Читать книгу The Open Road in Victoria - Robert Henderson Croll - Страница 5

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Melbourne, on her cleansing river,

Offers thanks to God, the Giver,

For frank, wide streets and sunny ways,

For parks with golden blooms ablaze,

And, bending low her folk to greet,

The cool, green trees of Collins Street.

—R.H.C.

Of all Melbourne's thoroughfares I like Collins Street best. In its measured mile it provides at least as much variety as any of our highways, and a certain quality at one end gives the whole a distinction possessed by no other street that I know.

Time was when, as a wit remarked, this thoroughfare resembled an insolvent's account book—it was Dr. Dr. all the way. It is still the right thing for doctors, especially of medicine, to show a name plate somewhere between Russell Street and Spring Street, but the old exclusive possession has departed.

One by one the shops are stealing into the sacred preserve, and the wrecker is busy on more of the ancient Victorian buildings, destroying to give their fronts the modern touch. Three or four porches have been permitted, but the scandal of a verandah has so far been avoided, and the trees stand as a living monument, so much more beautiful and effective than anything carved by man, to those wise burghers who thought to plant them for a later generation to admire.

The Victorian who is proud of his capital city, and would show it to advantage, should take his visitor at sunset to a point a little east of Russell Street, where he may have the two church towers (particularly Shirlow's "Gothic Spire"—that capital piece of work, both in reality and in the etching), rising high from the crown of the hill and the western sky glowing for a background. Then he should walk to the intersection of Russell Street, and, standing where the Burke and Wills monument once dominated the rise, look down the stretch of Collins Street, which ends with Spencer Street clock tower. He will see much there to please his sense of fitness and beauty. Finally, as the light fades, let him follow Enid Derham's advice ("O city, look the Eastward way!") and turn to see the shadows trooping to their homes in the green trees, and the attractive lamps, which civic authority has recently placed beneath them, opening like flowers to add a new charm to the scene.

Eastward, too, are some of the finest specimens of the city's architecture, notably the cool sandstone front of the Old Treasury, with its numerous windows reflecting the last of the daylight. There is an air of cultured reserve about this building. It suggests a wise old man, quiet, introspective, with thoughtful eyes. Near by broods the bronze figure of Chinese Gordon, one of the better statues of a city with a few good examples (and some pretty bad ones, too), of that medium in art. Immediately behind is the famous Stanford fountain, so much admired for its chaste lines and so romantic in its history. Is it generally known that it was designed and carved by a prisoner in Pentridge? He was a man of quite unusual talent, and the monument may be regarded as the price of his liberty. He was paid nothing for it, but was released from gaol with six years still to serve. The material is bluestone from the Pentridge quarries, and the design took four years to execute. Stanford's death, it is said, was hastened by the work. His lungs became affected by the dust inhaled while he chiselled the stone.

"Why, Melbourne is not flat!" exclaimed a Sydney visitor recently. She was surveying the rapid fall of Collins Street from Russell Street down to Swanston Street. The effect is the greater since the tall buildings have gone up on the south side. But for its width they would make a canyon of this part. Its steep footpaths repel the tide of traffic that surges along "the block" on the level stretch from Swanston Street, the south side so substantially built, the other with such an irregular sky-line. But the tide persists beyond Elizabeth Street, changing in character from that of the idler to that of the busy professional man (and woman), for here is the country of the banker, the insurance clerk, and the lawyer.

Again is a mingling of the old and the new in architecture, good examples of the parvenu Age of Reinforced Concrete in the distinguished company of chaste creations like the Bank of New South Wales. The foot traffic thins out; no one comes shopping down here. That quaint break in the regular formation, Market Street, tops the rise where, just a short block away, the city's founder, John Batman, built his home some ninety years ago.

A measured mile of wealth, with much beauty added, this street should be preserved by civic pride from desecration in any form. What a specially glorious thing it would be, a joy for ever, could the planes and elms of the east end be extended the full length. Never have those trees been more beautiful than in this present spring. Collins Street is a great street and they are its crowning glory.