They are, indeed, lovely gardens—gardens where old Andrew Marvell might well have brought to life his all exquisite conception of “A green thought in a green shade,” if—and, alas! that there should be such an “if”—if only it had not been that—by some impish freak of, God knows what, Mayor, Corporation, or City Council—these sylvan lawns and glades are decorated, the horrible word stands well here, with a redundancy of statues, beside which some of Madame Tussaud’s figures might well be considered as works of art. I have often wondered that the puritanical City fathers have not raised objections to these figures on account of their classic want of drapery—the only classical thing about them—but perhaps it has been realized that they are too utterly hideous to arouse any feeling but aversion, even in the most ardent and youthful breast. However it may be, there they remain, and are likely to remain, till that golden age when education has been digested into something at least resembling cultivation. CHAPTER XI PRIMITIVE VICTORIA CHARLES DICKENS has created characters which will assuredly live for ever. If he had invented real animals instead of imaginary people—who are much more real than many real people, because more clearly drawn—I would attribute to him all the strange beasts of Australia which, for the most part, are absurdly Pickwickian. They are so clumsily and curiously formed, their expressions are so alert and inquisitive, their limbs are so oddly proportioned. Indeed, I could never see a kangaroo without thinking of a picture by Cruikshank of the Artful Dodger, with his long trousers, huge feet, and look of cocksure cunning; or a native-companion, without reviving at the same time a mental picture of the fascinating Jingle. Besides, though, like the characters of Dickens, the Australian animals are so odd as to be almost unbelievable; they are yet intensely human. They have not the expression of animals. They know really too much. Of course, they were like that long, long before the days of Dickens, but Nature has odd freaks of humour, and perhaps they were the outcome of one such freak and the novelist’s imagination of another. I know one has no business to propound theories like this in a book that is trying hard to be matter of fact, but it is no use blinking the fact that the Australian animals are pure farce, save only, and above all, in their management of that greatest of all affairs—maternity.