One of these, on "Love, Courtship and Marriage", precipitated him
into experience of all three; for he walked home after the lecture
with Miss Charlotte Rutter, daughter of a Government medical officer,
straightway fell in love, and, after a brief courtship, they were married
in the following year.
The year 1868 was a memorable one for Kendall in other ways. In April,
James Lionel Michael was found dead in the Clarence River, and in June
Charles Harpur died at Euroma. Kendall had a great admiration
for Harpur's poems and wrote to him in the spirit of a disciple.
They corresponded for some years, but did not meet until a few months
before the elder poet's death. Kendall describes Harpur
as then "a noble ruin -- scorched and wasted by the fire of sorrow."
In 1868, also, a prize was offered in Melbourne for
the best Australian poem, the judge being Richard Hengist Horne,
author of `Orion'. Kendall sent in three poems and Horne
awarded the prize to "A Death in the Bush". In an article printed
in Melbourne and Sydney newspapers he declared that the author
was a true poet, and that had there been three prizes,
the second and third would have gone to Kendall's other poems --
"The Glen of Arrawatta" and "Dungog".
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