[Illustration: Henry A. Harper]
_THE SECRET
OF HEROISM_
_A Memoir of
Henry Albert Harper_
_By
W. L. MACKENZIE KING_
_New York Chicago Toronto
Fleming H. Revell Company
London and Edinburgh_
Copyright, 1906, by
FLEMING H. REVELL COMPANY
_SECOND EDITION_
New York: 158 Fifth Avenue
Chicago: 80 Wabash Avenue
Toronto: 27 Richmond Street, W.
London: 21 Paternoster Square
Edinburgh: 100 Princes Street
To
My Mother
O strong soul, by what shore
Tarriest thou now? For that force,
Surely, has not been left vain!
Somewhere, surely, afar,
In the sounding labour-house vast
Of being, is practiced that strength,
Zealous, beneficent, firm!
--_Matthew Arnold, "Rugby Chapel."_
CONTENTS
TO THE READER 9
THE SECRET OF HEROISM 21
THE INFLUENCE OF HOME 24
COLLEGE AND AFTER 34
THE DAY'S WORK 46
NATURE 55
BOOKS 65
THE LOVE OF OTHERS 78
SOCIAL AND POLITICAL IDEALS 105
THE PURPOSE OF LIFE 135
A LAST WORD 150
_TO THE READER_
The erection by the Canadian public of a monument in the capital of
the Dominion; its unveiling by the representative of the Crown; its
acceptance, on behalf of the government, by the Prime Minister of
Canada; a gathering of thousands to do honour to the occasion,--and
this, to commemorate the heroism of one not yet eight and twenty years
of age,--is a national tribute which may well cause us to pause and
silently revere a people who in their hearts cherish so strong a love
for the heroic, and build for their children such sacred traditions.
It is now four years since Henry Albert Harper, in an endeavour to save
the life of Miss Bessie Blair, a girl of rare and beautiful character,
was drowned with her in the Ottawa River. On an afternoon in December,
1901, he had joined, by chance, a party of three, of which Miss Blair
was a member. They were skating on the river, a little before twilight,
when Miss Blair and a gentleman who accompanied her, came suddenly
upon a wide space of open water near the mouth of the Gatineau. Before
there was time to avoid it, they had skated into the opening, and were
at the mercy of the current. Harper, who was following at a short
distance with a friend of Miss Blair, witnessed the accident and went
at once to their assistance. Having sent the young lady with whom he
was skating to the shore for help, he himself lay prone upon the ice,
close to the edge, and extending his walking stick, endeavoured to
put it within reach of those in the water. Finding the distance too
great, and hearing Miss Blair assuring her companion that she could
swim alone, for each to make a single attempt lest they should go
down together, and seeing also that he was striving in vain to save
her, Harper regained his feet, pulled off his coat and gauntlets, and
prepared to risk his life in an endeavour to effect a rescue. In
answer to entreaties not to make the venture, that it meant certain
death, he exclaimed, "What else can I do!" and plunged boldly into the
icy current in the direction of Miss Blair. They perished together;
their bodies were found on the following morning, the one not far from
the other. Miss Blair's companion had a miraculous escape, otherwise
no one would have known of the brave deed which has given Harper an
enviable fame, and of the no less splendid courage of Miss Blair. She,
as well as Harper, was prepared to give her life for another.
At a largely attended public meeting, held in the city hall of Ottawa
a day or two after the occurrence, and which was presided over by the
mayor, resolutions were passed inviting the public to join in the
erection of a monument to commemorate Harper's heroism. It was decided
that the monument should be of bronze or stone, to be erected in the
open air, and to take the form of a figure symbolical of heroism and
nobility of character, such as might be suggested by the figure of
"Sir Galahad," in the famous painting of that name by the late George
Frederick Watts, R. A. The choice of a sculptor was to be determined by
a public competition, unrestricted in any way.
The character of Harper's act was sufficient in itself to suggest "Sir
Galahad" as a subject suitable for a memorial of this kind, but the
choice had, in fact, a more intimate association with Harper himself.
Hanging on the wall above the desk in his study, and immediately before
him whenever he sat down to work, was a carbon reproduction of Watts'
painting. He had placed it there himself, and often, in speaking of it
to others, had remarked, "There is my ideal knight!"
In the design and model submitted to the memorial committee by
Mr. Ernest Wise Keyser, the best expression appeared to be given
to the ideal which it was hoped might be embodied in the monument
to be erected. Mr. Keyser is a young American sculptor, a citizen
of Baltimore, Maryland, who had his studio in Paris at the time.
Subsequent to the making of the award it was learned that he had been
born on the same day of the same year on which Harper was born. He was
commissioned to execute the work. A beautiful bronze "Sir Galahad,"
mounted on a massive granite base, deep carved in which are Sir
Galahad's words in the _Holy Grail_,
"_If I lose myself_
_I save myself_,"
the whole standing within the shadow of the stately pile which crowns
Parliament Hill, marks the successful completion of the sculptor's task.
