Address on Literature and Arts. 119 



It may be accepted as an axiom, that no amount of criticism 

 or discussion of a book, if it is worth reading, can serve as a 

 substitute for reading it, and if it is not worth reading, it is 

 not worth talking about. Unless, therefore, the papers that 

 will be read at our meetings, and the discussions that will 

 follow, stimulate us as individuals to extend our acquaintance 

 with literature by personal study, the work of this section 

 will be but a casting of seed by the wayside, for nothing is 

 more evanescent than knowledge picked up from mere talk 

 about a subject, nothing more fleeting than the interest so 

 excited, if it be not followed up by earnest, fruitful research. 



This outcome of our work must, of course, depend almost 

 entirely upon membei's individually, but it is well that they 

 should understand that one for whom our meetings constitute, 

 not the salt, but the food of his literary life, is not only 

 surrendering the substance for the shadow, but is thwarting 

 the very object for which we co-operate. For it must be 

 recognised, that the work of a literary society does not stand 

 on the same footing as that of a scientific society. The latter 

 is, to a considerable extent at least, concerned with original 

 discovery ; and every minutest observation, every lifting of a 

 corner ot nature's veil, may prove one more fresh addition to 

 the mass of details, the accumulation of which by a host of 

 patient investigators is providing the heritage of posterity, 

 the hope and prophecy of science, the solution of the riddle 

 of the earth. And in no country can the work of the 

 biologist, for example, be more important than in Australia 

 now, while yet so many ancient and unique types remain 

 which are doomed to disappear before the advancing tide of 

 settlement. The searcher into nature may be said to be 

 working against time ; eveiy moment may be precious, as 

 bringing an opportunity irretrievable if lost ; every find may 

 be pure gold, as he rescues vanishing links and gathers up 

 failing clues, for lack of which the men of future days would 

 grope in darkness and twist ropes of sand. He heaps up 

 riches, and if he knows not who shall gather them, at least 

 he knows that they surely will be gathered, and that the 

 harvest will be many times the richer for every grain saved 

 now. 



But we of this section of the society are not so much 

 wealth-heapers, as wealth-users. We look to rescue no waifs 

 from antiquity ; we shall not unearth treasures of archseolog}" ; 

 the voices that call out of the past will scarcely reach us first, 

 nor will it be ours to place new leaves on Clio's brow. It 



