AustLit

'The foregoing biographical sketch of my friend having been written immediately subsequent to his death, and when the sorrow occasioned by it overshadowed all feeling in respect to him that dealt with the brighter and lighter sides of his nature, I have deemed it would not come amiss to his many admirers to learn more of the man and author than could be gleaned from a brief outline of his birth, life and death But in attempting this, I feel I have set myself to do no easy task, for of a verity a more contradictory and many-sided brain could scarcely be found. Only to those few who knew him intimately was it vouchsafed to fully recognise the vividness of his imagination, the lightness of his fancy, the bitterness of his satire, the depth of his pathos. To the outside world, or even to his many acquaintances, he was an enigma they vainly tried to solve, for one of the predominating features of his character was a marked reticence, allied with a desire to mystify by innuendos and exaggerations, those whom he casually met, or who sought his company out of curiosity...' (From introduction)