a something of’s, antipodean
on deck a something of
contracting vision, a something of
And wherein lay the secret of it all? ₁
Yet there was sadness, too, a something of
not hide ₂ this aggregation of absurdities
when we have tried and abandoned certain clauses,
trying to do a something of which no human intellect is capable, ₃
a something of the limits of our art,
and many new possibilities of its extension.
There are obscurities and difficulties, half-truths and whole
truths, false theories and true in abundance, and
it needs a cool and wary head ₄
albeit of a queer kind, any more
than we need say of a man who has a false memory that he has a genuine memory
but of a something of a peculiar kind ₅
Thus Harrold’s energies and ingenuity bore fruit in Australia...
and if a something of melancholy did tinge his life,
it gave a charm to it and to himself,
subduing fiercer fervour, and
bringing materials for happiness from all things
surrounding by ₆ Was it pain that Margaret felt? ₁
sources
- Tasma (Jessie (Huybers) Couvreur, 1848-97), The Pipers of Piper’s Hill (London: Trübner, 1889) / more
- Thomas Heney (1862-1928), “Found Dead,” in his In Middle Harbour and Other Verse, Chiefly Australian (London, 1890) / more
- probably William McMillan (1850-1926), “dull, prosy, preachy and much too long,”
speechifying in Official Record of the Debates of the Australasian Federal Convention, Third Session. Melbourne, 20th January to 17th March, 1898. Volume II. (24 February 1898) / more - “The Standard of Ethics and Work in Medicine” (“Abstract of an address delivered in the section of medicine, Australasian Medical Congress, Adelaide, September, 1905; by Daniel Colquhoun, M.D., Dunedin, N.Z...”), in The Australasian Medical Gazette 24 (November 20, 1905) / more
- an “in this book” snippet from The Australasian Journal of Psychology and Philosophy (1961) / more
- John Pomeroy [Anne Denn Pollard (1831–1893)]. A Double Secret and Golden Pippin (London, 1870) / more
prompted by the Tasma passage, and a trawling of earlier landings.