising in the rank of Australia's littérateurs, Clarke was unfortunately induced, by the foolish advice of friends, who felt flattered by his company, to live at a rate far exceeding his income, naturally becoming involved in debt. ”

“ Clarke: "Will you grant it to me, sir?" The Manager: "Certainly, and a longer leave, if you desire it." Clarke: "I feel very much obliged. How long may I extend it to, sir?" The Manager: "Indefinitely, if you do not object!" Clarke: "Oh! I perceive, sir; you consider it best for us to part; and perhaps it is best so, sir?" And Mr. Clarke ceased to be a banker. Here it will not be inopportune to quote from an article on "Business Men," written by him subsequently, referring to this banking experience:--
It has always been my misfortune through life not to be a Business Man. ”

“ The only son of a rich widower, who lived, under sorrow, but for the gratification of a literary and political ambition, I was thrown when still a boy into the society of men twice my age, and was tolerated as a clever impertinent in all those witty and wicked circles in which virtuous women are conspicuous by their absence. ”

“ Clarke considers that vegetarians are Conservatives, and 'Red Radicals,' for the most part meat-eaters, while 'fish-eaters are invariably moderate Whigs.' He thinks that 'the Australasians will be content with nothing short of a turbulent democracy,' and that in five hundred years the Australasian race will have 'changed the face of nature, and swallowed up all our contemporary civilisation,' but it is fortunately 'impossible that we should live to see this stupendous climax. ”

“ The Reform, Hamburg (translated irom the German.) :--"This novel treats of a terrible subject. The life of the prisoners in Van Diemen's land is set before us in a panorama painted by a master hand. Ladies of a sentimental turn had better abstain from reading this story, unless they choose to risk a nervous fever. The romance is full of power. The writer illuminates the lowest depths of human nature in a manner which holds us spell-bound, despite ourselves. Marcus Clarke is a master of psychology, and his descriptions of nature are as effective as his style is pure." ”

“ The entrance to the modest building was not easy of access, being only reached by a tortuous lane of ominous appearance, guarded by an animal who boasted the bluest of blue bulldog blood. The pass-words were--"Honor! No Frills!" The members were mostly composed of literary Bohemians, whose wordly paths were not strewn with roses, and between whom and the trader there existed a mutual disrespect. ”

“ Marcus Clarke's existence, save that in the columns of Melbourne newspapers his name has appeared. Mr. Marcus Clarke has hardly entered into the ken of perhaps more than a hundred persons in England; but, having read the forcible and impressive novel entitled His Natural Life, we have not only come to an acquaintance as admiring as it is sudden with the author's name, but esteem it by no means a venturesome or hazardous act to predict for it a fame as great as that achieved by any living novelist. ”

“ Some months prior to this mishap--about May, 1868--Clarke, in conjunction with some dozen literary friends, started a modest club for men known in the fields of Literature, Art, and Science --THE YORICK. This has developed in the course of the past fifteen years into one in which the three elements predominating originally are lost in the multifarious folds of "Professionalism." The Yorick Club was the outcome of the literary and Bohemian--analogous terms in those days--spirits who used then to assemble nightly at the Café of the Theatre Royal to discuss coffee and intellectual subjects. ”

“ We have by no means over-praised this novel. The temptation to run into superlatives is great, and it has been resisted here for the one reason, if for no other, that, highly meritorious as Mr. Marcus Clarke's first English publication stems in our eyes, we are yet of belief, after its perusal, that he is destined to give the world yet greater and more effective because more concentrated work. ”

“ He loves his wife; but she has betrayed him. He will not forgive her; or rather he cannot forgive himself. He explains the commonsense view of the matter. He shows her that she has spent two-thirds of his income--that her desertion was not only treacherous, but foolish, inasmuch as she loses respect, position, and money. In fine, with some sarcasm and power, he strips adultery of its poetic veil, and shows it to be worse than a crime--a blunder. Felix expects a duel--not at all. ”

“ Boston Gazette, America:--"One of the most powerfully written and most absorbingly interesting novels that has lately attracted our notice is His Natural Life, by Marcus Clarke. It is a story dealing with convict life in Australia, and has been written 'for a purpose.' The plot is constructed with remarkable skill, and in the depicting of character the author manifests a talent we have rarely seen surpassed in any modern writer of fiction. ”

“ Chief among the members of this exclusive brotherhood was the subject of this biography, who, having discarded the more conventional surroundings of the Yorick Club, became a shining light within the shades of the Cave of Adullam. And to commemorate the genius of the members of the Cave was written a Christmas tale, yclept 'Twixt Shadow and Shine, which contains fanciful portraitures of the leading Adullamites. But, alas! the destroyer of all things, Time, has one by one scattered its members, till now the place that knew the members of that eccentric Bohemian band knows them no more. ”

“ With these good gentlemen I lived, emulating their cynicism, rivalling their sarcasm, and neutralisng the superiority which their existence gave them by the exercise of that potentiality for present enjoyment, which is the privilege of youth. ”

“ Owing to his physical inability to indulge in the usual boyish sports, he was in the habit of wandering about in search of knowledge wherever it was to be gleaned, and not infrequently this restless curiosity, which remained with him to the last, led him into quarters which it had been better for his yet unformed mind he had never entered. ”

“ The admirer of men whose successes in love and play were the theme of common talk for six months; the worshipper of artists, whose genius was to revolutionise Europe, only they died of late hours and tobacco ”

“ Here he remained for some two years mastering the mysteries of bushmanship in the manner described in the sketch in this volume, styled "Learning Colonial Experience." It was during his sojourn in this wild and mountainous region that our author imbibed that love for the weird, lonely Australian Bush, which he so graphically and pathetically describes in so many of his tales--notably in "Pretty Dick," a perfect bush idyll to those who know the full meaning of the words Australian Bush. ”

“ Can ill afford to loose.
During this period, 1868-69, Clarke was a regular contributor to the Argus and Australasian, writing leaders for the former journal, and, besides the "Peripatetic Philosopher" papers for the latter, a series of remarkably able sketches on "Lower Bohemia." These articles, as their name implies, were descriptive of the life then existing in the lowest social grades of Melbourne, composed to a great extent of broken-down men of a once higher position in life, drawn hither by the gold discovery. ”

“ Besides contributing this historical romance to the columns of the Australian Journal Clarke was busy writing in the Australasian those sketches of the early days of Australia, which were afterwards published in book form under the title of Old Tales of a Young Country. These sketches, like his great novel, though highly interesting as historical records of the colonies, were for the most part worked up from governmental pamphlets and old journals. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It seems scarcely credible that so young a boy was allowed to grow up without any restraining influence, except those of a foolishly-indulgent father, as we are led to believe was the case from the following extract, which the writer knows was intended by the subject of the biography as a reference to his boyish days when away from school. ”