About John Farrell

I was curious to know a bit more about John Farrell, and found two articles, transcribed here:

https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/145885711
The Worker (Wagga, NSW: 1892-1913)  Sat 14 May 1904  Page 8

EULOGY OF JOHN FARRELL

John Farrell was the chief of the present generation of Australian singers, the successors of that brilliant band— Kendall, Gordon, and Brunton Stephens— whose verses were the finest fruits of Australian poetry during our first century.  It is now over 16 years ago since Farrell's principal work was published in book form, and except for the jubilee poem Ave Imperatrix, afterwards called Australia to England when reprinted as a booklet, and a poem entitled Australia which appeared as an introduction to the

Picturesque Atlas, he has published nothing since; so that his name as a poet has to some extent slipped out of notice, and has lately been submerged beneath the great flood of Australian poetry which began with the publication of The Man from Snowy River in 1895. Only a limited number of copies of How He Died and other poems were printed in 1887, and for years past it has been a rarity in the book market. Expectations were raised by the announcement in 1895 or thereabouts that a volume of verses by John Farrell was to be published shortly, but the years passed and nothing came of it. His health was so bad and his leisure so scanty that he could not attend to the preparation of the volume for the press until just a few months before his death— too late to see it through him self. Two or three of his poems, however, notably How He Died and The Last Bullet, are known and well remembered throughout Australia. They have been reprinted several times in selections of Australian poetry, and must always occupy an important place in our literature. These two poems are representative of the bulk of his poetic work during his early years, nearly all of which was first published in 'The Bulletin.' It is interesting to note, however, that his first verses and the first verses of Barcroft Boake were published in 'The Albury Banner.' He could only write in the little time there was left over in a busy life of droving, farming, or brewing; and at the same time he was carrying on constant studies in books and men. His poetical gifts were early recognized by, amongst others, the late William Bede Dalley, to whom he dedicated his volume of poems, and he was called from brewing to the more congenial work of professional journalism, where he quickly gave proof of first-rate ability. Though a poet and somewhat of a dreamer, he was never carried away into the shallows of sentimentalism. He always retained a strong hold, of the realities of life, and his imagination seldom flew, further than a future which would easily be possible, if a reasonable measure of justice were done on earth. He was a shrewd and logical reasoner, clear sighted and intensely interested in the current affairs of the world, in politics and political economy, which he counted first among the things that matter. His wide reading and fine taste made him an admirable reviewer and writer on literary subjects. Unfortunately, however, the strain of daily newspaper work and the continuous physical suffering, which he patiently endured for over 20 years, quenched his poetic ardor and prevented him from fulfilling the promise of his early work. How great was the loss, to literature may be judged by the excellent quality of his most recent poem, of importance — Australia to England— published in 'The Daily Telegraph' on the occasion of Queen Victoria's Jubilee in 1897. This was written at a single sitting. Two days before the event he was asked to write something suitable. He sat down the same night and by the morning it was finished — about 150 lines of vigorous, ringing verse, full of fine phrases and a splendid picture of the great Procession!—

A heaving sea of life, that beats
   Like England's, heart of pride today,
And up from roaring miles of streets
  Flings on the roofs its human spray; .
And fluttering miles of flags aflow:
  And cannon's voice, and boom of bell,
And seas of fire tonight, as though
   A hundred cities flamed and fell!

While, under many a fair festoon
   And flowering crescent, still ablaze
With all the dyes that English June,
   Can lend to deck a day, of days,
And past where mart and palace rise,
   And shrine and temple lift their spears,
Below five million misted eyes
   Goes a gray Queen of sixty years.

Many years of newspaper work had given him keener critical insight and greater precision of touch; hard work and bad health did not impair the vision and the faculty divine; but inspiration ceased to well up, in the jaded brain. It is reasonably certain that if opportunity allowed, he could have written much superior work to that which forms the larger part of his literary legacy.  His early poems contained many crudities, and some were unpardonably long; but he had recently subjected them, to a very thorough revision with a view to republication, casting, put the weaklings and pruning many of the others — in every case considerably improving the originals. Considering the fact that he had not had the advantage of much scholastic education when young, and that he passed, most of his early years in surroundings where books were few and literary, influences non-existent, it is surprising that he had written so much of such high quality as he did before he was thirty. His metier was the narrative poem, generally realistic and humorous. He delighted to allow his fancy to play on every imaginable grotesque or absurd phase  of his subject — as in My Sundowner and Stand By, the later a weird and elaborate curse on a ludicrously inadequate occasion.  His easy rhyming faculty, a gift of terse and vigorous phrasing and a generous fund of rich humor, enabled him to accomplish some excellent work of this kind. He was seldom lyrical, but when moved by feelings of admiration or passionate protest against wrong his verse rose to high levels. It was always simple, clear, and forcible. It would be easy to quote many fine lines and happy phrases, but the following passage from his first publication, a long poem called Two Stories, represents one part of Farrell's work not generally known:— '