The monument was unveiled by His Excellency Earl Grey, Governor-General
of Canada on the afternoon of Saturday, 18th November, 1905. A fitting
impressiveness marked the unveiling ceremonies. Notwithstanding that
so long a time had elapsed since the deed it commemorated, and that
the approach of winter was already evident in the cold air and in
the presence of snow upon the ground, three thousand or more of the
citizens of Ottawa assembled in the open to do honour to the occasion.
Mr. P. D. Ross, the chairman of the memorial committee, presided, and
the Right Honourable Sir Wilfrid Laurier, the Prime Minister of Canada,
accepted the monument on behalf of the government. The writer had the
honour, on behalf of the memorial committee, of presenting the monument
to Sir Wilfrid. The eloquent tributes paid to the memory of Harper by
the chairman of the committee, and by the distinguished representatives
of the king and of the people at the unveiling, were regarded by those
who heard them as a memorial not less splendid than the monument which
occasioned the reference. The chairman, Mr. Ross, gave expression, in
the following words, to the feelings which had prompted the public in
the erection of the monument:
"Harper lost his life. But in that sacrifice he left to the
rest of us a great lesson and a great inspiration. Every fellow
Canadian of Henry Harper was honoured by his death, and every
man of the English-speaking race from which he sprang. It was an
assurance that in this country there is present the old manly
virtue, the true steel of our forefathers. And, far more than
that, it was one argument more that our human nature has in it
inspiration and strength from a higher than earthly source.
"Had such a thing gone uncommemorated by us, his fellow citizens,
it would have been a disgrace to us. The absence of this
memorial, or of some memorial, would have marked our blindness,
our meanness. Harper did not need this monument. We did. Such
heroic fire as his commemorates itself. But we fellow Canadians
of Henry Harper needed to show by practical action that we could
see and reverence the nobility of soul which sent him knowingly
to his grim death."
The Right Honourable Sir Wilfrid Laurier, in accepting the monument on
behalf of the government, spoke as follows:
"Let me say, sir, in accepting this monument, commemorating,
as it does, an heroic death, that the government of Canada
looks upon its acceptance as an honour, and will consider it
a labour of love to care for it. I enter heartily into the
spirit which conceived the idea of this splendid testimonial to
a glorious deed. Harper's act of heroism will ever be an example
and a lesson to us all. The stranger to our city will pause as
he passes this monument and wonder what deed called forth its
erection. He will be told of the noble act of self-sacrifice--of
a life given in an effort to save another. The citizens of Ottawa
will ever be proud to honour the memory of Harper, and to look,
as the government shall look, upon this memorial as a national
monument in every sense of the word."
His Excellency the governor-general, said:
"I would like to extend my congratulations on the notable
addition of this monument to the interest, embellishment and
idealism of this Federal city. Although I never knew Harper, I
have learned enough about him to believe that I shall seldom pass
this monument without being reminded of the example which he
has bequeathed as a precious legacy. His character and ability
were such as would have enabled him, had he lived, to win in the
wide and honourable service of the Crown that distinction which
is within the reach of all whose greatest delight is to spend
themselves, their fortunes and their lives in the service of
their fellow countrymen and their King. He is gone, but who shall
say that Canada and the world are not richer by his death? His
character and his example live. I congratulate the sculptor on
the skill with which this statue of Sir Galahad indicates those
qualities of energy, fearlessness and service of which young
Harper was the incarnation; and I hope this statue may be only
the first of a set of noble companions which, in the course of
time, will make this street the _Via Sacra_ of the capital.
"A few years ago I stood at the grave side of another young civil
servant of the Crown in the Matoppos of Rhodesia, who, as he was
carried to his last resting place mortally wounded, said: 'Well,
it is a grand thing to die for the expansion of the Empire'--that
Empire which, in his mind, as in that of Harper, was synonymous
with the cause of righteousness. Harper and Hervey, had they
known each other, would have been bosom friends; they both
believed in their idea. If they had lived they both would have
done great things. They have both died, and how would they have
died better?--for their ideas will not die; no, neither in
the Matoppos, nor on the banks of the Ottawa, nor in any other
portion of the British empire, so long as we are loyal to their
traditions and follow their example."
The regimental band of the Governor-General's Footguards, which had
volunteered its services, played "The Maple Leaf" as the King's
representative unveiled the monument; at the same moment the sun
came out from behind a cloud. The ceremonies were concluded with the
national anthem.
[Illustration: THE SIR GALAHAD MONUMENT AT OTTAWA _erected by the
public to commemorate the Heroism of Henry Albert Harper_.]
