Play audio file | View single page

"... unwavering affection for my grandmother ...",
Childhood at Brindabella, pp24-25

At Brindabella I had competition with my own sisters and brothers, and my cousins, who were older and of greater physical hardiness and daring. At Talbingo I reigned alone among six young uncles and aunts, with my grandmother at their head. I grew up with pride in and unwavering affection for my grandmother, aunts and uncles. My satisfaction in them assumed a different character with maturity but it never waned, never was wounded. In my estimation my grandmother equalled God, with beneficent resources and powers, and my aunts and uncles ranked as seraphim and cherubim.

She had authority and self-reliance gained in running the whole station from the time the eldest of her children had been fifteen years old and she in a more hampered position than a widow's with her husband blind and helpless from an injured spine. She was not quite five feet tall and composed of energy, determination, generosity, common sense, honesty and courage. She believed God to be a fixed identity as delineated by the Church from the Bible. She never owed a penny or turned a tramp from her door without replenishing his tucker- bags or giving him care if he were ill. She mothered the "godwits" by patching their clothes, giving them boots and admonishment. She was ceaselessly industrious, had a head for business and was known as a "good manager".

Her haysheds and other storehouses were always well-stocked for winter with the yield from her orchards, potato and pumpkin paddocks, her fowlhouses, her dairy and vegetable garden. She grew and cured her own bacon as well as her own beef. Her streams were full of native trout and Murray cod. Order, plenty, decency, industry and hospitality were in the home I so loved. My aunts and uncles have told me that I was a little tin god among them. To be the petted toy in such circumstances was paradise to the infant ego, and no doubt accelerated precocity.

Childhood at Brindabella, p26

... I have no memory of ever having been left alone, or frightened, or being cold or unhappy. As nurses, tutors, playmates, friends, I had a vital group of near relatives who attended me for pleasure and affection, not for pecuniary reward. The attitude towards my fellows thus developed in me has never been fully overlaid by worldly wisdom.

Play audio file | View single page

"Mother dismissed fairies as unwholesome imaginings ..."
Childhood at Brindabella, pp59-60

Mother dismissed fairies as unwholesome imaginings and guarded her infants' minds from 'the heavier kind of fantasy also because in her own childhood she had been harrowed by the sorrows and trials of the children in them. Little Red Riding Hood eaten by a wolf: two babies dying in the woods, lost and covered by leaves: Jack and the Beanstalk, with the gruesome slitting of the giants' stomachs-horror stories with starving match-girls and frozen children. We had no starving match-girls; a straying child called out the countryside for a hundred miles to the rescue.

She approved Mother Goose and had a big volume with small illustrations. In the middle of winter mornings she would put me on her knee beside one of the glorious fires, take off my high boots and stockings and chafe my feet and legs, always like ice no matter how much I trotted. While she brought me back to comfort she would indulge me with "Pat-a-cake, Pat-a- cake, Baker's Man"; "Little Miss Muffet"; "The Old Lady who Lived in a Shoe"; "Dickery-Dickery-Dock"; "Tom Thumbkins"; "One, Two, Buckle my Shoe"; "Jack and Jill" and "The Crooked Sixpence" with their cumulative repetition so fascinating to infancy; and all the immortal host.

Childhood at Brindabella, p61

I never was told stories like the children of today and early grew superior to gaudily apparelled books designed to lure young minds, and despised pompous pretentious ones for older dullards. At Grandma's the books allowed me in addition to the Bible and prayerbook were few until I grew to Dickens and Scott. Among early friends were Aesops's Fables. The edges of the cover were bound with lead, the leaves were yellow and spotted with rust, the illustrations old-fashioned woodcuts, sober and black. My loyalty to that old volume is such that to see the beloved fables done up with coloured modern illustrations is an offence. An ancient school reader was a second treasure. Mother knew its contents by heart and there is a vagrant memory that it was also my grandmother's.

I devoured it without guidance and came to the release of ballads. "The Dream of Eugene Aram's; "Young Edmund"; "The Philosopher's Scales"; "The Inchcape Rock"; "Signs of Rain" were a few that I committed to memory. I itched to recite these wonders but no one was interested in such familiar stuff. Thus was happily skipped the infant routine of standing up to repeat some rhyme or other in a shrill painful squeak-though such blooding in infancy might have armoured me against subsequent annihilating stage fright.

Fairytales could not be entirely unknown among literate people even on a remote cattle station. "Little Red Riding Hood", "The Babes in the Wood", "Jack and the Beanstalk" and "The Ugly Duckling" grew familiar by osmosis. Signs are that if introduced early I could have become addicted to juvenile literature. Because. A day that remains sacred was dominated by a story-teller with a child's book.

Childhood at Brindabella, p68

Before I could read, Mother procured for me one of my few juvenile books: Picture Alphabet of Birds. Untearable-Mounted on Cloth (T. Nelson and Sons, London and Edinburgh). The price mark 1/6 is still on this priceless treasure. A lonely eagle decorates the front cover, a pelican the back. Both were familiar in my wide natural aviary. Everyone who came had to read the book to me. The albatross represented A. His coloured portrait was on one page, a descriptive quatrain on that opposite was exalting to me:

The book is still complete, though the victim of rough usage. Those to whom it has been lent, true to their proclivities, have scribbled on it, have torn the pages separate, though no mark was made on it by me.