There is no future Heaven where bliss
Surpasses love's first thrilling kiss;
No rapture born of realms above
Transcends youth's first requited love,
When mutual yearnings, fiercely felt,
In one great pang of Heaven melt,
When Passion thrusts aside control
And soul unveils itself to soul.
To feel again that moment's breath
I'd brave all Hell's undying death
And woo eternity of pain
To live o'er that blest hour again.

His aim was always lucidity. It was only natural therefore that, his literary favorites were Tennyson and Stevenson. He did not appreciate Browning or Meredith, whom he frankly said he had tried to read and failed to fully understand. As there is so much that is excellent in English literature which can be understood by any ordinary reader, without a gloss, he considered that only professed students or those with a special limit that way need bother about the mystical or the obscure.

Though Farrell was a very well read man, he was not by any means bookish. His principal interests were outside the library; and in among the throngs of men. A frequent saying of his was that 'nothing matters, anyhow'; nevertheless, he believed that a great many things did matter, and that —

This world's no blot for us,
Not blank— it means intensely and means good. -

For the general acceptance of what he though was the right meaning he strove valiantly to the end. Perhaps few men have been filled with a deeper or more sincere feeling for their fellow-men than John Farrell.  His was not merely an abstract humanitarian one. He felt keenly for the woes of the great multitude, victims of the world's ... for those whose lives of toil are ... hope, whose lot is one of privation and misery. Always his pen was devoted to the advocacy of what he regarded as the remedy for social ills; his hand was always in his pocket to help who ever might need it. An earnest and enthusiastic disciple of Henry George, dating from the days when disciples were few, he perhaps did more than any man in Australia to popularize the principle of land value taxation arid to uphold the doctrine of free trade. In the political life of this State he was a potent force for good, and as a citizen his death is a national loss.

By those, who were associated with him in the single tax movement he was regarded with the warmest affection, and wherever that political faith had found any followers, the name of John Farrell was known and esteemed. He cheerfully gave up his time to any who called on him, and for years he carried on an extensive correspondence in connection with single tax matters.

To know John Farrell was to love him. Entirely unselfish and devoid of vanity he never obtruded himself and his affairs; he loved to talk, but was an excellent listener; and one of his amusements was to stand amongst the crowd at election meetings or in front of a cricket score and listen to the comments of the Average Man. While believing sincerely in peace, there was that of the original Adam and the blood of the Celt in him which made him appreciate a casual fight or a story of fighting, and Kipling appealed to him strongly on account of his virility and his unique power of presenting the natural man in all his brutality and bravery. Farrell was a many sided man, well informed, with a rich, rolling voice, flavored with a brogue, which made him always an interesting talker. He had  ever a kindly word of praise for other men's work, and with his sanely optimistic philosophy he was a source of refreshment and courage to his friends. Those who enjoyed the privilege of his friendship are not likely to forget the quiet, brave, kind-hearted man who bore his sufferings so nobly, and who "never doubted clouds would break, never dreamed though right were worsted, wrong would triumph," but held that "we fall to rise, are baffled to fight better."

BERTRAM STEVENS.

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https://trove.nla.gov.au/newspaper/article/119436516

 The Newsletter: an Australian Paper for Australian People (Sydney, NSW : 1900 - 1919)  Sat 16 Jan 1904  Page 10

John Farrell.

And one there was, a dreamer born
    Who with a mission to fulfil,
Had left the muse's haunts to turn
    The crank of an opinion mill,
Making his rustic reed of song
    A weapon in the war with wrong.
                        * * *
Yet while he wrought with strenuous will
    The work his hands had found to do,
He heard the fitful music still
    Of winds that out of dream-land blew.

