I
replied with equal emphasis, "Yes." My mother told me of old times. I
recalled half a century of progress, and I hoped the forward movement
would continue. I read the manuscript of "An Agnostic's Progress" to
Mr. and Mrs. Barr Smith, and they thought so well of it that they
offered to take it to England on one of their many visits to the old
country, where they had no doubt it would find a publisher. Trubner's
reader reported most favourably of the book, and we thought there was
an immediate prospect of its publication; but Mr. Trubner died, and the
matter was not taken up by his successor, and my friends did what I had
expressly said they were not to do, and had it printed and published at
their own expense. There were many printer's errors in it, but it was
on the whole well reviewed, though it did not sell well. The Spectator
joined issue with me on the point that it is only through the wicket
gate of Doubt that we can come to any faith that is of value; but I am
satisfied that I took the right stand there. My mother was in no way
disquieted or disturbed by my writing the book, and few of my friends
read it or knew about it. I still appeared so engrossed with work on
The Register and The Observer that my time was quite well enough
accounted for. I tried for a prize of 100 pounds offered by The Sydney
Mail with a novel called "Handfasted," but was not successful, for the
judge feared that it was calculated to loosen the marriage tie--it was
too socialistic and consequently dangerous.

CHAPTER XV.

JOURNALISM AND POLITICS.

In reviewing books I took the keenest Interest in the "Carlyle
Biographies and Letters," because my mother recollected Jeanie Welch as
a child, and her father was called in always for my grandfather
Brodie's illnesses. I was also absorbed in the "Life and Letters of
George Eliot." The Barr Smiths gave me the "Life and Letters of
Balzac," and many of his books in French, which led me to write both
for The Register and for The Melbourne Review. I also wrote "A last
word," which was lost by The Centennial in Sydney when it died out. It
was also from Mrs. Barr Smith that I got so many of the works of
Alphonse Daudet in French, which enabled me to give a rejoinder to
Marcus Clark's assertion that Balzac was a French Dickens. Indeed,
looking through my shelves, I see so many books which suggested
articles and criticisms which were her gifts that I always connect her
with my journalistic car