William Lyon Mackenzie King

“ This afternoon, Harry, Laschinger and I took a long walk in the frosty air,—for winter has gripped Ottawa hard, ice covers the ground, ponds are frozen and the sky is stern and gray, and I found myself driven to turn conversation along this line. Is it because the church has so far drifted from truth that it succeeds so little in making the life of Christ a reality among men? I thoroughly hold that once convince a man of a truth, and that truth, even despite him, will become an active potent factor in his life. How are men to be convinced? ”

“ And the vital importance of improving the individual morally, and encouraging him to elevate his ideals! What a splendid thing it would be if every labour agitator, every demagogue, every member of parliament, every professor, teacher and minister, and, in fact, every one who exerts an influence upon the public mind, could realize and act upon the truth which came to Alton Locke after his life of bitter trial: ‘My only ground was now the bare realities of life and duty. The problem of society—self-sacrifice, the one solution.’ ”

“ There is no death. Life is eternal and makes towards perfection. When those whom we love pass, we are the more linked to that greater, larger, deeper spiritual life which is within us and about us, but which passes our human comprehension. The very air in which I write is filled with a thousand associations which bring me into the closest sympathy with those who have passed through the Valley of the Shadow. Were you here to-night, I might make myself intelligible in a way which I cannot hope to in a letter. ”

“ The love, the truth and the beauty of Harper’s nature have nowhere found better expression than in his last letters to his closest friend. His heart is revealed there, as, only in such a relationship, it is possible for hearts to reveal themselves. In the sanctuary of Friendship, everything is holy; there abideth the love that “thinketh no evil,” the confidence that is never betrayed; at its threshold, semblances disappear; having entered beneath its portals, there is no longer anything to conceal. ”

“ If you look about you, you will see men who are wearing life away in feverish anxiety of fame, and the last we shall ever hear of them will be the funeral bell which tolls them to their early graves! Unhappy men and unsuccessful! because their purpose is, not to accomplish well their task, but to clutch the “fantasy and trick of fame”; and they go to their graves with purposes unaccomplished, and wishes unfulfilled. Better for them, and for the world in their example, had they known how to wait! Believe me, the talent of success is nothing more than doing what you can do well ”

“ He simply wants to emphasize the folly of hoping for fame which is undeserved, and, as he points out, the way to deserve it is by doing well what is to be done. But as you are not fame hunting, it is not the fame part of it that I wish to dwell upon here, so much as the parallel thought, that it is the inner life, the inner strength which comes from resolute effort and familiarity with the best thought, which tells, and which makes for true happiness. ”

“ The thought of the past week has caused me to look up for a moment to take another glance at the capital, which stands out clearly in the bright sunshine, though the lines of the buildings are softened by a blue white summer haze, sufficiently marked to give the effect of distance. If men could only get to a mountain occasionally and look down upon the world in which they live and move and have their being, there would be less dilettantism, less worship of forms, institutions, baubles and lath and plaster. ”

“ Tell men to do right because it is right to do right; because it is consonant with the law of their natures; because only by so doing will they realize themselves. And here we come to the great beauty, justice and potency of the appeal to the rule of law. Show a man that it is only by putting forth his best efforts towards what his best consciousness tells him to be right that he will make any progress satisfactory to his own nature, or in harmony with the eternal realities, and the shackles of petty ambitions fall from him. He becomes stronger and stronger. ”

“ Henry Compton, that as working men acquire their full rights, their leaders will turn to the noble task of impressing upon them the duties of citizenship. Outside of parliaments and law courts, the destiny of the nation’s workers and employers is being shaped by the consciousness of right in the minds of the mass of the people.”
“I have confidence that public opinion will, in most cases and in the long run, strike a true note. I have faith in the saying, ‘the people may make mistakes, but the people never lie.’ Show the people what it all means, and the people will do what is right. ”

“ The rule which underlies the various labour laws seems to be ‘leave well enough alone, but get after the mean man.’ A parent has a right to chastise his child, but that does not mean that he has a right to beat his child whenever he feels inclined, or allow him to be so worked as to start him in life a crippled, deformed, little creature. The Factories Acts, perhaps the best known department of labour legislation, both in England and in Canada, have been created to correct abuses, which would not have arisen but for the practices of hard-hearted employers. ”

“ Their usefulness was in proportion to the degree to which they helped to give expression to the unseen purpose in the universe. Nature and man, alone, were divine. It followed logically from this that man’s work among his fellows in the world was to discover the moral order, reveal and maintain it, so far as within him the power lay. Harmony with this order meant happiness, want of harmony, whether by the individual or the state, unhappiness. In this view, the individual is vastly superior to any institution he and his fellows may construct, superior as an end, and as a means to an end. ”

“ Harper’s exclusive insistence was only upon what in this way was acceptable to all; and knowing that it was acceptable, he was sure the appeal would find a response in those to whom it was addressed. Whatever men might be in seeking privately their own selfish ends, their belief in a moral order was apparent once action became collective; the public had a conscience to which it was generally true, though men at times might seem to betray their better selves; and public opinion might be expected to guard for society as a whole a right for which individuals sometimes lost respect. ”

