Page:In bad company and other stories.djvu/367

 They have abundantly demonstrated that they could 'make the pace' and yet exhibit the 'staying power,' which is the great heritage of the breed. Lofty of stature and lithe of limb as they may be—though all are not so—they have shown that they inherited the stark sinews, the unyielding muscles, the indomitable, dogged energy of those 'terrible beef-fed islanders' from whom we are all descended. In the boat, on the cricket-field, at the rifle-targets, and in the saddle, the Australian has shown that he can hold his own with his European relatives.

It remains to be seen whether in the more æsthetic departments he has exhibited the same power of competing on equal terms with his Northern kinsmen. I now venture to assert, considering the limited number of families relatively from which choice could be made, that a very large proportion of Australian-born persons, of both sexes, have exhibited a high degree of talent, and, in some cases, unquestioned genius in the literary, forensic, or scientific arena. That small and distant English-speaking population, which in a single generation produced such men as Wentworth, Robertson, Martin, Dalley, Stephen, Forster, Halloran, Deniehy, Kendall, and Harper—Australians by birth or rearing—may fairly lay claim to the highest intellectual proclivities, to a moral atmosphere favourable to mental development. It is inexpedient to mention names in a limited community, but I may assert, without laying myself open to that accusation of boasting for which a colonial synonym has been adopted, that in the learned professions Australians may be found, if not at the acknowledged pinnacle, so near as to be worthily striving for pre-eminence. Among the fair daughters of the land we know that there are numbered singers, painters, musicians, histrionic artists, and writers, of an eminence which fits them worthily to compete with European celebrities.

Pledged to observing, with deep interest, the native Australian type, so far as it has been presented to me, I have rarely missed an opportunity of testing not only the general characteristics of the individuals examined,—I have even pushed my inquiries almost to the verge of rudeness as to the nationality of parents and grandparents; from the Parramatta River to the Clarence, from the Moyne to the Murrumbidgee, from the Yarra to the Mataura, I have noticed 'natives' of all ranks, ages, and