I was infatuated by animals. I preferred them to children. This was attributed to over-much association with adults. This had other symptoms. One day I took it upon myself to entertain an unprotected guest and reproduced my elders so well that he inquired, "Is she really a child or a dwarf?"

Childhood at Brindabella, p69

On thinking back it is clear. I was always obedient to physical instruction. My mother was revolted to see old people kissing little children. We kissed chastely if separating for the day or longer and on returning, and, while very small, on going to bed. We did not cling around our parents and hug them. The paternal relatives were even less embracive. My father's eldest brother, a shy kindly gentleman, when leaving home for a week or two would shake hands gravely with all his little ones, even the toddler of two years.

Every now and again it would be considered wholesome for me to be more with people of my own age. Demotion to such company was a sapless exile. Their inanity was insufferable; also I shrank from their roughness.

Play audio file | View single page

"The doll arrived as a marvel ..."
Childhood at Brindabella, pp73-74

In Grandma's region there had been a church bazaar. A doll was raffled. It fell to Grandma who did not believe in raffles, but had smothered scruples because of the godly purpose. The doll arrived as a marvel from Talbingo on horseback, as carefully carried as an infant by one of the uncles. She was made of sawdust with china head, hands and feet. She had red cheeks and rippling curly hair parted in the middle which I thought was Grandma's because she had irrepressibly wavy hair so dressed. The doll was a bride of the period, the eighties, in pink sateen. She had a train and panniers over a skirt flounced in the front. She was the only doll I ever respected. Her head still reigns as a sittingroom ornament-preserved for me by my mother. I used to sleep with her and she had to be abstracted as her hard head made me uncomfortable and restless. One day I let her drop. One of her hands was broken off above the wrist. Oh! Oh! To break anything still jars me mentally and physically. This was equal to a major human accident. A little glue would have aided a miracle. A wonder that none thought of it. This was a case for God.

"Mother, can God do everything?"
"Yes, dear, everything. God is all-powerful. That is why you pray to Him, but you must be good, and you must believe." I believed. I can see my cot now where I placed the doll. I put the severed hand in place and laid the doll at the edge of the bed to assist God. I prayed on my own authority in addition to vespers at my mother's knee, though I do not recollect on what terms, and went to sleep.

I waked early with a sense of something momentous impending. The nursemaid, who shared the room, had already gone out. I turned back the blanket carefully. The doll lay undisturbed, the hand in place but not united. I no longer believed in the efficacy of prayer, though it remained a habit for many years before it wore away. I have often pondered the promise, "I say unto you, if ye have faith as a grain of mustard seed, ye shall say unto this mountain, Remove hence to yonder place; and it shall remove; and nothing shall be impossible to you," Who has such faith? That is the question. Some who come near to achieving miracles by prayer may possess a faint whiff of faith.

Play audio file | View single page

"I had a reputation as an amusing chatterbox ..."
Childhood at Brindabella, pp32-33

I had a reputation as an amusing chatterbox, and I would set off with anyone I liked anywhere, agog for travel. At night I did not collapse into sobs and fret for my mother. To undress and go to bed with a new set of elders with a slightly different routine was adventure. I had no fear of elders, no matter how fierce their beards or loud their voices, so long as people did not wake in me swift instinctive dislike. This could be embarrassing with a child so plaguily articulate.

An old sea captain once asked me for a kiss. I refused.
"Why won't the little girl give me a kiss?"
"Because I don't like you."
"And why don't you like me?"
"Because you are a nasty old man and smell of rum."
It would be difficult for my parents to rebuke me. They were strict against deceit or saying behind people's backs what we could not say to their faces. Father would maintain that a child could not be punished for speaking the truth. Life at large would soon chasten it for such foolishness.
"What a dear friendly little girl!" I recall on another occasion.
"Much too friendly," commented Mother. "Come away! You mustn't be a nuisance."

Play audio file | View single page

To Angus & Robertson, 30 March 1899 et al
My Congenials Vol 1, p8

To Angus & Robertson, Publishers, Sydney

Bangalore
Mar 30th, 1899
Dear Sirs
Herewith a yarn which I have written entitled, 'My Brilliant(?) Career'. I would take it very kindly if you could read it and state whether or not it is fit for publication. Nothing great has been attempted, merely a few pictures of Australian life with a little of that mythical commodity love, thrown in for the benefit of young readers (always keeping in mind should there be readers of any age). There will be no mistakes in geography, scenery or climate as I write from fact not fancy. The heroine, who tells the story, is a study from life and illustrates the misery of being born out of one's sphere.
Awaiting reply,

Faithfully yours
S M S Miles Franklin

My Congenials Vol 1, p 9,10

To Henry Lawson, Sydney

Bangalore

Nov 19th, 1899
Dear Sir
This is written to ask if you will help me. I will explain. For Some years I have been scribbling & have written a book. My trouble is I have lived such a secluded life in the bush that I am unacquainted with any literary people of note and am too hard up to incur the expense of travelling to Sydney to personally interview a publisher on the matter. As for posting a story to them with a hope of it being read, unless one has swell influence one might as well try to sell an elderly cow for a young racehorse - thus I have conceived the idea of beseeching your aid. Perhaps it is a foolish notion as probably you will have neither time nor inclination to extend a hand to me but if you would be good natured enough to read my yarn you would be helping me out of a deep hole. I merely ask you to run through it & state whether you think it twaddle, interesting or trash & allow me to use your opinion.

