there are none. Boldrewood is not given to weighing moonbeams. His
nearest approach to psychology consists in noting the various effects of
robust, unconventional colonial life upon fortune-seekers and visitors
from the mother country. This has been a favourite theme with all
Australian writers, and one of which the female novelists have so far
made the most effective use. One could wish that Boldrewood had made
himself as far as possible an exception to the rule--that he had aimed
at a praiseworthy provinciality by matching with the elaborate
minuteness of his local colour some finished and memorable studies of
Australian character.

Maud Stangrove in _The Squatter's Dream_, and Antonia Frankston in _The
Colonial Reformer_, who seem to offer the best opportunities to typify
Australian womanhood, are gracefully described; but, save for an
occasional longing to relieve the monotony of their lives by a taste of
European travel and culture, they are indistinguishable from such purely
English types as Ruth Allerton and Estelle Challoner. Very pathetic, and
marked by some distinctively Antipodean traits, is the sister of the
bushrangers in _Robbery under Arms_. Aileen Marston has the strong
self-reliance and independence which are born of the exigencies, as well
as of the free life, of the country. She and her brothers represent
much of what is best in Boldrewood's portrayal of native character.
Maddie and Bella Barnes and Miss Falkland in the same novel, Kate
Lawless in _Nevermore_, and Possie Barker in _A Sydneyside Saxon_, are
also Antipodeans, but are only lightly sketched.

Boldrewood claims that in his writings he has always upheld the
Australian character. It is a fact that he has incidentally done this to
a considerable extent, but not by any notable portraiture. In the period
with which the novels deal the population of the colonies was largely
English; it was, therefore, perhaps only natural that the stranger and
adventurer from the Old World, so often well born and cultured, should
prove a more attractive study than the sons of the soil. Moreover, the
latter, in their monotonous and circumscribed life, lacked much of the
mystery and romance so vital to the novel of adventure. But when this
has been admitted in Boldrewood's favour, there still remains a broader
charge to which he is liable.

He has been accused, and it must be confessed with a good deal of
justice, of paying too little attention in later novels