AustLit

Letters briefly describes the way ghosts have been depicted in literature, going back to the Ancient Greeks. He argues that modern manifestations are unimpressive, yet believes that people will continue to fear ghosts and other apparitions well into the future.

Letters muses on the identities, famous and otherwise, who frequent public libraries and the wide, often esoteric, range of subjects in which readers become immersed.

Letters argues that nursery rhymes and fairy tales play an important role in developing imagination and sensibility in children, which they carry into their adult lives.

Letters muses on the experience and future of smoking. He discusses various types of smokers and concludes pipe-smokers those most likely to maintain freedom of mood and thought.

Letters discusses the search for the spirit of Australia.

Letters discusses the value of old letters and imagines the personality of a man who previously owned one of his books, deduced from his handwriting and the notes he made on the text.

Letters suggests that the Sydney Domain on a Sunday afternoon is a combination of the Roman Forum and Circus, encompassing both political speakers of the Forum and the 'queer, non-political speakers' of the Circus, represented in modern times by the 'purveyors of fads, nostrums, and weird religions'. Letters describes his own experiences as a speaker in both Hyde Park in London and the Domain and suggests that, whatever Australia's future, the Domain will endure.

Letters presents the reasons why he has difficulties with the Jindyworobak theory, which argues that the only true culture of Australia is that of the Aborigines.

Letters writes about the experience of returning to houses where one used to live and their power to revive the past. In particular, he describes a visit to his old home in South Brisbane.

Letters discusses the history and virtues of wine.

Letters writes about the attractions of the Sydney suburb of Waverley and regrets that it is not more celebrated.

Letters sets out the challenges confronting anyone wishing to properly learn a foreign language. He disputes the claims made for Cardinal Giuseppe Mezzofanti (1774 - 1849), who was reputed to speak thirty-eight languages perfectly, including fifty dialects of these languages, as well as speaking another thirty imperfectly.

Letters ponders the way successive generations consider themselves and their way of doing things superior to those who have gone before. He discusses Edward Bellamy's Looking Backward (1887) and condemns the utopia it presents as being 'as intellectually parasitical as it is pharisaical', and suggests that as future generations will sneer at previous generations anyway, we may as well provide them with plenty to abuse us with instead of worrying what they will think of us.