Do not be annoyed at my presumption, believe me it has taken me some time to pluck up sufficient courage to ask this of you and my only excuse is that I'm in a fix and though I have not had an opportunity of reading your prose, have gained such help from your poetry that I feel as though I have known you for many years.

This is not my first attempt at writing. When a youngster I gained a prize in an Australian story competition, also for several essays, & local penmen have pronounced my yarn as containing ability and originality.
Awaiting reply sir.
Faithfully yours
Miles Franklin

To Miles Franklin, [Bangalore], New South Wales.
Chaplin Cottage,
Charles Street,
North Sydney.
29th December 1899.
Mr M Franklin.
Dear Sir,
Pardon me for not replying to your note earlier; I've had a lot of work and worry lately in connection with new books, and had to neglect many correspondents. Send your yarn and I'll read it and tell you what I think of it; but you must give me, say, a month to get through it and see what I can do for you. Wishing you a lucky new year.
Yours truly,
Henry Lawson

Play audio file | View single page

From Henry Lawson, January 1900
My Congenials Vol 1, p 10-11

To Miles Franklin,
Chaplin Cottage,
Charles Street,
North Syd.
Wednesday [January 1900]
Dear 'Miles Franklin'
Received your manuscript this morning and have more than 'skimmed' through it already. Will you write and tell me who and what you really are? man or woman? and something about yourself? I believe that you have done a big thing. I've been through the life you write of.
Yours truly
Henry Lawson

The McSwat etc sketches are perfect, and the Diary and Horace's letter are gems - but I'll finish story this week and write again when you have written. H.L.

To Miles Franklin
Bulletin Office,[Sydney]
16th April 1900.
Dear Miss Franklin
Only just back from country.
Shall I take it with me to England? If I take story "home" send me a formal permission to "place" the work as I think fit. Also some latitude in editing in case English publishers want some paragraphs "toned down". You can trust me for the rest. If I take it I must have your authority to get it published in best form I can - that is, a margin for compromising with publishers' prejudices. All the same, I'd fight to have every line published as written. Good-bye and good luck. Don't despond.
Yours faithfully,
Henry Lawson

19th April:
"To Henry Lawson, Esq.,
Dear Sir,
Please take my MS story entitled 'My Brilliant(?) Career' to England with you. I trust you to do your best for me in the matter and desire you to use your own discretion in the choice of a publisher and in the style of publishing. Should the publisher object to some of the sentiments expressed in the above mentioned manuscript story, you have my authority for a little latitude in the editing thereof, provided it meets with your approval. I am
Sir
Faithfully yours,
S.M.S. Miles Franklin."

To Miles Franklin
Spring Villa,
Cowper Road,
Harpenden,
Herts,
England.
6th September 1900.
Dear Miss Franklin,
Just time for a line. I submitted your story to Blackwood's manager. He wrote me to come and talk it over; but, on consideration, I thought best to put the business into the hands of my agent Mr Pinker, who has set me on my feet. He'll get more money than we can, and look after your interests. Am writing for Blackwood myself. I enclose Pinker's agreement for your signature: it is the same as I signed. Sign it and return, and ante-date it to this month, as Pinker is already looking after your story. Will write directly I hear from Blackwood. Wife and children well. Am full of work.
Yours faithfully,
Henry Lawson

My Congenials Vol 1, pp 11-12

To Henry Lawson, London
Bangalore
Oct 17th, 1900.
Dear Sir
Words of thanks are tame & flat in return for the trouble you take with me, but I wish you could understand how I feel your goodness. That you could bother about me so soon in the midst of all your own business & worry has wiped out a lot of my bitterness in one act.
England has not our genial climate so take care of yourself during the rigor of her winter. Remember Australia has but one Henry Lawson.
From the art world of London Australia must seem very crude & oh! so far away. The wattles are just done & the haze of summer is beginning to once more veil the hills as sunset. I enclose a few gum leaves & a sprig of wattle.
Dear Sir
Gratefully yours
Stella M S M Franklin

Play audio file | View single page

To J. B. Pinker, 6 February 1901
My Congenials Vol 1, pp 12-13

To J B Pinker, London
Bangalore
Feb 6th, 1901
Dear Sir
Your letter of 30th Jan 1901, and enclosed copy of one from Mr Blackwood, dated 29th Jan to hand. In reply I wish to say:
1. Re terms mentioned in Mr Blackwood's letter concerning royalties on the publication of my MS novel My Brilliant(?) Career, I approve.
2. Please be sure that in publication of said MSS the note of interrogation is not omitted from the title, thus: My Brilliant(?) Career.
3. If convenient I would like the written MSS preserved & returned to me after the publisher is done with it.
4. Please on no acct allow 'Miss' to prefix my name on the title page as I do not wish it to be known that I'm a young girl but desire to pose as a bald-headed seer of the sterner sex.
5. I trust it will not be taken as presumption on my part to say that any toning down is very, very much against me. I have merely written a real story of what I believe, in the teeth of people's prejudices and do not look at life through the spectacles of orthodox cantists. Of course this is only my feeling regarding the matter & should Mr Blackwood consider any of the matter really unpublishable I am willing to defer to the judgement of wiser & more experienced heads & allow the [clearing?] of a few sentences after consultation with Mr Lawson. I am curious to know which passages are considered injudicious.
Trusting such little matters may be worthy of your attention.
Faithfully yours
S M S Miles Franklin

My Congenials Vol 1, pp 18-19

Bangalore
Nov 18th 1901
Dear Sir
1. Would you kindly inform me what number of books were printed in the first version of my story, My Brilliant Career, & send me an acct of sales to date.
2. I would like a copy of the agreement between yourself & Messrs Blackwood regarding this novel as I desire to know how I stand in the event of another edition.
3. In the event of another edition being printed I desire the title to be correctly printed this time, thus: My Brilliant (?) Career. Remarks.

