• 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
    • Recommended poetry
    • Poetry and songs, 1786-1900
    • Poetry and songs, 1901-1954
    • Rock music and pop music [videos]
    • Early music [videos]
  • Slang
  • Timeline
    • Timeline of Australian history and culture
    • Calendar of Australian history and culture
    • Significant events and commemorative dates
  • Topics

[From Greek literature to the new Australian postage stamp] [23 April 1913]

2 January 2023 · Leave a Comment

[Editor: This untitled article, regarding the Kangaroo and Map stamps, was published in the “News of the day” section in The Age (Melbourne, Vic.), 23 April 1913.]

[From Greek literature to the new Australian postage stamp]

From Greek literature to the new Australian postage stamp is a fairly wide step, but Dr. Leeper achieved it with scarcely an effort in his lecture at the Independent Hall last night.

He had been speaking of classical ideas of beauty, making special reference to those obtaining in the age of Pericles. A passing reference to the Eight Hours statue, which he thought singularly unbeautiful, and to the Boer war memorial, which he considered hideous, brought the lecturer to a comparison between classical forms of art and those obtaining to-day.

“What,” he asked suddenly, “would an Athenian citizen have thought of the kangaroo stamp?” He confessed that, for his own part, he experienced a “feeling of humiliation” every time he fixed one on.

The lecturer did not say whether, as a result of his attitude to the postage stamp, he had curtailed his correspondence, or whether he now had the affixing process performed for him by someone else.

Before leaving the subject of this latest Australian work of art, Dr. Leeper inquired of the audience, “What would Pericles have thought of it?” As no one seemed able to supply the answer, Dr. Leeper supplied it himself. “I think,” he remarked, “it would have killed him.”



Source:
The Age (Melbourne, Vic.), 23 April 1913, p. 8 (column 6)

Also published in:
The Advertiser (Adelaide, SA), 25 April 1913, p. 8 (“General News” section, see item entitled: The kangaroo postage stamp)
The Daily Telegraph (Launceston, Tas.), 26 April 1913, p. 6 (entitled: The “kangaroo” stamp)
Darling Downs Gazette (Toowoomba, Qld.), 28 April 1913, p. 4 (entitled: Pericles and the stamp)

Editor’s notes:
Leeper = Alexander Leeper (1848-1934), academic, principal of Trinity College (a residential college of the University of Melbourne, Vic.); he was born in Dublin (Ireland) in 1848, came to Australia in 1871 for a brief period, returned to Britain, then came back to Australia in 1874, and died in South Yarra in 1934
See: 1) J. R. Poynter, “Leeper, Alexander (1848–1934)”, Australian Dictionary of Biography
2) “Alexander Leeper”, Wikipedia

[Editor: The original text has been separated into paragraphs.]

Filed Under: articles Tagged With: 500x500, Kangaroo and Map stamps, SourceTrove, year1913

Reader Interactions

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

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

Primary Sidebar

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

Search this site

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

  • To Australia [poem by Ruby Jean Stephenson, 18 November 1943]
  • [General news items] [4 April 1912]
  • [Australia has had more than its share of shipping disasters of late] [4 April 1912]
  • [Probably Professor Marshall Hall was right] [4 April 1912]
  • Gold-seekers of the Fifties [1 July 1899]

Top Posts & Pages

  • The Man from Snowy River [poem by Banjo Paterson]
  • Rex Ingamells
  • Taking His Chance [poem by Henry Lawson]
  • The Man from Ironbark [poem by Banjo Paterson]
  • Our pipes [short story by Henry Lawson]

Archives

Categories

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]

Recent Comments

  • IAC on How M’Ginnis Went Missing [poem by Banjo Paterson]
  • Stephen on How M’Ginnis Went Missing [poem by Banjo Paterson]
  • IAC on The late Louisa Lawson [by George Black, 2 October 1920]
  • Percy Delouche on Freedom on the Wallaby [poem by Henry Lawson, 16 May 1891]
  • Phil on The Man from Ironbark [poem by Banjo Paterson]

For Australia

Copyright © 2023 · Log in