Page:Facts and Fancies about Our "Son of the Woods", Henry Clarence Kendall and his Poetry (IA factsfanciesabou00hami).pdf/33

Rh corner, during which we never moved an inch, but obstructed the pathway oblivious of all else—such a continuous flow of eloquence did that wonderful old gentleman of eighty or thereabouts, perhaps ninety, pour forth, almost hypnotising one by his super-abundance of mental energy and power of concentration. Dear old Mr. Richard Birnie, his photo and a volume of his essays are besides me now, and his snuff-box, though I don't indulge in the use of snuff. But the snuff-box—that same one—is associated with those verbal essays, for it came into use occasionally during his discourse. Perhaps that was the reason it was thrust into our hands when parting for the last time on leaving Melbourne. It is scarcely necessary to say that Mr. Richard Birnie was no ordinary essayist. Many were subscribers to the "Australasian" of those days, especially because of "The Essayist." And even some Sydney people had the "Australasian" from Melbourne for the same reason: because those essays were not only masterpieces in a literary sense, but always carried a high moral tone with them that found a permanent resting place in one's memory. These grand old men it is always a life long privilege to have met and known; for their influence for good is, as a rule, abiding. Mr. Richard Birnie was a younger son of Sir Richard Birnie, baronet. He was B.A. of Cambridge, a barrister by profession, and one of the most eloquent lecturers in his younger days (so I was informed by the gentleman who first introduced him to me, who was old enough to remember those days) that has ever favoured Australian audiences. He could be most severely critical in his own refined way, but with that broad-minded spirit that did not carp at the mere trivial irregularities of an otherwise admirable individuality. That is, he did not point his finger disdainfully (like so many petty man do) merely because "Cet homme la n'a pas un bouchle sur sou soulier," which quotation, I remember, was a favourite one of his, and fixed itself on my memory. But he made so many startlingly apposite quotations in the course of his conversations of a literary kind that one would be somewhat embarrassed to find space for them even in a volume dedicated to their use exclusively.