It would have been wise & fair to have allowed me to see the proofs of the story that I could have corrected the many irritating mistakes & substitutions in the matter of slang and idioms. It was a great mistake not to have sent more copies-Why! even a black-gin would have had friends enough to buy more copies than were sent and I come of a widely known & highly respected family 8c could have disposed of 200 copies with ease among my own relatives and acquaintances. I could cite instances wherein 20 would have eagerly purchased copies but only one being procurable it has done duty for all. I have been inundated with letters from all classes urging me to continue writing and especially from bushmen assuring me they have at last come across a writer who makes no mistakes in coloring. Trusting these small matters will be worthy of your notice
Miles Franklin

I have a number of short stories ready & desire your advice regarding them. M F

Play audio file | View single page

"The Suttors were boss squatters of Bathurst ..."
The Diaries of Miles Franklin, pp 213,214

And that takes me back to March 13, 1905.
F.B., afterwards Sir Francis, Suttor was in politics in my young days, and one of the most charming, lovable and good-looking men in Australia. Overseas visitors admitted that he at least among colonials was a gentleman, and used to inquire after him affectionately. The Suttors were boss squatters of Bathurst as the Faithfulls, Gibsons and Chisholms used to lord it around Goulburn - very County indeed, in those days of the ascendancy of the squattocracy. Sir Francis was delightfully hospitable & had a Sydney house. He used to give theatre or other parties to all the little bright eyes of any prominence and he indulged me to a private dinner and the theatre afterwards. On the evening in question I had to come from Penrith and stay the night with Rose Scott. She welcomed me as lovingly as ever. Her home to me was like that of a favorite aunt's, and something more. She used to call me her spirit child and say that she wished I were her daughter: I adored her.

Pp 215-217

I remember that flat failure of an evening. Lady Suttor was in Melbourne, but all was correct, Mrs Langloh Parker was the chaperone. I remember Barty 'Banjo' Paterson and Consett Stephen were there and some young woman in a green dress, of whom only that recollection remains. I must have been a bore to my host if in that character satisfactory to the other women. I could not come out of my shell. I was so unsophisticated that I had wilted like a pumpkin vine in a frost; I was expected to sparkle. Barty Paterson had trumpeted my parts abroad. At first everyone listened when I was asked a question. Lord Tennyson (the Governor-General) was then trying to be my patron, if only I had known how to profit by such an unprecedented opportunity, and I was asked did I not find him very dull and uninteresting. (H.H. Champion spoke of him as 'a hopelessly grocer-like individual'.) Lord Tennyson was as kind and indulgent of my ideas as a father and I can never snap at the hand that tries to help me, so I said he was not spectacular but he had the cool, negative charm of a cucumber, and, I added, 'and you know there are times when a cucumber is most delicious'. When I come to think of it this was rather penetrating and was received as in character - my character.

Mrs Langloh Parker was the belle of the occasion. Her book,'Australian Legendary Tales', was a pioneer in the field, gathered in far New South Wales - primitive in those days . She was a widow, and while she went for her wraps the men discussed her financial state and the need to get her re-married. She was in Sydney prior to departure to England, first class per first class liner, a first class hunting ground for marriage then. Women went armed with a trousseau of 'feminine' furbelows and exposive frocks, and aided by segregation of males in idleness - no wireless, no radios to interrupt - and long warm days accelerated romance. We set off for the theatre, a pair to a cab. Barty Paterson seized my wrap, but Sir Francis put him with the unremembered girl while he dedicated himself to Mrs L-P and I fell to C-S. Barty murmured in my ear as he relinquished my shawl (my lovely thin Indian one that was eaten by the moths last year) 'What I've got against these affairs is that the wrong man always gets the right woman.'

I certainly felt that C-S was the wrong man to my taste, as his politics and his person were both alienating to me. I, no doubt, was a horror to him. He asked me to smoke a cigarette, which made me uneasy. He said his wife smoked, that the women in the best society did. I said yes, when I went slumming with the Salvation Army (to which I had been instigated by Mrs Edgeworth David [Caroline David], who had done likewise) I noticed the ladies I met there all smoked. At the theatre Sir Francis put me beside him, and Barty took my other side. It was 'The Orchid' and bored me to shreds. Paterson said that the American star was so 'sprung' that she could hardly carry on. Sir Francis kept saying it was a splendid show and that he could enjoy it again and again.

Play audio file | View single page

To the National Women's Trade Union League Executive Board, Chicago, 30 October 1911
My Congenials Vol 1, pp71-74

To the National Women's Trade Union League Executive Board, Chicago Source: WTUL (LC)

127 North Dearborn St
October 30th, 1911

Dear Executive Board Members
In answer to the call for a conference to consider the constructive work to be done for the coal miners of Westmorland County, your President and Secretary visited Irwin, and Herminie passing through Blackburn, Cowansburg and other villages to Lowber.