It was the writer's privilege to have been Harper's oldest and most
intimate friend. It has seemed to him that he would be unworthy of a
friendship such as existed between them, were he unwilling to share
with others some of the beauty of soul which he knew so well, and of
which Harper's heroic deed was but an expression. For personal reasons,
he has, up to the present, hesitated to disclose aught that has been in
his keeping. The generous appreciation by the public of a single act
appears to him now to warrant a larger confidence. He has ventured,
therefore, to allow those who will, to look in at the windows of the
soul, and see, in its sacred chambers, the secret which was an abiding
presence in a life whose heroism has already received from the nation a
recognition so splendid and impressive.
To those into whose hands this little volume may come, the writer begs
they forget not that it is but a collection of fragments gathered,
after he had gone, from along the path on which he trod. It is not
Harper's life, it is not even a worthy tribute to his character.
What it may contain of thoughts and expressions of his own will be
acceptable as "broken light upon the depth of the unspoken"; for the
rest it will be well, if, as a labour of love, it has done no injustice
to the memory of a friend.
W. L. M. K.
_Ottawa, January, 1906._
_THE SECRET OF HEROISM_
The quality of a man's love will determine the nature of his deeds;
occasion may present the opportunity, but character alone will record
the experience. To a life given over to the pursuit of the beautiful
and true, the immortal hour only comes when conduct at last rises to
the level of aim, and the ideal finds its fulfilment in the realm of
the actual. "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down
his life for his friends."
Few lives have been more earnest or constant in the pursuit of an
ultimate perfection than was Henry Albert Harper's; few have sought
more conscientiously than he to live out existence under the guidance
of lofty aspirations, and in the light of pure ideals. There was
nothing exceptional, save the opportunity, in the chivalrous act which
cost him his life. It was a sublime expression of the hidden beauty of
his real character and soul. Day by day he had been seeking for years
to gain that freedom which is the reward of obedience to the highest
laws of life, and little by little he had been fashioning a character
unfettered and untrammelled by human weaknesses and prejudices, and
strong in the noblest qualities of heart and mind. Galahad cried,
"_If I lose myself, I save myself!_" In the same spirit, and with the
same insight into truth, Harper sought to keep unbroken the vision of
immortality which was his, to be faithful to an ideal of duty, which,
by a seeming loss, he has made incarnate for all time.
By what path the heroic was attained in Harper's life may be traced
from the pages of a diary, in which at intervals he recorded his
thoughts, and from the words he has left in letters to his friends.
Fragmentary as these are, an attempt has been made in the following
pages to weave from them the story of his inner life, in the belief
that its beauty will bring courage and inspiration to many, and in the
knowledge that there is something of inestimable worth in a recorded
experience which reveals the endeavour of a human soul to know and
attain the highest, and to realize its divine capacities amid the
complexities of every-day life.
_THE INFLUENCE OF HOME_
Harper was born in the village of Cookstown, Ontario, on December 9,
1873, but most of his childhood was spent at Barrie, one of the most
picturesque and beautifully situated of Canadian inland towns. The
vine-clad lattice alone obstructed the beautiful view from the front
veranda of his father's house across the waters of Kempenfeldt Bay, and
it was to this home and its associations that he was wont to attribute
all that was best in his nature and dearest in his affections. It was
there that the great joys and the great sorrows of his short life had
centred. It was over this Barrie home that the skies were the brightest
to him; and it was there, too, that for a time the clouds had appeared
to return after the rain.
There are few pages anywhere which, in simpler or more tender words,
disclose a heart's love and sorrow, a life's greatest inspiration and
its greatest grief, than those which commence Harper's diary after
it had remained closed for nearly three years. They constitute an
expression of feeling so personal, a record so sacredly tender, that
their publication can be justified only on the ground that they are
among the few passages he has left which reveal the influence of his
home upon his life, an influence which, as the words themselves show,
was the strongest and the sweetest he had known. Just a year before his
death, Harper writes:
"For nearly three years this book has travelled around with me
unopened--three years in which I seem to have lived a lifetime.
They have been filled with satisfaction enough in some ways, and
with pain enough, too. Seven months ago, when the world seemed
empty, I was inclined to throw myself upon these pages, but my
feelings were too much my own, even for that, for, since I last
wrote here, I have gazed into the darkest depths.
"Though 'out in the world' in a measure, since I left home for
college, the little home group in Barrie remained the centre of
my world. The chief reward of success was the 'well done' from
the kindest father and most loving mother who ever lived. They
have gone. After a week's illness father died on April 6, 1900.
Mother joined him on April 12th. During thirty-six years of
married life they had been loyal and true to each other, and to
their duty before God and man. For their children they sacrificed
personal comfort and social pleasures. Loving sympathy always
went out to meet us in joy or in pain. They passed away together
into the hereafter with unflinching eye, and with a nobleness and
truth of heart which won them the respect of all good men and
women who knew them in life.
