nd then across a chasm 'more than
forty feet wide.' A single false step would have cast horse and rider
into the lake two hundred feet below. Of the same wild character was his
riding during boyhood in the hunting-fields of Gloucestershire. It would
be natural to suspect some measure of vanity or bravado in all this, but
no hint of either is given by any of his acquaintances; and the few who
knew him well are emphatic in placing him, as a man and a sportsman,
apart from and above the majority of those with whom the conditions of
his life brought him into contact. 'Gordon,' says one of his intimate
friends, 'was always a quiet, modest, pure-minded gentleman.... I never
knew such a noble-hearted man, especially where women were concerned.'

The deep melancholy in many of Gordon's poems has been attributed to the
influence of Australian scenery, and to the loneliness of the earlier
years of his life in the colonies. This explanation, if not wholly
erroneous, is at least much exaggerated. It ignores the most obvious
elements of the poet's temperament. It takes no account of the history
of wasted opportunities and regrets, of defeat and discontent, of
self-wrought failure and remorse, that may plainly be read in 'To my
Sister,' 'An Exile's Farewell,' 'Early Adieux,' 'Whispering in the
Wattle Boughs,' 'Quare Fatigasti,' 'Wormwood and Nightshade,' and other
poems. The writer, as he himself says, has no reserve in the criticism
of his own career.

'Let those who will their failings mask,
To mine I frankly own;
But for their pardon I will ask
Of none--save Heaven alone.'

Gordon's youth was wild and ungoverned. Before his twenty-first year his
folly had lost him home, friends, love, and the one profession that
might have steadied him, as well as afforded him distinction. He was
the son of Captain Adam D. Gordon (an officer who had seen service in
India) and the grandson of a wealthy Scotch merchant. Captain Gordon
settled at Cheltenham in the later years of his life, and intended that
his son should study for the army; but a mad wilfulness and passion for
outdoor sport had taken possession of the youth, and nothing could be
done with him. He rode to hounds with all the daring that marked his
horsemanship in later life; he rode in steeplechases, he frequented the
company of pugilists at country fairs and public-houses, and joined in
their contests; he was removed from two schools for unruly conduct, and
a more ser