20 ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 
himself, so that a literary acquaintance of his says Heavysege’s appear- 
ance always reminded him exactly of “The Yellow Dwarf,”— 
“He walked our streets, and no one knew 
That something of celestial hue 
Had passed along; a toil-worn man 
Was seen, no more; the fire that ran 
Electric through his veins, and wrought 
Sublimity of soul and thought, 
And kindled into song, no eye 
Beheld.”’ ! 
Still another describes his appearance as striking. “ His forehead 
was unusually large, and his eyes were those of a man who was often 
lost in thought.” 
“He had plenty to say among his friends,” (writes a fourth.) “ His 
conversation was not unusual, and he talked chiefly about poetical 
matters. His reading was not discursive. The Bible and Shakespeare 
were his two books. He had a high opinion of his own work, and was 
obstinate about having anything cut out by his friends. Being a man 
without general culture he could not well distinguish in his own work 
between what was good and what was bad. He knew what cost him a 
long time to do, and he was apt to overvalue that.” * 
Another friend describes him as having blue, instead of gray, eyes. 
. He says: “ I remember him very indistinctly. I was only a boy in the 
Witness office, and he was well up in years. He had been a carpenter, 
or rather cabinet-maker. and showed signs of hard work in the stooped 
shoulders. He had a Shakespearian look—very expressive, poetic, blue 
eyes. A great thinker, dreamer! Quiet in mannner, difficult to know. 
Broad in his religious views, I should say, and inclined to be conserva- 
tive in politics.” * 
A more intimate view of the dramatist is given by one of his 
daughters :— 
“ He had all a poet’s intense love and appreciation of nature. He 
fairly revelled in the changes of the autumn season. I have in my mind 
a day when we were climbing Mount Royal together, when he became 
almost translated and carried right out of himself with the beauty and 
grandeur of the scene. He gloried in a thunder storm, and winter to 
him was full of beautiful and suggestive thoughts. Many an inspiration 
would come to him in the night. and he would spring up and jot it 
down—‘ roughing it in,’ as he used to call it.” # 

1 W. D. Lighthall, in Introduction to Songs of the Great Dominion. 
2"Dr. SE, Dawson: 3 William Drysdale. 
# (Mrs.) Harriet Pettigrew (formerly Miss HMeavysege). Mrs. Pettigrew, 
after drawing attention to, and denying, one or two inaccurate statements 