These lines, written by John Greenleaf Whittier, the American Quaker and anti-slavery poet, about himself, might, with but the slightest modification, be applied to John Farrell, whose untimely death, last week, at the age of 52, hundreds of people in Australia today mourn as the loss of a dear friend and a great citizen. In the world outside Australia, it will doubtless arouse as sincere regret among many who never saw his face or felt the genial influence of his personality. Although most of his friends regarded his success in journalism with extreme satisfaction, it is probable that had he been able to make a fairly comfortable living otherwise, his poetic gifts would have had fuller and wider scope, though as a result, much of the literary work he regarded as of supreme practical importance would have been neglected. For while, as has been said, daily journalism may be the grave of genius, it affords exceptional opportunities for the social reformer, and of these opportunities, John Farrell made the most. Although in almost every respect the best type of an Australian, combining in his person the rough and ready humour of the bush man, with the courtesy and refinement of the most scholarly gentleman, he was not a native, out first saw light in Buenos Ayres, in South America, of Irish parentage, and was brought to Australia by his parents when a child. The career of his early manhood was typically Australian — farming on a forty acre farm, droving, mining, bush work, anything whereby an honest living might be won, no matter how hard, and to the last the memory of this time kept fresh and strong his sympathy with the hard lot of the humble toilers. Smitten with the 'gold fever,' which never entirely left him, he carried his swag on to the Palmer; but, as was the fate of many in that eventful rush, managed to contract the Gulf fever — a scarcely more persistent disease. The late W. B. Dalley 'discovered' Farrell in the somewhat unromantic occupation of a brewer's assistant at Albury, attracted by a local skit, entitled "An Idyll of Albury," probably the first thing from his pen. The last was a short article in The Newsletter of a fortnight ago. Dalley was astonished at the range of Farrell's reading and the acuteness of his observations on men and things, and prompted him to wider literary efforts, which were  continued when he moved to Queanbeyan. Thence he drifted into journalism in Lithgow, where he started The Land Nationalizer, a local paper devoted to social reform and incidentally recording local events. In later years Farrell enjoyed recounting some of the almost humorous aspects of much of his work there. Long and learned disquisitions on such  abstruse and dry subjects as the origin and justification of interest on capital, and burning appeals for social justice were purveyed to readers, many of whom were much more interested in the petty local disputes, or it may be the latest 'scrap' at the Golden Gate. From Lithgow Farrell came to Sydney in 1889 to edit the Australian Standard, the Single Tax organ, which, after a brief existence, went to the wall, not from any lack of literary merit, for some of Farrell's best stuff appeared in its columns, but from the fact that other papers were beginning to cover its grounds in one way and another. Farrell went to the Telegraph, to which he had been contributing, and in the following year became editor for a brief period, and on it he worked most of the years that remained. To like John Farrell it was not necessary to agree with his opinions on public questions, for he was loved by men who had few thoughts in common with him. But only those who saw eye to eye with him on what he regarded as the burning issues of our social and political life could fully appreciate his motives or understand his mental outlook.  Not religious in a conventional sense, his simple creed, ever and always insisted upon as the rule of individual as well as of social life, was, 'Give people fair play ' — the spirit of the Sermon on the Mount translated into everyday language. While this simple but far-reaching formula was ignored, he held that social and international complications must necessarily ensue. And he held through good report and through bad that the Single Tax philosophy was that creed carried into the sphere of politics, something worth striving for and suffering for, and to it he gave his spare time and energy cheerfully without hope of reward. He never regretted the time he gave to this cause, or the limitations of personal prosperity which his outspoken advocacy of it imposed upon him, and only a few months ago, to the present writer, deplored the fact that he had not been even more uncompromising and counted the cost less. And in all this there was no trace of intellectual pride. To the last he was the same simple open minded truth-seeker who deemed no questioner of his views too obscure to merit fair discussion. Of his own work he did not like to speak, and shrank from praise with a modesty only too rare. High falutin rhetoric in the discussion of political economic and social questions was his special aversion, and his constant plea was for calm judgment and the cold reason of the philosopher in all such discussions. His level headedness and intellectual sanity were the prominent features of his character, but in the most serious discussions there hovered round his mouth that good humoured smile which robbed his most sarcastic remarks (and he had a great gift of sarcasm) of half their bitterness if none of their force, and was probably the reason why even his strongest opponents liked him. A hater of war, he had enough of the old Adam in him to relish a fight, part of his love of reality which made him often quote Kipling's lines anent those who 'go whoring after visions.' A Bohemian of the good type, he detested form and ceremony, and always, even on what proved to be his death bed, desired to take good wishes and sympathy for granted. Henry George, he regarded as the greatest man, not only of our time but of all time, and spoke of him always in a manner that made apparent the affectionate regard in which he held him, yet this never led him to accept his teachings unthinkingly, and no prophet ever had a more critical followers, both of his teachings and actions, than Henry George had in John Farrell. His modesty, lack of personal ambition were as pronounced as his ready recognition of and just estimate of the powers of others, and no one was readier to extend a helping hand. Defeat and disappointment never soured or disheartened him, although in his life he had a very large share of such experiences; nor did severe  suffering, of which he had also more than his share, ever outwardly disturb the placid sweetness of his temper. In later years a favorite phrase on his lips was, 'Nothing matters,' when cherished schemes went awry, perhaps with a desire to lessen the pain of others by concealing his own.  Although he earned a large income, Farrell's open-handed charity and lack of business method always kept him a poor man. And in his philosophy of charity immediate need, not worthiness, was mostly sufficient passport to his benefactions. It would perhaps be too much to say that John Farrell had no enemies. In a world of mixed human elements— good, bad, and middling — this would be too much to expect, something not altogether to be desired. But it may be safely said that no good man or woman could know him without respecting and admiring him, and those who knew him best loved him most. Men such as he made one feel that the world is worth living in, is worth living for, and strengthens the hope that in a world beyond all good men and women may meet again, come together, and have time to talk "with those who made our mortal labours light."