"I did not reach home until the morning of father's death, and
when I saw that dear beloved face it wore the calmness and
pallor of death. That room in which he lay is hallowed. To the
last, they say, his carelessness of self was evident. A frank,
straightforward man; his life open as a book; his heart kind,
with the true love of a Christian. He was not particularly
demonstrative, but we all knew the breadth and depth of his
affection and his sympathy. At the end, conscious of it, he gazed
before him towards the face of God, as one ready to appear before
the judgment seat. A healthy, honest, wholesome man, he was to me
father, brother and friend.
"And my mother. How often has her clinging kiss muttered a prayer
as I left home, and impressed a welcome as I returned. An heroic
character, enriched by the depth of a mother's love, was hers.
When I reached home on that cold, gray day in early spring, she
lay there sorely stricken with the dread pneumonia which had
taken my father, but patient, tender, unselfish as ever. To my
broken attempt at encouragement, she replied: 'Yes, I must try
and live for you children.' But, as life ebbed and she saw that
it was not to be, that noble heart, ever resigned to the will of
God, accepted the inevitable. It seemed that to join him who had
gone was her dearest wish; without him life, as she lay there
suffering, must have seemed cold, empty, cheerless. But even this
she seemed prepared to bear, so that she might keep a home open
for her children, and endeavour to help them from falling from
the path of duty. Then came the day when she was told that hope
of recovery was gone. 'I knew it,' she said. Calling us around
her, in a voice greatly weakened, she uttered her heart's wish
in a simple sentence--'I want you all to be good, so that you
may meet us There.' I am naturally rather disposed to be cold, I
fear, but in that moment the depth of that mother's love came to
me as never before, and the sublimity of her faith burst upon me.
From that day dates a new epoch in my life.
"To the last her thoughts were of us. Faithfully, unobtrusively,
but unswervingly, she had throughout life worked and lived that
we might know truth, and not stray from what she was wont to call
'the straight and narrow path.'
"At four o'clock in the morning the end came. How cold the dawn
of that morning! Without a struggle her soul went to its God.
How delicate the thread which binds us to eternity! But a short
time before she was there and knew all that was happening; that
she was going; and, that we must fight the battle of life, with
the snares and temptations with which we are beset by our human
passions and weaknesses. Not a doubt seemed to enter into that
mind, which had held steadfastly to the eternal truth throughout
a noble, fearless life. She had run her race, she had kept the
faith. The sturdy integrity, inherited from her father, and a
gentle, loving kindness, which probably came from the mother who
died when she was yet a child, combined to make a character which
by its sweetness, beauty and nobility, has woven itself into my
life. Pray God that I may never be unworthy of her memory."
And unworthy of so holy a memory Harper never was. While spared to
him, the love and affection of his father and mother were his greatest
inspiration, and his great reward; taken from him, the remembrance of
their example, and a belief in their continued existence, constituted
an abiding presence, helping him ever to nobler conduct and aim.
Yet, how irreparable this loss was, words cannot tell. Harper could
never bring himself to speak of it without the deepest emotion. What
seemed hardest to him was that his father and mother should have been
taken just when he had hoped to be able to make them fully conscious of
his gratitude.
In a letter written some months after, he says:
"Great as is my pride in the noble lives of my beloved parents,
and confident as I am that they will enjoy their reward unto all
eternity, I find it impossible to get away from the sense of the
emptiness of the world without them. Their lives were devoted to
their children, and their children were devoted to them. A kinder
father, and a more loving mother, never lived. To them we looked
for congratulation upon any success which fell to our lot and for
sympathy if our sky were dark. They never failed us. And at the
moment when we were all comfortably settled in our professions,
and there was the prospect of a long peaceful life before them,
they were taken away. Herein lies the chief bitterness of it all.
But we have the lesson of their lives, and fond memories which we
can ever cherish."
Some time later, in acknowledging hospitality shown him during a brief
visit in Toronto, he wrote on his return to Ottawa:
"As I lay in my berth last night, looking out at the beautiful,
silent, star sprinkled sky, a feeling settled upon me that the
curtain had just fallen upon one of the happiest days of my life.
The warmth of your welcome, and the kindly thoughtfulness of
your every word and action, were appreciated by me the more,
because I have learned what it is, both to have, and to be
without, that most happy and most sacred of human associations, a
home."
There is less of intensity of grief, but hardly less of tenderness and
delicacy of feeling, in his words of sympathy with a friend, which,
containing an expression of his own belief, also reveal the continued
influence of his home and its associations on his daily actions, even
after these associations had vastly changed. In a letter written only a
few months before his death, during a short visit to Barrie, the last
which he spent amid the scenes of his youth, he says:
"And furthermore, I know that you understand that when sorrow
crosses your path, your sorrow is mine just as is your happiness.