During the day we saw for ourselves the terrible living conditions, the utter lack of sanitation as represented by choked drains, and the general desolation of the mining camps. The conditions throughout are so miserable that only exceptional characters can hold out against demoralization.

Many of the men brought in as strike breakers are farmers from the old countries and under this change in their way of life much land is lying idle around them while they are housed 16 and 18 together and paying $8.50 per month for the rent of three rooms and practically no sanitary arrangements or conveniences. These men through utter inexperience of the work of a miner are a menace to the lives of other workers as well as themselves. Perhaps the greatest iniquity of this housing system is that they are company houses from which the tenants can be evicted at the will of the employer.

It is estimated that 800 men - many of them heads of families, are still out of work and many of them are permanently black-listed. The suffering is therefore still very great. We saw women as well as children barefooted for lack of shoes and stockings and it was evident to the most casual observation that many little children are suffering because their mothers are in need of such instruction as could be given by a visiting nurse. ... In one instance the parents have had to give away their four little children as the father has been blacklisted and they have no means to support them. Another family of five children have no clothes-this latter a common occurrence. Owing to the insanitary conditions an epidemic of infantile paralysis developed in one of the camps during the last summer.

At the meeting in Greensburg on Wednesday evening, the representatives of the Mine Workers expressed themselves as especially eager for the foundation of a League. They want us to organize the Westing House girls, some of whom it is stated earn as little as 50c a day. It was at this meeting we were given the happy and encouraging news that in response to Life and Labor's request for help, two thousand dollars worth of provisions, money and clothes had been sent in.

It was at this conference too that the proposal of having social work done during the winter was brought forward. The miners emphasised the need of visiting nurses, classes in English, instruction in the principles and science of mining for the mass of the workers, gymnastics such as basket ball and folk dancing and reading rooms. The mines are not working full time and on the off days the men have no place to congregate except the saloon. . . .
Reached Pittsburgh in ample time for the conference called at the office of the Civic Commission for 10.30. ...
After full discussion it was agreed that a social centre be started on a county basis. Rev. Blackmer, representing a church that had stood by the miners, spoke of a plan of a group of clergymen and business men of all denominations in Irwin to purchase a building for the purpose of creating a community centre. They asked the League's co-operation in securing the necessary workers to carry out plans not only for Irwin but for the County of Westmoreland. . . .

In Herminie we visited the home of Mr and Mrs John Tunnecliffe who have suffered unbelievable persecution owing to their union principles. They have worked there for 17 years and have a little home which is a picture inside and out and it seems a tragedy that they should be driven from the place by blacklisting and other persecution.

On last New Year's eve as they were entering their home after visiting some friends they were fired upon by the deputy sheriffs and the bullets which fortunately missed them went through two of the neighbouring houses. The arms used were Winchester rifles which carry so far that they are liable to kill not only the victim singled out but other innocent people who may be at a great distance.
yours fraternally
S M Franklin

Play audio file | View single page

Miles Franklin to Bruce Sutherland, State College, Pennyslvania, 18 March 1954
My Congenials Vol 2, pp341-342

Miles Franklin to Bruce Sutherland, State College
Pennyslvania

Carlton, Mar. 18th, 1954
Last night when I was undergoing my usual insomnia I sent myself when young back across America. Oh, the sweetpeas and opulence of Redlands California, and Los Angeles when Hollywood was a big name on a rough hillside. Then the beauty of Salt Lake City and its Wasatch(?) mountains, then the Rockies with Hanging Lake, to reach which I astonished the guides by hanging on to my horse's tail and making him tow me up as we used to do beyond Canberra. It was a new trick to them. I had been lent a lovely red roan polo pony belonging to some rich lady at the rich hotel. So they thought I sat special and handed me a rifle and insisted that I shoot something.

We were riding up the pass where the Shoshone rapids come down, and in them was a little log about the length of two fence posts. I just pulled the trigger and by chance the bullet hit it. I suppose I had previously fired a gun as many as half a dozen times, and at a fixed target.

I loathed the repercussion or percussion of the beastly instruments. All my denials were no good after that. I got an offer to go in a circus and the strong man of a vaudeville act proposed to me. Such a nuisance! Then there came up memories of the rich meals in Wisconsin and Michigan farm houses, rollicking days at Madison University; days driving down the Merrimac and on Long I Sound getting automobiles full of ripe wild grapes in Connecticut, floating down the Missouri on a paddle wheeling, and on L Michigan on the Sitchee Manitou[?]! What a country! & all a going concern.

The joy of the Twentieth Century, and trips up the Hudson to Toronto and Quebec, and those Santa Fe crossings. To wake up in the warm dry air and look across the vast plains to blue mountains! Heaven can offer nothing more satisfying and exciting, and the people! All ranks from the rich and cultured down to the workers, everywhere I went, I used to say I had only to present myself and the Americans did all the rest, and adopted me and kept me in cotton wool. If only I had had the qualities to acquire and be on the make what a success I could have been. But I love the beautiful land and its people for ever, and in eternity if there is identity there. . . .

