GREAT EXPECTATIONS

New Zealand Listener, Volume 31, Issue 802, 3 December 1954, Page 12

GREAT EXPECTATIONS

THE HENTYS: An _ Australian Colonial | Tapestry, by Marnie Bassett; Geoffrey _ Cumberlege, Oxford University Press, Eng- | ish price 63/-.

(Reviewed by

O.

D.

ONG before I had finished read- | ing this book I found myself | wondering how long it had ‘taken the author to write it; what gave her the impetus to "start; and how many times, as the work proceeded, she wished she had "never put her hand to this particular plough, She is not, as far as I can discover, a Henty herself, so that it is not a work of filial devotion, and the Hentys, as we see them in nearly 600 pages, were never more than a worthy family who saw a chance in Australia of increasing their worldly possessions. They were honest, they were kind, they had energy, and they arrived in Australia with some sheep, some horses, a long farming tradition, and great expectations, The parents were dead and the other members of the family middle-aged before the expectations were realised, and the period of struggle was not always heroic or dignified, Mrs. Bassett does her best to steer the family safely through a long series of quarrels with two Governors (Stirling at Swan River and Gipps at Sydney), whom the Hentys blamed for their failure to obtain as much land as they had persuaded themselves they had been promised. I think she is successful in showing that they deserved better treatment than they received, and that they came through these quarrels without much damage to their good name. They did, however, take a blindly self-centred view of what was due to them as settlers with capital and experience, and they were quite as difficult in their negotiations with the Governors and the Colonial Office as the more difficult of the two Governors (Gipps) proved himself to be with them, Their later history seems to have justified their view of the contribution they were able to make to Australia’s development and progress; but Mrs. Bassett does not devote much attention to that. So much for the Hentys themselves, who could not all emigrate together, but began to arrive in Australia in 1829, and were all there by Easter, 1832. Mrs. Bassett took a risk in building a book, especially such a long book, round eight ordinary men and two ordinary women, only two of whom she brings to life, and not to pulsing life, but her massive diligence in filling in the background saves her from disaster. More than once the reader feels that she has buried herself too deeply under dug-up material to emerge again to arrange and clarify it. But she always does, She fills 200 pages before she gets Thomas Henty to Australia-the prime mover in the whole project; and she has no. sodner got him there than she devotes a chapter of 15 pages to the sad story of a Mrs, Molloy, whose only connection with the Hentys is that the ship on which two of them were travelling called in 1834 at Augusta, the smallest and most isolated of the Swan River settlements, and "probably" brightened her life for a day or two. Mrs. Bassett does everything that a biographer and historian should not do

but lose the interest of her readers. I am not quite sure why I read the long story so quickly myself, but it was partly, I think, because I was following the fortunes of the family who turned the first furrow in what we now call Victoria, introduced the first Merino sheep, and imported (unsuccessfully) the first rabbit. But the chief reason, I suspect, was that reading this book for the first time was like going out fishing for the first time on an unknown sea. I never knew on one page what curious fact I might not discover (or unearth in a footnote) on the next page, I must, however, add that many of the things I looked forthe snakes, the insects that must have plagued the first settlers, the aboriginals who must have alarmed them, and the brilliant birds that must have delighted them-play almost no part at all in the story of this letter-writing and diary-keeping family. The book, as a three-guinea book ought to be, is well printed, illustrated and bound, admirably indexed, and furnished with useful end-paper maps. It is not, however, as free of readers’ errors as Oxford books used to be in the typographically good old days. OUT OF BALANCE THE POPE, a Portrait from Life, by Constantine, Prince of Bavaria; Allan Wingate, English price 21/-. HERE would be few, one feels, even among Blanshardites, who would dispute the judgment that Pope Pius XII is one of the most remarkable men ever to have occupied the Papal throne, and a noble and influential force in the modern world. There is room for a good book surveying his varied career as priest, diplomat, Papal Secretary and Pope, and attempting to define his personality, without benefit of the rather stodgy conventions of religious journalism. Prince Constantine of Bavaria, who works as a free-lance political journalist, has endeayoured to write a popular book along these lines. He has a genuine enthusiasm for his subject, and succeeds in giving some vivid impressions of a complex figure, one combining intense spirituality and asceticism of life with a genius for practical affairs, : Too much space, however, is devoted to the Pope’s connection with Germany

and his attitude towards the policies of that country during the two world wars.This is interesting enough, and understandable in view of the author’s background and of the Pope’s long term as Papal Nuncio in Berlin. But it results in a lop-sided view of Vatican policy and of the Pope’s interests and influence. There is little or nothing here about his social teaching, his many pronouncements on science, morals, world affairs and war, his deep interest in Asia, his attitude toward new liturgical and apostolic *movements, his. interest in education, and much else. The form of the book, compounded of anecdotes, invented and reported conversations, and the opinions of men in the street. makes it lightish journalism rather than a serious study. For all the admiration Prince Constantine expresses for the Pope, it seems that the essence of his

subject has escaped him.

J. C.

R.