John Longmuir.

Mr. Haynes, member for Wellington, writes: — 'It is very pleasant to me, the remembrance that I was associated with the very first introduction of John Farrell to the Australian press. Shortly after Mr. Archibald and myself launched the Bulletin, we received a few contributions from 'J. F.,' and some months later, being in the south, at Albury I made it my business to hunt up the contributor. I found Farrell, to my surprise, inside a big beer cask fixing up something that had gone 'wrong with the works.' We had a great laugh over the situation, Farrell remarking that he was identified with the Press (that is, the poetic or Bohemian side) in more ways than one. He appeared to me then a man of great alertness with a refreshing knowledge of the existing political humbugs of the time, which was rather a surprise, seeing that he was a comparative outsider. He said he was brewing for bread, but preferred writing, and an arrangement was soon made under which he became a regular contributor to the Bulletin. Much of the good verse and prose which made that paper then the marvel of its day came from John Farrell's pen. At one period he contributed, over a run of many issues, a Don Juan-like production, described by many of our best litterateurs as up to the best Byronic verse. It is hard now at this time to tell the effect of the contribution, but it may be described as remarkable. All this time Farrell was still in the malt and hops trade. Drifting to Goulburn, thence he came on to the press definitely in Sydney, where his talents brought him straight to the front and kept him there — even up to the very day of his death. Few men on the press of Australia at any period of our history have been so powerful for good as John Farrell, and we owe much to his satiric pen that New South Wales stands today the champion of true Liberalism in the southern world. When the Bulletin got the political measles and became protectionist, John Farrell remained true to free trade, and unswervingly fought the basic principles of that system — land value taxation — with magnificent success. It was his work, aided by that no less redoubtable champion of sound economics, Mr. Tom Courtney, that swept the Dibbs protectionist party into the gloom. Continuing his grand work over many years, the last few weeks of his life found John Farrell a quiet but none the less staunch member of the Freetrade Council and selection committee in the Federal contest, and so he had the satisfaction of seeing, just prior to his death, another splendid triumph in New South Wales for fiscal freedom. On the Daily Telegraph Farrell did magnificent work, his contribution to newspaper literature being really phenomenal. From every point of view John Farrell was a fine type of man. His capacity for criticism was grand, just as his methods of exposure of fallacies were unique. Farrell developed a broad view of sardonic humour, which has since become a characteristic of Australian literature. His impulses were never mean or selfish. Rather, Farrell's labours were always shaped for noble ends, the inspiring nature being pure love and kindness for his fellows. The good work done by John Farrell should not be allowed to pass away without record. It has, of course, its record in the triumphs for liberalism in New South Wales, and in the very realisation in law of his land tax opinions. But there should be a special memorial of his humane labours for the people.