Play audio file | View single page

1935 'Heritage' (Expeditionary Films), Charles Chauvel
The Diaries of Miles Franklin, pp 22-24

1935 'Heritage' (Expeditionary Films), Charles Chauvel.
Well, this is an attempt, and a good illustration of what happens when an opportunist, instead of a dreamer with a touch of genius, attempts to bend art to get-rich-quick business. The whole Australian field being at the disposal of film makers, Mr Chauvel has tried to cover that whole field in one slap. There is hurry and congestion, and yet withal sparsity, consequent upon the lack of depth and infatuation in conception. The conception is imperio-politico. The lovers even halt to intersperse their cooing with well-worn soap-box platitudes about pioneering and the great future of Australia. They spout about the heritage of Australia at dates when they were growling about the beastly rotten colony and the droughts and the damned office seekers and agitators and the unionists. When Mr Chauvel discussed his project with me and said he was going to make an Australian 'Cavalcade', I thought, 'Ah, me boy - there will be no originality then, just an imitative hash'. But still I thought it would be better than this, but it takes quite a big ability to pick other people's brains...

This film depends upon flapdoodle for its appeal - though the heroes don't actually bring the flag out of their tail pocket one feels all the time that it is there. The dialogue - there isn't any. It has been picked from proper political sentiments and it is therefore entirely right that the film should have received a prize from politicians who know nothing about art but are flattered with this their mouthpiece as an inferior schoolmaster is pleased with the pupil who can most slickly echo him.

It shows lack of scholarship in historical details. Waltzing to a three-four time reminiscent of the Blue Danube and Merry Widow is too early introduced, also a concertino which was a new instrument in Barnum-Jenny Lind decade. Also the tune Toorali-Oorali-Arady so popular in the 'nineties is featured away back in very early days. Is this correct - was the '90s outbreak a revival! One does not trust the scholarship.

It is good to observe the improvement in mechanical technique - the cloud effects are beautiful. There were not long teams of bullocks available in those days. In the '40s there were only two drays in the whole of the Southern District and four or six bullocks were a lot. I never saw a tilted dray such as those employed here and of course the bullocks sprint along like a rodeo. In real life the beasts would have been raving mad and dead under such treatment. Every advance is welcome - the only way to do things is to do them, and Australian film makers are advancing in mechanics. The whole unique field still lies awaiting the master-the man of vision as well as technical knowledge. But he will have to study the subtleties of Australian life and scenery. Failure, or at best mediocrity, will continue to attend those who strive to jazz Australia up to U.S.A. rhythm or seek to present her in the image of any outside conception imposed by financial pressure or umbilical relationships or the whole rag-bag of expediency.

Play audio file | View single page

"Off I went on Saturday 24 April 1937 to Government House ..."
The Diaries of Miles Franklin, pp 69-72

Off I went on Saturday 24th April 1937 to Government House, Sydney Found a very side and very inconspicuous door, so informal was it that it was open and two men inside, one working at a desk and the other standing about. The one seated had a narrow forehead and hair on end like bristles and looked like a non-com in mufti, the other like a very unstylish Johnny of about shop assistant weight, (i.e. London shop assistant) but kindly. Is this the side door? Yes.
I was asked to appear here at 10.30 and ask for the Official and Military Secretary. My name is Franklin. The young man announced my arrival and in less than a minute I was ordered upstairs.

'Well, Miss Franklin,' said the Secretary. 'Come in and sit down - a pity to bring you all the way from - now where is it that you live?'
'Carlton.'
'And the street and number?'
'26 Grey Street, but Carlton will find me.'
He referred to a dossier. 'You are Stella Maria Lampe Franklin, are you?'
'Yes, those are some of my names.'
'Quite like royalty, isn't it? Well, Miss Franklin, in connection with the coronation His Majesty wishes to make you an Officer of the British Empire-that is to give you the O.B.E.'

Whew, when I recall the disrepute of this decoration among people on active service 1914-18! It was a synonym for failure, incompetence. The unimportant senile nincompoops were fobbed off with it. And I was 'commanded' to Government House for the first time to be thus insulted! There was no need to offer me anything. I have never put myself forward officially, have never touted in any shape or form. Most Australians deserve this sort of thing for their servility. What complicates the matter in this instance and also makes it particularly insulting is that Mary Gilmore, who has been a most egregious tout and self-booster and politician [and] has also written some verses and undistinguished memoirs (which in all parts that I can check are unreliable), has been given a higher order, and it may be thought that it was for her literary work.

I was quite passive for a moment and then asked, 'From whom does this emanate, by whose recommendation is this offered me?'
'Oh, it's wonderful what we know - you know, when people do good work - your good work has been taken note of.'

It had been clear to me in the second time of asking my name that he hadn't the slightest inkling that it might have been as a writer that I had operated and was summoned there. 'I cannot understand it,' I said in a very low voice, for I was depressed into my boots. 'I have never put myself in the way of such a thing. I know no one at Government House, have never received any notice or recognition from that quarter, and I don't know a soul in the Federal Government.'

'It's wonderful how people take notice of good work. What is your principal work now?'
'Looking after my mother principally. I am a recluse and so wish to remain. I am not able for many shocks since I acquired an active service heart in Serbia.'
'You were on active service?'
'Oh yes, under the British, Red Cross with the Serbs.'
'Oh, then it is your work there.'
He was being automatically kindly to another of these servile colonials who run around after baubles like foundlings for a silver coin. 'Well then, with your approval - His Majesty could not confer this without your approval.'In light of this gentle informality I hated to be unfriendly, but it was no use, I was outraged right through by the Australian jacks-in-office failure to be self-respecting in demands for recognition of true Australianism.

