WHYTE-MELVILLE OR GORDON ?

Evening Post, Volume LXXXV, Issue 51, 1 March 1913, Page 13

WHYTE-MELVILLE OR GORDON ?

TO TSB EDITOR. Sir,— ln "The Bookman" columns of your issue of 25th January, in reference to the expressed inability of the editor of the Referee to name the author of the often-quoted "Life is mostly' froth and bubble, Two things stand like stone : Kindness ih another's trouble, Courage i» your own." it is stated that most Australians could put him oft the right track, as the Hnes are Adam Lindsay Gordon's. Few readers of Gordon will, I think, take exception to that statement, and yet, in the light of the following, it will perhaps be admitted that there exists just the shadow of a doubt as to its correctness :— - About the year 1900 — I may be out a year or so — there was a discussion in the "Red Page" of the Bulletin on a question of the authorship of the same lines, and it was claimed on behalf of Whyte-Melville that they had appeared in a work of his, and were good currency, before the poems of Gordon were published, and that the latter had perpetrated literary piracy under cover of i quotation points. It will be observed in all editions of Gordon's poems that ! the verse containing the lines under notice is enclosed within the inserted commas of quotation. This fact in itself, j however, should not carry sufficient j weight to support a charge that it is j "borrowed," x as by way of marking the reply of the "wind that whispers'' quotation points are quite in order. Jnci- I dentally 1 would say that "borrowing" in the circumstances, if indulged in, was perfectly legitimate and above-board. In the absence of Bulletin files I am unable to state what the judgment of the "Red Pagan" (A.G.S.) was Tbased upon; I can only say that, to tho best of my recollection, he allowed that a convincing case of priority had been established in Whyte-Melville's favour, and gave his decision accordingly. That decision, I believe, was allowed to stand as final without further argument. Judging by the frequency of its quotation, that particular verse in Finis Jilxoptatus" must have made a fairly wide appeal, and as a whole-souled adniirer of Gordon I could wish tt» Bee it placed, without any question of authenticity, to the credit of that digtinguished, though ill-starred, l AngloAustralian. But that cannot be done while the element of doubt exists, and that it does exist is tolerably certain, unless the dictum of such an authority as A. G. Stephens is to be regarded as unworthy of consideration. If any reader who has access to complete editions of Whyte-Melville could show that the much-quoted lines appear in any work of that author published anterior to Gordon's poem all vexatious doubts would be settled and the laurels could rest on the right brow. Until then most of us will continue to accept them as Gordon's own, even though some reputable newspaper men appear to have once substantiated a claim to, the contrary,— l am, etc., WANDOO.