PROCEEDINGS FOR 1921 VII 



"The asphodel wants cutting sadly, 

 The Hes are wretched, more's the pity, 



But everything is managed badly 

 By that Infernal Green Committee. 



"Come, lay aside your shroud and pall. 



And play a friendly round with me, 

 A Dead Sea apple was the ball, 



A pinch of churchyard dust the tee." 



Almost equally delightful is the ode to the unnameable river of New 

 Brunswick and to Jaeger's flannel; the epigram on the Bal Poudré; 

 the more serious philosophy of The Iceberg; and the very Horatian 

 parody of the First Ode of Horace. But many of his humorous sallies 

 and much of his appreciation of humour never reached print in prose 

 or poetry and yet recur when his name is heard. 



The artist also underlay the poet. When the writer wanted once 

 upon a time to relieve the tedium of the Archaeological Institute of 

 America by reminiscences of Socrates in his self-chosen roles of a 

 spiritual mid-wife, of a cross-questioning mosquito, of an intellectual 

 torpedo-fish, it was Dr. Ellis's humorous and artistic hand which drew 

 for me the philosopher in these fancy-dresses; as the Attic Sairey 

 Gamp, as the Marathonian Mosquito, as the Salaminian torpedo-fish. 

 Without the lifelike caricatures of the deft draughtsman, the Socratic 

 humour would have stung too deeply, would have shocked too severely 

 the learned audience, would have paralyzed them even as the fish its 

 victims; or, worse still, might just have left them cold. 



He belonged, I suppose, spiritually as well as literally, to the 

 older generation of men of science; even science and art together, 

 even wit, humour and poesy did not begin to exhaust his interests. 



When he reached the span of life he became, owing to the Great 

 War, Dean of the Faculty of Applied Science when he would have 

 preferred to retire into private life. He saw the war through to a 

 successful close; he sent both his sons to the front, one as a brilliant 

 medical investigator, the other as a lieutenant of infantry; he received 

 both back alive, though not unwounded, and gladly retired from 

 work and enjoyed a short year's rest. 



While enjoying a holiday with his friend Dr. Rudolf on Lake 

 Joseph, Muskoka district, he was fatally stricken and passed away 

 after a few hours on the 23rd of August, 1920. 



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