r the
present at all events, more than sufficient use has been made in fiction
of the natural peculiarities of Australia. Her novels are, moreover, all
character studies, and little dependent upon local colour for their
interest. Her quiet, satirical humour and power of rapidly and mordantly
sketching a portrait, do much to justify a comparison which her friends
sometimes make of her writings with those of George Eliot and Jane
Austen. Rolf Boldrewood, after the publication of her first three books,
hailed her as the 'Australian George Eliot,' and the title is certainly
more fitting than the praise implied by the other comparison. She has
much of George Eliot's conscientious literary expression, direct
masculine way of looking at life, and unsparing criticism of her own
sex. While reminding one, as she often does, of Jane Austen's humour,
Tasma does not approach any nearer to that writer's supreme gift of
describing character in dialogue than scores of others who have followed
the same model during the last seventy years.

Like most of the chief contributors to Australian literature, Tasma is a
colonist in experience only. She was born at Highgate, near London, and
taken during childhood by her father, Mr. Alfred James Huybers, a Dutch
merchant, to Hobart, in Tasmania, about forty years ago. She displayed
literary talent at an early age, read extensively, and published
criticisms in the _Melbourne Review_, and short stories and sketches in
the lighter colonial periodicals.

In 1879 Tasma went to live in Europe, and has since known Australia only
as an occasional visitor. Becoming interested in social questions during
a residence in France, she wrote in the _Nouvelle Revue_, suggesting
emigration to the colonies and engagement in the fruit-growing industry
there as a means of relieving some of the poverty of the Old World. She
afterwards lectured on the subject in French at the invitation of the
Geographical Society of Paris. So successful were the lectures that she
was induced to repeat them in various provincial centres, as well as in
Holland and Belgium. This work occupied from 1880 to 1882, and Tasma was
presented by the French Government with the decoration of Officier
d'Academie. The King of the Belgians also honoured the lecturer by
receiving her in special audience to discuss means of improving
communication between Belgium and Tasmania.

In 1885, after revisiting Australia, Tasma was married to M. Auguste
Cou