I know the wrenching of the heart-strings which comes when one
who is close is taken away, and I feel deeply with you. I can
only repeat to you the message which you sent to me when all that
I held dearest on earth seemed to have passed out of it. 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. As I
have been sitting here looking out over the bay with which I am
so familiar, my boyhood and my youth have passed before me, and
these, as well as the hopes and aspirations of early manhood, are
so closely associated with the devoted lives which guarded and
nourished all that was good in me, that I could not recognize
myself, were I not convinced of their continued existence and
their living interest in all that I cherish that is worthy. This
afternoon I stood before the grate where, with you, I spent an
hour which stands out as a milestone in my life, and to-night I
thank God that we have been enabled to accomplish something of
what we then contemplated, and that we have before us opportunity
of usefulness beyond what we could have imagined as we stood
there upon the threshold of life. The very atmosphere of this
dear old place is sacred to me through the associations which
float through my mind as I breathe it. My visit here has been
like a pause in a quiet and familiar eddy in the stream of life,
and I feel that it has done me good. It has strengthened me in my
resolutions, and has enabled me to see more clearly."
It is rarely, if ever, that men, especially young men, stop to estimate
the influences which are the most potent in their lives, and it is
rarer still, in seeking this estimate, that they become conscious, with
any true degree of proportion, of the extent to which home, as compared
with other influences, has contributed to the result. It was not so
with Harper. He honoured his father and his mother, and he was wont to
attribute to what he inherited by birth, by training, and by example
from them, all that made for what was worthiest and best in his life.
_COLLEGE AND AFTER_
Colleges and universities afford the opportunity for the attainment
of a measure of self-knowledge, self-reliance and self-development,
which in the home is often apt to come too slowly, and, learned at
first hand with the world, is bought frequently at the price of an
experience which dwarfs, if it does not altogether destroy, some
of the finer fruits of those essential qualities of manhood. It is
not what is gained in knowledge of books, but in knowledge of self,
of limitations and powers and capacities; in what is acquired of
habits of self-discipline and application, of methods of thought and
research, that a college or university renders its truest service to
its students; as it is by the love of truth and learning which it
instils, rather than by the honours and degrees which it confers, that
a university puts its stamp upon the graduates it sends out into the
world.
It may be that for many men four years of undergraduate life are not
sufficient to make a college impress deep, or, to appearances, lasting;
but if in any measure it is real, that influence must tell, not only
on the years immediately succeeding, but through the whole of life.
The first fruits of a college education are more likely to be revealed
in the attitude of mind towards the problems of life, as these present
themselves when academic halls are vacated, than in any immediate
accomplishment. A consciousness of capacity without opportunity may be,
and is too often, the first inheritance of many a man, whose intellect
has been stimulated and whose zeal has been intensified by association
with his fellows in the numerous relationships which undergraduate life
affords, but who finds in the world a less ordered and less congenial
arrangement. Probably for most men, the years immediately following
the attainment of their academic or professional degrees are the most
critical, if not also the most painful, years of their lives.
To this phase of post-graduate experience Harper's life was no
exception, though undergraduate days were enjoyed by him to the full.
In the summer of 1891, at the age of seventeen, he matriculated at
the University of Toronto, from the Barrie Collegiate Institute,
and he graduated from the university in June, 1895. He was, during
the last three years of his undergraduate course, an honour student
in the department of Political Science, and the class lists show
that in the work of this department, especially in the subjects of
political economy and political philosophy, he held a high place. His
contemporaries at the university will always remember him as a man who
entered in a whole-hearted way into what may be spoken of as the larger
life of the university. He was a prominent member of the Literary and
Scientific Society, and of his class society, and was always certain to
be found an active participant in those events or movements of general
interest with which undergraduate life at a large university abounds.
While he was fond of books and might have been termed, at least during
the latter half of each year, a conscientious student, it is doubtful
if he did not get quite as much as, or more, out of association with
his fellows, and from sharing in the spontaneous life of the college,
than he did from the lecture room. A characteristic which distinguished
him was a readiness to carry on with enthusiasm whatever he undertook,
and this, combined with a nature intensely loyal to cause or friend,
made him a strong man among men, and one whose support was sought
because it could be counted upon. On the whole his disposition was
social rather than individual, and his interests were diversified
rather than particular. He was saved from the possible inimical effects
of such a nature by an earnestness of purpose which kept him true to
his responsibilities, while there can be little doubt that from it, in
the broadening of his sympathies and in the understanding of men and
their ways, he gained much which was of infinite service to him in
after years.
