• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

The Institute of Australian Culture

Heritage, history, and heroes; literature, legends, and larrikins

  • Home
  • Articles
  • Biographies
  • Books
  • Ephemera
  • Poetry & songs
  • Slang
  • Timeline
  • Topics
    • Anzac Day
    • Australia Day
    • Australian Aborigines
    • Australianism
    • Australian literature
    • The Eureka Rebellion
    • Explorers
    • Significant events and commemorative dates

Section 25 [The Foundations of Culture in Australia, by P. R. Stephensen, 1936]

18 April 2014 · Leave a Comment

[Editor: This is a chapter from The Foundations of Culture in Australia (1936) by P. R. Stephensen.]

§ 25

The world gone mad

The Twentieth Century came in with a fanfare of the trumpets of peace, optimism, progress, prosperity, and human certainty. Everything was for the best in the best of all possible Everlasting Empires and epochs. Alas! since then only three decades have gone by; we are but half-way into the fourth decade of the Wonderful New Century — and all those simple enthusiasms have already gone crash. The glittering bowl of prosperity is broken; pessimism, dismay, and sickness of spirit have afflicted all mankind. Even Australia Felix has become decidedly in-felix. From the world-depression there seem no escapes except war and revolution.

Disease and death, hatred and fear, ride the whirlwind of human imagination. The old are paralysed by the thought of their own ineptitude in the face of events beyond their experience to control; the young are bewildered and hurt by any attempt they may make to understand the apparent insanities of an earth gone whimpering mad to all appearances — a Waste Land, as their prophet from Boston has called it:

This is the way the world ends,
Not with a bang but a whimper . . .

Few minds, indeed, are so basically resilient as to have preserved, across the Abyss of the second and third decades of this century, the simple optimism of the first decade.

Into that Abyss, of the Great War and the Great Aftermath, crashed not only ten million and more young human lives, but also the Spirit of Man itself, everywhere on the earth, and even in Sunny Australia.

If a resurgence of the Spirit of Life, and thus of Life itself, is possible anywhere on the earth, it may be possible in our Commonwealth, which is young enough, in mind and nerve, to remain uncynical under terrific shocks of fate: it may be possible here, where the physical basis of life is so young and strong, and as yet so comparatively unwearied and undefeated.



Source:
P. R. Stephensen, The Foundations of Culture in Australia, W. J. Miles, Gordon (N.S.W.), 1936, pages 92-93

Editor’s notes:
Australia Felix = (Latin) “fortunate Australia”, or “happy Australia” (“felix” may be translated as blessed, fortunate, happy, lucky, or successful)

Filed Under: chapters Tagged With: P. R. Stephensen (author) (1901-1965), SourceIACLibrary, The Foundations of Culture in Australia (P. R. Stephensen 1936), year1936

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Primary Sidebar

Australian flag, 100hThe Institute of Australian Culture
Heritage, history, and heroes. Literature, legends, and larrikins. Stories, songs, and sages.

Featured books

The Man from Snowy River and Other Verses, by Banjo Paterson A Book for Kids, by C. J. Dennis  The Bulletin Reciter: A Collection of Verses for Recitation from The Bulletin The Songs of a Sentimental Bloke, by C. J. Dennis The Complete Inner History of the Kelly Gang and Their Pursuers, by J. J. Kenneally The Foundations of Culture in Australia, by P. R. Stephensen The Australian Crisis, by C. H. Kirmess Such Is Life, by Joseph Furphy
More books (full text)

Featured lists

Timeline of Australian history and culture
A list of significant Australiana
Significant events and commemorative dates
Australian slang
Books (full text)
Australian literature
Rock music and pop music (videos)
Folk music and bush music (videos)
Early music (videos)
Recommended poetry
Poetry and songs, 1786-1900
Poetry and songs, 1901-1954
Australian explorers
Topics
Links

Featured posts

Advance Australia Fair: How the song became the Australian national anthem
Brian Cadd [music videos and biography]
Ned Kelly: Australian bushranger
Under the Southern Cross I Stand [the Australian cricket team’s victory song]

Some Australian authors

E. J. Brady
John Le Gay Brereton
C. J. Dennis
Mary Hannay Foott
Joseph Furphy
Mary Gilmore
Charles Harpur
Grant Hervey
Lucy Everett Homfray
Rex Ingamells
Henry Kendall
“Kookaburra”
Henry Lawson
Jack Moses
“Dryblower” Murphy
John Shaw Neilson
John O’Brien (Patrick Joseph Hartigan)
“Banjo” Paterson
Marie E. J. Pitt
A. G. Stephens
P. R. Stephensen
Agnes L. Storrie (Agnes L. Kettlewell)

Recent Posts

  • Vale! Percy Mahoney [by H. A. Burton, 14 December 1950]
  • Early-day sportsman’s death [obituary of Percy Mahoney, 7 December 1950]
  • Visits to the IAC site from various countries
  • Poems by J. Shaw Neilson [book review, 22 December 1923]
  • “Australia in Palestine” [book review, 6 November 1919]

Top Posts & Pages

  • The Man from Snowy River [poem by Banjo Paterson]
  • Rommel’s comments on Australian soldiers [1941-1942]
  • The drover’s wife [by Henry Lawson]
  • Australian slang
  • Under the Southern Cross I Stand [the Australian cricket team’s victory song]

Categories

Archives

Posts of note

The Bastard from the Bush [poem, circa 1900]
A Book for Kids [by C. J. Dennis, 1921]
Click Go the Shears [traditional Australian song, 1890s]
Core of My Heart [“My Country”, poem by Dorothea Mackellar, 24 October 1908]
Freedom on the Wallaby [poem by Henry Lawson, 16 May 1891]
The Man from Ironbark [poem by Banjo Paterson]
Nationality [poem by Mary Gilmore, 12 May 1942]
The Newcastle song [music video, sung by Bob Hudson]
No Foe Shall Gather Our Harvest [poem by Mary Gilmore, 29 June 1940]
Our pipes [short story by Henry Lawson]
Rommel’s comments on Australian soldiers [1941-1942]
Shooting the moon [short story by Henry Lawson]

Search this site



For Australia


Copyright © 2022 · Log in