Lawson by Grantlee Kieza

Author:Grantlee Kieza
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: ABC Books
Published: 2021-10-02T00:00:00+00:00

Norman Lindsay, who was about to start work as an artist at The Bulletin, had a keen eye for the female form, and wrote of the young author that she was ‘very short but pleasingly plump . . . Her mass of dark hair reached her pert rump, which matched her pert nose. She had fine eyes, arched eyebrows and an alluring pair of lips.’44

AFTER NEW YEAR’S REVELLERS surged into Sydney on ‘steamers, bus, train, and tram in thousands’45 to usher in the 1900s, Lawson began to make plans to fulfil his long-held dream of making his name in London. He laughed at Bertha’s fears about travelling across the globe with a newborn baby.46

He had no qualms about crying poor to raise the money for fares, either.

Lawson wrote to the new governor, enclosing his Bulletin plea ‘Pursuing Literature’ and a scrapbook containing English reviews of his work.

‘I heard that you had spoken kindly of my books,’ he wrote, ‘and as you take an interest in art and literature I thought . . . I would confide in you and ask you to help me.’47

He complained that he had been forced to ‘sacrifice two more books in Australia’ and pointed out that he had been contributing to a Sydney daily selling copy for £1 per column ‘that is honestly worth five’.

‘In short, I am wasting my work, wasting my life, spoiling the reputation I have gained, and wearing out my brains and heart here in Australia. If I were single I would find my way to England somehow; but I am married, have one child, and another one due this month, so I am tied hopelessly. We live comfortably on £2 per week, and it takes me all my time to make that with my pen. Will you help me out of the miserable hole I am in? I heard you are rich, all my friends are as poor as myself. . . . If you cannot help me, kindly destroy this. It is the first letter of this kind I have ever written in my life, and will be the last.’

It wasn’t. A day after he had received a favourable reply from Beauchamp, Lawson wrote to the wealthy book collector and philanthropist David Scott Mitchell, on 4 February 1900,48 complaining that he had been working for the Australian Star at £1 per column but his work had been ‘crowded out by the war’.

‘Now I’ve made up my mind to go to England in April by the Medic (all second-class line) and, as I am taking Mrs Lawson and two youngsters, it will be a tight squeeze financially’. ‘Mrs L’ would be confined any day and Lawson figured he would have about £50 clear by the beginning of April. ‘Now £50 is not enough,’ he told Mitchell, ‘as I may want to hold out a month or so in London . . . If I had £100 clear I’d be alright . . . Another thing is I think I can

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