Measured by the standard of growth already hinted at, Harper may
be said to have left the university with a consciousness that he
was fitted by talent and inclination for work in some branch of the
so-called higher professions, that it was in connection with the
general, rather than the more exclusive, interests of society that
his energies would find their freest play, and that not by theories,
but by men, he could hope to be permanently attracted. He had already
learned that he was capable of serious and sustained effort, and likely
to find in work a satisfaction of his best desires; and he must have
known that in his nature were possibilities of the noblest expressions
of disinterested action. It was natural, therefore, that having made
no definite choice of a future profession at the time of graduation,
and having engaged temporarily in agency work which was not to his
liking, and towards which from the start he had not entertained any
serious intentions, he should have found much that tried his patience
severely, and at times caused him to experience periods of the most
genuine depression. Fruitless attempts to obtain a start in journalism
added for a while to his discouragements, so that the year and a half
which followed graduation, though characterized by anything other than
neglect or indifference, and, as a matter of fact, made the occasion
of an opportunity for increased reading and the preparation of a
thesis which secured him a Master's degree from the university, was
nevertheless, so far as he could see at the time, to be remembered as
of adversity rather than as of advance. In reality it was a testing
time, and it served to prove the man.
In the pages of the journal which Harper commenced shortly after
graduation, it is possible to discern the attitude of mind which he
had towards the problem of life, as he thus encountered it upon the
threshold. Revealing as they do the qualities of inherent worth in
him who wrote them, these pages are deserving of more than passing
reference. Two characteristics they clearly disclose, a fearless
integrity of heart and mind, and a disposition to philosophize,
underlying each of which is a constant purpose of self-improvement, and
a more than accepted belief in a definite moral order, and the ultimate
triumph of right. Unconsciously he summed up the whole in the first
paragraph he wrote:
"I am writing this record of my thoughts and actions in order
that I may be better able to understand myself; to improve in
that wherein I find myself wanting, and that some day I may be
able to look back and find a rule of development or perhaps of
life, with its assistance. I shall endeavour to be at least
honest with myself, and hope that the use of this book may help
me occasionally, to sever myself mentally from the associations
of the world and retire within myself. My hope is that some day I
may be able to become acquainted with my own individuality, and
discover what is the first essential and object of my existence.
"I have not as yet settled upon a course in life. Several
weapons lie before me which might be of use in the conflict
with the world, and with all of which I feel that I might
soon familiarize myself. Which will enable me to achieve the
greatest success? And by what standard shall I measure that
success so as to discover whether it is real and after all worth
striving for? Shall it be law, the ministry, a business career,
or journalism, or what? At one time I lean in one direction,
and again in another. The result is an unsettled frame of mind
which cannot be healthy, and which compels me to be constantly
before the bar of my own judgment. I find that the old idea
of 'individual aptitude' means less than I formerly believed.
One finds many specialized avocations before one, and it is a
question of fashioning one's self to suit one of them. Whether
it be that the chosen profession does not employ all one's
faculties, or requires more than one possesses, a certain amount
of dissatisfaction is, I think, bound to result. It is necessary
that a man be a philosopher, as well as a lawyer, or a carpenter,
as the case may be, if he is to be happy. I flatter myself that
I have a fair education (although I regret that I have not drawn
from it as much as I might and should have), and some slight
knowledge of men and their ways, but my choice is limited to
those callings which do not require a considerable initial
capital. At the moment my leanings are towards journalism as most
likely to give me self-satisfaction, and to aid me in the study
of mankind--man."
And again,
"As to myself, during the past week or two, the spirit of unrest,
to which I have referred as characteristic of my mind, has been
intensified in proportion as I have withdrawn myself more and
more from the insurance business. One thought is ever staring me
in the face. It is the question which has been before me for so
long. What are you going to do? I shall certainly have to 'make a
break' before long, since the state of affairs is preying upon my
mind and upon my ambition and self-esteem. To-night we have some
friends coming in, a minister from the country and his wife. They
will probably ask me what am I going to do? I am sick of that
question."
And on the first of January, 1897,
"For over three months I have not made a single entry in this
book, and this for the reason that I have had little that is
hopeful or pleasant to write about. I have been in constant
dread of the effect upon my mind of the forced inactivity to
which I am subject, for the uncongenial work at which I have been
plodding away has been of little use as an intellectual training.
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. Some of many too hastily conceived ideas have been
swept away, and withal, sympathies have been aroused within me
which might never have come to me under other circumstances.
Furthermore, the fact that the time when I must enter the
struggle for existence on my own behalf has been postponed, has
led me to think less and less of the mean dishonest methods which
are so generally adopted by some of our so-called successful men
and used as a means of reaching their petty successes. The fact
that these opinions had been forced upon me, may, it is true,
prevent me from ever being what the world considers a successful
man, but if the moral stamina is within me I hope they will
enable me to realize the high ideal of my existence.
"But now as to the thoughts which the New Year brings with it.
