E. Pauline Johnson

“ To wander alone, through scenes that Homer knew, or through the streets that were hallowed by the footsteps of Dante, is an experience that sends a poetic thrill through the blood. For it is on classic ground only that the Spirit of Antiquity walks. ”

“ Let me repeat here, at the risk of seeming garrulous, a few sentences in that article which especially appealed to Pauline Johnson, as she told me:
"Part and parcel of the very life of man is the sentiment about antiquity. Irrational it may be, if you will, but never will it be stifled. Physical science strengthens rather than weakens it. Social science, hate it as it may, cannot touch it. In the socialist, William Morris, it is stronger than in the most conservative poet that has ever lived. ”

“ The article then discussed the main subject of the argument, saying how very different it is when we come to consider poetic art as the reflex of the life of Nature. Here the muse of Canada ought to be, and is, so great and strong. It is not in the old countries, it is in the new, that the poet can adequately reflect the life of Nature. It is in them alone that he can confront Nature's face as it is, uncoloured by associations of history and tradition. What Wordsworth tried all his life to do, the poets of Canada, of the Australias, of the Cape, have the opportunity of doing. ”

“ Her death is not only a great loss to those who knew and loved her: it is a great loss to Canadian literature and to the Canadian nation. I must think that she will hold a memorable place among poets in virtue of her descent and also in virtue of the work she has left behind, small as the quantity of that work is. ”

“ The article enunciated the thesis that if the English language should not in the near future contain the finest body of poetry in the world, the time is now upon us when it ought to do so; for no other literature has had that variety of poetic material which is now at the command of English-speaking poets. ”

“ It pointed out that in reflecting the life of man the English muse enters into competition with the muse of every other European nation, classic and modern; and that, rich as England undoubtedly is in her own historic associations, she is not so rich as are certain other European countries, where almost every square yard of soil is so suggestive of human associations that it might be made the subject of a poem. ”

“ Lighthall would remind us, did we in England need reminding, that Canada owes her very existence at this moment to a splendid act of patriotism--the withdrawal out of the rebel colonies of the British loyalists after the war of the revolution. It is 'the noblest epic migration the world has ever seen,' says Mr. ”