Contains the second chapter of The Dream and the Reality, an unpublished literary work by John McLaren on the study of the realist tradition in Australian fiction. The purpose of McLaren’s study is to explore the attitude of Australians to their country which has always been ambiguous and show how some Australian fiction writers reacted to this particular experience and environment, how they have treated the dream and how they have dealt with reality.  In this chapter McLaren explores the literary works of Henry Kingsley, an English novelist spending some time writing in Australia, and Rolf Boldrewood, an Australian writer who arrived in Australia at the age of five.