Last night as I listened to the tolling of the midnight bell at
the Church of England, as it rang out the old year and rang in
the new, the future was none too encouraging to me. It was with a
feeling of bitterness that I took out a note-book and wrote the
words, 'January 1, 1897, and still on the market.' But as I sit
now and gaze into the future, I think I was a little unfair. I
have been filling a position of usefulness to a degree. I do not
think I have lost in moral force, while I think I have gained in
knowledge and love of my fellow men; while the fact that I have
been compelled to drop some ideas which I have held has proven to
me both that my tendency is towards an honest desire for truth,
and that I have still much to learn. I look forward to the coming
year with hope, although I have still much of the bitter feeling
which has been preying upon me all year, causing me many wakeful
nights and forcing me to call out at times when the feeling was
intensified, that, with Burke, mine was a case of '_Nitor in
adversum_.'
"One thing more. Although for years my mind has had a decidedly
sceptical tone in matters of religion, I feel that in the
past year I have come more into sympathy with the work of our
religious bodies. This is no doubt largely due to a sympathy
with the ends which they have in view, but probably, also, in
great measure to my growing belief in God, although my idea of
the Deity is more correctly expressed in the words of Matthew
Arnold than in some of the accepted creeds. For all these things
I feel grateful, and my greatest hope as I sat in the church
during the first moments of the New Year was--my greatest hope as
I write these words is, that I may have the inclination and the
power to cut off from my life those things which tend to make it
less beautiful, less good, and less useful, and that, if living
when the bells toll in the New Year of 1898, I may be able to
recognize in myself a better, a stronger and a purer man."
Though it has been left to others to trace through the pages of his
diary the rule of development and of life therein disclosed, it will
hardly be said that the first hope expressed was denied, and that
Harper did not realize, even in the brief day he was allowed, "the
first essential and object of his existence."
_THE DAY'S WORK_
For some time before opportunity came to engage in journalism, Harper
had quite made up his mind that this was the profession which he could
follow with most satisfaction to himself, and greatest good to others,
and he sought every means to secure a connection with a newspaper
in one of the cities. "It would seem," he writes, after some months
of searching, "that newspaper work is like most other things--it is
difficult to get a start at. My experience is that it is exceptionally
so. I have accepted the disappointment philosophically, and I am trying
to make a good use of my time until an opening presents itself, and
I am keeping my eyes open for one." At last, in February of 1897, a
temporary vacancy on the staff of the London _Advertiser_ afforded
an opening, and though he had promise of employment for not more
than a few weeks, and knew for a certainty that it could not extend
beyond a month or two at the most, he gladly seized the opportunity.
There was a chance, at least, to test the field and to prove himself.
He accordingly left Barrie for London to begin as a reporter on the
_Advertiser_, and from that time, for the remainder of his life, there
were to be found no moments of "forced inactivity," or "comparative
idleness," but the whole was one unbroken stretch of the most tireless
putting forth of energy, the most continuous and sustained activity and
zeal.
The weeks on the _Advertiser_ were followed by a few months on the
London _News_. In October, 1897, an opening came on the Toronto _Mail
and Empire_, and Harper joined the staff of that journal. In London,
his duties had been those of a general reporter; in Toronto, they were
at first the same, though with larger opportunities. His abilities,
however, caused him soon to be singled out for the larger and more
special assignments, and in this way he was brought into active touch
with two important branches of public affairs. As city hall reporter he
had to do for a time with municipal politics and administration, and,
as reporter of the proceedings of the Legislative Assembly of Ontario,
he was brought into similar relationship with provincial affairs.
An appointment on the staff of the Montreal _Herald_ in February,
1899, gave him the opportunity of still wider experience and further
advancement. He was part of the time the city editor of that daily, and
part of the time its representative and correspondent at Ottawa. Both
positions afforded him opportunity of a closer intimacy with the public
affairs of the Dominion, and as, throughout his entire connection
with the _Herald_, he was a contributor to its editorial columns, he
had commenced to help at least to shape and direct public opinion in
matters of national concern.
After the establishment of the Department of Labour by the Dominion
government in the summer of 1900, Harper, in November of that year,
severed his connection with the _Herald_ to accept the position of
associate editor of the _Labour Gazette_. The department had just been
created as a new department of the government, with the _Gazette_ as
its official journal. Its policy had still to be shaped; its usefulness
to be proved. It was in part the strong bond of friendship existing
between Harper and his friend, the deputy minister of the department,
in part the opportunity of cooperation in a work undertaken primarily
on behalf of the industrial classes of Canada, and which he believed
might be made of the greatest service to the country as a whole,
that caused him to terminate his then promising career in outside
journalism, and to share with his friend the fortunes of the civil
service in a work to which they were both prepared to devote their
lives. In addition to being engaged on the _Gazette_, Harper actively
cooperated in the management and administration of the affairs of the
department, and acted as the deputy minister of the department when
the latter was absent on official duties elsewhere. He was acting as
deputy minister of labour at the time of his death.
