LIV THE ROYAL SOCIETY OF CANADA 



consciousness, but perhaps it is a trifle less evident novv . His love of 

 country was very strong and took form in his praise of nature, that 

 unsoiled and untrammelled nature that we think of as Canada, and 

 his work in this kind has a verity and vigour that is unmatched. He 

 filled the rigid form of the sonnet with comments on the life of the 

 fields and woods and waters that ring as true as the notes of birds. 

 A single half-hundred of these sonnets of his may be placed in any 

 poetic company and they will neither wilt nor tarnish. Towards the 

 end of his life he chose by sympathy to WTite more imaginatively 

 about stirrings in the mind and heart of man, and there is a deep and 

 troubled note in these things that gave portent of a new development. 

 His career was closed too soon, and we have but to cherish what is 

 left and rejoice over it as a treasure of our literary inheritance. 



I.t is twenty-three years since Lampman died, and the period is 

 marked by the death of Marjorie Pickthall, which occurred during 

 April of this year at Vancouver. Her's was a literary life of another 

 and contrasted kind. She was of English parentage, born in England, 

 but educated in Canada, and she was in training and sentiment a 

 good Canadian. 



If one were looking for evidence of progress in Canadian literature 

 during the period of thirty years just referred to, one positive item 

 would be the difference in the reception of the first books published 

 by these two authors. Until the generous review by William Dean 

 Howells of Lampman's book had been published in Harper's Magazine, 

 it was here considered, when any consideration whatever was given 

 to the subject, a matter of local importance. But the warm-hearted 

 welcome of Howells led to sudden recognition of the fact that the 

 book was an acquisition to general literature, and was not merely 

 parochial. After that incident, and others like it, we find that 

 recognition of Miss Pickthall's first book took place at once, and from 

 our independent judgment, as an important addition to poetical 

 literature. Advance is clearly shown by this fact; for until we have 

 faith in the power of our writers we can have no literature worth 

 speaking about ; our position in arts and letters will be secured when 

 we find foreign critics accepting a clear lead from us. We accepted 

 Miss Pickthall, and our opinion was confirmed very generally after- 

 wards. 



It is to be deeply regretted that her career is closed and that we 

 shall not again hear, or overhear, that strain of melody, so firm, so 

 sure, floating towards us, to use a phrase of Lampman's, "as if from 

 the closing door of another world and another lovelier mood." "Over- 

 hear" is, I think, the right word, for there was a tone of privacy, of 