'As you are busy,' I said, rising, 'I need not take up any more of your time. I refuse.'
'You refuse!' he said in the gentle-to-colorlessness [of] English surprise. 'May I ask why?'
'Because to accept would be to reduce letters to the level of charity work.'
'Is that quite definite?'
'Absolutely. I'm insulted and wounded right through. I don't know when I have been so hurt. Do you want me to write my refusal? 'I was longing to leave a limerick with him.
'Oh, no, not at all! It is entirely confidential'
I don't see why it should be. Everyone knew that Asquith refused a peerage, also Gladstone.'
'I must insist that this is entirely confidential.'

Of course this system of bribing boobies to uphold caste depends on muzzling the recalcitrant with blither of 'good form'. If it were known how many worthwhile persons refuse these brands their power would be lessened. 'Well, I waive a discussion on the expediency of that for the present,' I said. 'In this case I want it to be secret. I don't want anyone to know of the terrible insult I have received. I hope you will treat it as confidential.'
He promised in the mild inoffensive English way that it was entirely between him and me.
I wonder what complexion he will put on it - if he is not entirely indifferent.

Play audio file | View single page

"... the enactment of woman suffrage in New South Wales."
The Diaries of Miles Franklin, pp 136-139

28 August 1942
Yesterday went to Mark Foy's to the 40th anniversary of the enactment of woman suffrage in New South Wales. Mrs Quirk, M.L.A., chief speaker. After 40 years, we have only this specimen in parliament. They wasted time before beginning. We were bidden for 2.30 and it was nearly 4 before speaking began. Mrs Quirk M.L.A. tall and stout, real publican's widow figure. Majestically attired in an expensive black beaded gown & cape with white facings, so well cut and she so expensively harnessed that her figure instead of gross became fashionable. Her coiffure and make-up, even to tinted nails, must have been the work of a professional. Tilted fashionable hat, ropes of imitation pearls, four glaring diamond rings, artificial posy. She had a thick sheaf of quarto sheets: on each was a sentence or two. She discoursed on each of these as texts for an incredible time and then laid it down so that her victims could ache with boredom because of the number still to be endured. She kept on for half an hour.

People were sneaking out in ones, twos & fives. The M.L.A. seemed quite oblivious of this. As an illustration of the worthiness of women's rule she instanced the 60 years reign of Victoria in which there was never any war or slavery!!!!! Then she fulminated about Florence Nightingale and her struggle. Told how Florence had hung about the doors of the hospitals in the Crimean war (couldn't the ass know that this was one war in Victoria's reign?). At length Florence got into the hospitals with her little lantern and rescued the men from the swarms of flies.

Now flies & snow do not operate in concert. Flies disappear even in Sydney's mild snowless winters, and in any case go to bed when little lanterns come out. Thus she lumbered along, her whole utterance on that scale of pomposity, spuriosity & ignorance. The chairman was frantic. She was whispering under the M.L.A.'s great bowsprit that the other speakers would have to be cut out as closing-time was approaching. M.L.A. seemed to be in a trance of auto-intoxication and unaware of emptying seats & bored & restive victims.

I leaned across & said to the chairman that I would be overjoyed to forgo my talk of 10 minutes into which I had been pressed because of Lucy Cassidy. The chairman thanked me with joy: she had never heard of me. I had paid two shillings for a tea mostly of uninteresting scone & 1s 8d train fare, an expenditure I could ill afford as well as the wasted day. In hopes of salvaging something I sunk off to do a few errands before half-past five. The M.L.A. had now gone on for 40 minutes and the notes in her hand weren't half done. I had nearly reached the lift with the other escapees when Lucy Cassidy & Mrs Lawson espied me. Despite her lameness Lucy started in pursuit. She is taller & stronger than I. She clutched my coat & I could not without unseemliness prevail against her on the slippery floor. She returned me to the obsequies remarking in full voice: 'Miles Franklin that everyone wants to hear, sneaking off!' The victims were glad of the diversion.

It did not break the trance of the M.L.A. Relief however was on the side of the beleaguered. M.L.A. took a substantial fit of coughing. The waitresses had long since surreptitiously extracted all the cutlery & vessels. The manager of the floor was found. At long last, with everyone on the qui vive, water arrived, but it did not rescue the M.L.A. from her cough. So with long drawn-out apologies for having to desist in the middle of her speech, she subsided just as she was advocating the spoils to the victors in politics.

A few other battered war horses, rusty with faction & destitute of vision, had to have their airing & then I had to tackle a bored audience aching to be home. I spoke for five minutes only. Not one went out nor looked bored - I made a survey. Then Bertha Lawson presented the M.L.A. with some of Henry's books. God knows why except that Bertha having been unable to live with Henry as a wife is now having a distinguished career among the non-cognoscenti as his widdy. She took scarcely a minute in her speech: but up rose the M.L.A. again and made a seven-minute speech of horn-blowing acceptance. She said Henry Lawson was her favorite poem (sic). Her other favorite poem was Kipling's 'If' because every word of it could be applied to Jack Lang!!!!!
She was the equal as an empty windbag of any male, ignorant, self-seeking member of Parliament.

Play audio file | View single page

A Personal Tribute to Henry Lawson
A Personal Tribute to Henry Lawson

Address delivered at Lawson Statue, Sydney, 5 Sept. 1942.
We meet here to offer a tribute of gratitude and affection to the life and work of one of our most dearly loved Australians. No Australian who has wrestled with the ardors and subtleties of resolving this continent in terms of literature will discount Henry Lawson. Few have equalled him: none has yet excelled him. His achievement remains unique ...