During the entire period he was engaged in journalism, Harper had not,
with the exception of a brief vacation of one or two weeks, which
he devoted in part to work of another kind, a single break of any
appreciable duration in the round of continuous work. The time for
vacation, with the exception mentioned, came, in every instance, just
as a new affiliation was formed, and new duties, instead of a temporary
respite from old ones, were taken on. It is doubtful, indeed, if so
continuous a strain could have been so successfully borne, had it not
been for the period of reflection which preceded it, the joy which he
found in his work, and the purpose which he had at heart.
"I start," he wrote, on February 20, a few days before his
departure from Barrie to London, "under favourable auspices, and
I intend to make my time tell for good so far as it is in my
power. Perhaps after all it has been best for me, this year of
comparative idleness. It has at least enabled me to form certain
sober views of life, which might not have come until too late,
had I been carried from the first on the crest of fortune's wave."
And upon his arrival at London:
"On this, the evening before my first serious association with
my chosen profession, let me register the resolution which I
promised in a letter to dear old ---- last Sunday. I hope and
trust that I may hereafter be able to subdue whatever weakness
there is in my character, and there is much. I am starting here
under favourable auspices. May I not betray the trust, and may I
leave this community better for my influence during my sojourn in
it!"
After little more than a month's experience he wrote again as follows:
"I have had no cause to regret my choice of a profession. I begin
to feel the tremendous power wielded by the press in formulating
public opinion, and am in a position to build up, by reflection
upon what it is, a conception of what a newspaper should be, all
of which I trust will enable me, when the time comes, to do
my share in furthering the highest interests of the State and
mankind in general. I have come to see where the dangers which
surround the young newspaper man lie, and am endeavouring to keep
myself free from their influence."
Leaving London in October, '97, he measured his success and services in
a few brief words:
"My time here has not been lost, and, while I have fallen far
short of what I might have done, still I think that I leave the
city rather better than worse for my visit."
Measuring development by the opportunity which anniversaries afford, he
had, after a year's experience, reason to feel that progress had been
made, while at the same time he was fully conscious of what remained to
be done.
"When I look at myself now and what I was on March 1, 1897, when
I went to London to serve my apprenticeship at daily newspaper
work, I can scarcely recognize the same individual. Carelessness,
thoughtlessness and love of pleasure, I see all along the line;
but I feel that I have gained more than I have lost, and I have
learned that the only road to success is work, and close, careful
study. I have done much that I should not have done, I have
omitted much, very much, that I ought to have done. I see it and
shall try and do better."
A year later, the same earnest spirit, realizing its limitations, its
responsibilities and its opportunities, is revealed in a letter written
from the press gallery of the House of Commons at Ottawa. It refers
to his newly formed connection with the _Herald_, and is a true and
characteristic self-estimate and confession.
"Regarding the change--it is one of great moment to me. Here at
the very centre of the life of the Dominion, I see all about
me means of acquiring the knowledge and exerting the influence
which should make my life a useful one, and that, I assure you
again, is my chief aim. I am still a student, of course, and I am
made conscious of the fact from the character of the men with
whom I am associated, for they are all men of years, experience
and force of character. I appreciate the fact that I am still in
tutelage, and the training here I regard simply as preparatory
to something else--what that something else may be remains to be
seen.
"My own rule, latterly, has been to follow the course which
promises to be best in the long run, for, while not neglecting
the present, men of our years must remember that life is real,
and that we must arm ourselves for the struggle on the hither
side of thirty."
Harper was, at the time, twenty-five years of age.
_NATURE_
"That in companionship with and close study of Nature, who 'neither
hastens nor rests' but unquestioningly conforms to the order laid down
by the Creator, there lies a potent means of enrichment of character,
and an important medium of culture, I am thoroughly convinced." From
these words of Harper's diary we are enabled to gather with what degree
of insight, and to what purpose, he sought the woods and the fields,
and the freedom of "God's out of doors" whenever opportunity permitted.
From his early boyhood, few enjoyments brought him the same measure of
delight as the afternoon excursions or camping expeditions which took
him with other boys, or with his father, across the bay at Barrie, to
explore the creeks and unfrequented spots away from the haunts of men.
When after graduation his temporary employment led him for a time into
the bleak and rugged parts of Northern Ontario, he found an enjoyment
and source of instruction in this first hand contact with primitive
conditions, which, to his feelings, was the one compensation in the
pursuit of an otherwise uncongenial task. If a friend were visiting him
at his home in the summer time he was not at rest till they were off
together with horse or stick into the country, or out with canoe or
boat on the waters of the bay; and if it were winter it was still to be
out in the open, either on skates or in a sleigh, or for one of those
long tramps through the snow so invigorating and health-giving at that
season of the year. When his work permitted a choice being made between
the country and the city, he chose the former as a place of residence,
though early rising and much journeying were necessitated thereby.