THE GIST OF IT ALL 51 



"In appearance he was very tall and thin, with brownish grey hair, 

 a very gentle nature, with a quiet voice, and altogether, as I knew him, 

 a most lovable man. He had indifferent health for some years latterly 

 in his life, and eventually died in London, whither he had gone to finish 

 his book and get it published. He had a small connection as a stud stock 

 agent in Sydney, and we, amongst others, used to send him our yearlings, 

 and it was a treat to hear him reel off yards of stuff for T. S. Clibborn 

 to repeat from the box. Lowe had no voice for selling, and he told me 

 once he did not think he could get up and harangue the crowd — so he 

 got Mr. Clibborn to sell for him, and used to prompt him as if he were 

 reading out of a book, with never a note to help him — and catalogues 

 in those days were not the elaborate productions of to-day. As to his 

 character — well, I cannot believe he knew how to do a dirty action, 

 and 1 would simply not believe anyone who might say anything against 

 him." 



So you have here an authentic sketch of this quiet, upright, gentle man, 

 whom you may have misjudged somewhat from his writings, and from the 

 acrimonious discussions which his antagonists and his disciples have raised 

 over his grave, from time to time. For myself, I somehow have always looked 

 upon him as an example of that "Justum et tenacem propositi virum" whom 

 nothing could turn aside from the goal which he saw before him, and which 

 he desired to reach. One who, no matter what occurred, you were quite 

 certain that — to once more quote the lines of the long dead Roman poet — 



"Si fractus illabitur orbis 

 Impavidum ferient ruinae." 

 "If the shattered world falls, the wreck may crush him, but still undismayed." 

 "The gentlest are always the bravest; the bravest are always the best." 



Chapter XVI. 



The Gist of it alL 



And now we draw to the close this thesis on the racehorse in Australia. 

 We have been, after all, but wandering upon the outskirts of a very vast 

 subject, and were we proposing to indite a work for the use of experts — 

 breeders, owners, trainers, even, let us add, punters — our thesis would swell 

 into a large volume, our large volume into an encyclopaedia, and our encyclo- 

 paedia into a library. And the gist of it all? Is the entire business, with 

 all its branches and ramifications, with all the employment offered by it to 

 thousands of people, with all the land now in use for breeding, with all those 

 beautiful parks reserved for racing purposes, in and near the great cities, is 

 it all designed simply to furnish an Australian holiday? I do assure you that 

 there is involved something a very great deal deeper than that. It is the 

 horse, the whole future and welfare of the horse, that is the great stake for 

 which we are playing, most of us unconsciously. The day of the noble animal 

 is not over, and its future spells infinitely more than the mere fact of whether 

 he can run a mile in a minute and 36 seconds, or whether he can cover three 

 miles in 5.23. During the Boer War, such a short time since, but which 

 seems to our children, perhaps, to have been waged centuries ago, we ex- 

 pended an enormous amount of horse life in a country where" soldiers had 