First among Lawson's achievements was this embodying of the tradition of mateship. Secondly, he was one of the most powerful of that band which in the 'nineties helped Australians to a realisation of their country. He quickened their instinctive reaction towards it. To remain unrooted in the soil of one's permanent residence is to be forever a victim of nostalgia - a drug so potent, that uncontrolled it can enervate purpose and defer destiny.
The literary artist is an illuminator. Henry Lawson lighted lamps for us in a vast and lonely habitat.

He recalled the far-flung homesickness of the generations which had remained exiled. He made them see Australia's sunsets. It was rapture, it was ecstasy, in the grand new discovery of our own sun, to see it setting red and real and near at hand among our own trees, on the ridge behind the stockyard; or to run to the top of the ridge to see its further retreat over the blue-green ranges, where the moke-pokes would soon be calling in the misty moonlight. Henry Lawson gave us this kingdom for our own, wove it so that we could feel it around ourselves with the comfort of a blanket on firewarmed nights. The warmth and tenderness of his writing made it vital so that he helped to give us a cosy mother country.

When I was in my tens and teens, Henry Lawson was a hero glamorous with success. He had all of sympathy, all of glory that youthful adoration could bestow. In that wonderland that was opening to us we were unaware of the struggles of literary geniuses. We could only judge by the literary product, and that enchanted us. We were sure that if we could see Henry Lawson he would understand our every delight, our every aspiration, our every growing pain of discontent. He was a superman - the perfect big brother of our dreams.

With your indulgence I should like to add my recollection of Henry Lawson in the flesh. What is so rare to critical, exacting, over-sensitive youth, he fulfilled my expectations of him, and more. I remember my first sight of him. He was beautifully dressed. His linen was irreproachable. He was tall and slim, with exceptional physical beauty. The beauty of his eyes is also part of his legend. His manner - it had that sensitive warmth, that winning gentleness, that understanding - well, Lawson was as Lawson wrote. You had not to work up to friendliness with him: he was spontaneously a mate. He called on me, alone, he said, with a humorous smile skimming across his features, to find out what sort of an animal I was - whether a mate or a mere miss. Henry Lawson was then at the height of his powers. He was preparing for the inevitable hegira to London. This lent additional romance to his doings. He was rising to increasing renown and surely it must be accompanied by prosperity. How could it be otherwise?

He went to London. I came down from the bush and saw him again on his return.
I recall the last time I saw him. He and his family were waving goodbye to me from the wharf as I boarded a ferry. No family group could have excelled it in charm: the beauty of the parents was repeated in the two children. No other portrait of Henry Lawson has for me ever overlaid my own. Nothing blurs it nor detracts from it. It was etched indelibly by the clear-cutting mind of youth.

I never saw Henry Lawson again. I too left Australia. When I returned the earth - that Australian earth cleansed of history by an oblivion of fallow-hood, lay kind upon him who had helped to give it national significance.
No one can estimate what Henry Lawson will mean to the future of this country. What will be the fate of small national groups in the post war order no prophet can say. But, having succeeded in our military struggle, if we shall be able to retain here in this paradise of the Pacific our continuing Australian identity then Lawson's fame will be sure with the years.

Our indebtedness to him will increase because he has rendered this continent. He has helped to make Australia ours in a way that no system of land exploitation, nor even droughts and floods and pests, can take it from us - a great gift from a greatly gifted man - Henry Lawson.

Play audio file | View single page

To Katharine Susannah Pritchard, 5 November 1953

Miles Franklin to
Katharine Susannah Pritchard
5 Nov. 1953
26 Grey St,
Carlton NSW
My Dear Katharine

I did not falter in that talk to the student teachers. With their staff members about 300, ages from 17 to 21. I said I would prefix my remarks by laying out a few prevalent attitudes with regard to Aus Lit. There was Prof. Trendall's contemptuous, 'Is there any?' (Did not mention his name.) And told them a friend had telephoned me, as people had a way of doing as though I were a bishop or policeman and could do something about it. This man said he wanted to tell me what was wrong with Aus Lit. I said I didn't know there was ever anything right with it but what were his symptoms. He said he went to a book shop wanting a book by someone who knew what he was about, an Australian book, and what did he get thrust at him but some rubbish written by some noodle about Australian writing - too many books about Australian writing and not enough books of Australian writing.

After this I said all this interest in the way of anthologies and essays and such as the man had complained of, was very recent. That about 13 years ago the CLF was instituted and the universities were bribed to make yearly mention of the vulgar crude subject of non-existent Aus Lit. Now, said I, you will meet it inside these halls of learning, but the Prof. will introduce it by saying it must be literature first and Australian afterwards, after which he proceeds to flay it till there is nothing but a mangled skeleton left. Thus was I revenged upon the fellow I had lately listened to on you. I told 'em it wasn't the professors who made a literature at the beginning, it was the liars and blowhards in the old bush days when they had to make their own entertainment in huts or beside a log and had no juke boxes at hand to make noises so that empty heads wouldn't feel so unfurnished. There was one squad of boys that were as delighted as if it had been a vaudeville show. They laughed uproariously - I don't care whether it was at or with me. The vice principal was a find, an eager, responsive man. When I got through he jumped to my side and under cover of the applause said, 'Magnificent! I've never heard anything like it before. That's what we want.'