“ Misunderstanding, bitterness and passion have much sway in each. But your strength lies in the fact that what you seek is fairness, truth and justice, as well as the promotion of industrial peace and the country’s welfare. ‘Speak to his heart,’ says Emerson, ‘and the man becomes suddenly virtuous.’ My dear Rex, I assure you it is not the prejudice of a friendship, which makes me miss you more than I care to confess, that tells me that it is not the strong arm of a commission, nor yet the power of public opinion, that is your strongest weapon in this important crisis ”

“ However, Rex, I need not assure you that I am constantly with you in thought. Your life has grown into mine to such an extent that your hopes and aspirations are mine as well. Take care of yourself, my dear Rex, and whatever may be the outcome of your mission, I know that you will have done your duty. When you are in the mountains [155] think of one whose soul is also profoundly stirred by the message which great, glorious, beautiful Nature has for man. ”

“ Few men of his years have thought as deeply as Harper did, or had clearer perceptions, concerning conditions and forces which make for happiness and progress in social life, and the development of national greatness. Had he been spared he would have been an earnest and practical reformer; silent as his voice is now, the words he once uttered are not without their value to our day and generation. ”

“ It is reasonable to expect that he who claims to be engaged in the pursuit of truth should not give countenance to what makes for social disorder and national decay.
“Men are as much open to reason, as liable to accept truth, when they have been convinced of it, as when Arnold Toynbee studied, lectured and wrote. They are as prone to prefer what is genuine to what is pretense and dissimulation. Surely a peculiar obligation to see that men think rightly and act sanely, devolves upon those whose vantage ground should enable them to distinguish what is genuine. ”

“ I do not think that I am lacking either in faith in human nature or in the ultimate triumph of right, but I am coming to realize more, day by day, that it is a great man’s work which we are called upon to perform. I have every confidence in our ability to weather the storms which we will undoubtedly be called upon to meet, and you can be assured that you will find me ready to do my share. It behooves us both to steadfastly keep before us those things which are true, and, if we do, Nature, as Carlyle says, will be on our side. ”

“ Most modern societies are prepared to admit that industry should be so conducted that men who are willing to work shall be allowed to work under as wholesome conditions as are reasonably possible, and that they shall be allowed such a return for their labour and so much leisure, as is necessary to health. For, to put it on no higher ground, no society, however hard hearted, can afford for long, when the remedy lies in its own hands, to countenance conditions which create in the hearts of reasonable men, that bitterness which tends to provoke social upheavals and revolutions. ”

“ Public opinion will force a settlement which approximates to justice and fairness. The mean party, whether it be the employer or the labour organization, must inevitably give way to the extent of its meanness, and at the same time, the right of the individual to realize for himself the fullest fruits of his legitimate effort, at once the stimulus of the capitalist, and raison d’être of the trade union, is preserved. The system, it is true, acknowledges, at once, the imperfection of trade union machinery, and the selfishness, even to the extent of meanness, of employers ”

“ At times, encouraged by the appreciation which I have been able to give to some of the sublime thoughts of master-minds, or by the words of such friends as ——, I have been quite hopeful as to my future usefulness, but on both my thoughts and my humours, I can see the fatal traces of repeated disappointments. Of course the life that I have been living has not been without its advantages. ”

“ The use of machinery, the weakening of the artisan by removing the rewards of skill, the work and wages of girls, the prevalence of piece work and its results, the effects of pauper and convict labour, and a thousand other problems are brought daily before my notice in terms of flesh and blood.
“It is important to know and understand all sorts and conditions of men if society as a whole is to be led towards what is better. Certainly the ‘better class of people’ need leading as well as the others, for with them the opportunity offered by leisure is too often wasted in dilettantism and folly.” ”

“ I have never quite managed to shake off the attitude of mind of a student, and I find myself constantly weaving my experiences in New York into my philosophy of life. The two events which seem to stand out most clearly are the visit to the Art Museum, and the concert at the Metro [101] politan. That was a glorious day, for it showed how men in the rush and flurry of business life have at hand the means of soul purifying and refreshment in art and music, two great agencies which bring men’s minds back from semblances to truth. Will you ever forget the music we heard? ”

“ In the character of Christ, Harper found the answer to the question, what is the purpose of life? That life appealed to him from every side. It was the manliest of lives. Conscious of its greatness, it could forbear to use its creative powers for selfish ends. It could be governed by a principle, where a multitude could not attract. Bigotry, passion and prejudice only added force to its invectives; ridicule and calumny, dignity to its assertion of right. In the presence of the strong, it could champion the cause of the weak ”

“ Trammelled by a liberal share of human weakness, an unfortunate combination of high ambition and a tendency to frivolity, I can only hope to come to realize gradually all that that life represents. When one considers the wide-spread influence which even a comparatively obscure personality yields in this world, the awful responsibility which is attached to every act of volition, to every word and deed, is forced upon one. ”