But if Canada can point to some creditable achievement of recent
years in history, poetry and essay-writing--for I think if one looks
from time to time at the leading magazines and reviews of the two
continents he will find that Canada is fairly well represented in their
pages[44]--there is one respect in which Canadians have never won any
marked success, and that is in the novel or romance. "Wacousta, or
the Prophecy: a Tale of the Canadas," was written sixty years ago by
Major John Richardson,[45_a_] a native Canadian, but it was at the
best a spirited imitation of Cooper, and has not retained the interest
it attracted at a time when the American novelist had created a taste
for exaggerated pictures of Indian life and forest scenery. Of course
attempts have been made time and again by other English Canadians to
describe episodes of our history, and portray some of our national and
social characteristics, but with the single exception of "The Golden
Dog,"[45] written a few years ago by Mr. William Kirby, of Niagara, I
cannot point to one which shows much imaginative or literary skill.
If we except the historical romance by Mr. Marmette, "François de
Bienville,"[46] which has had several editions, French Canada is even
weak in this particular, and this is the more surprising because there
is abundance of material for the novelist or writer of romance in her
peculiar society and institutions, and in her historic annals and
traditions. But as yet neither a Cooper, nor an Irving, nor a Hawthorne
has appeared to delight Canadians in the fruitful field of fiction that
their country offers to the pen of imaginative genius. It is true we
have a work by De Gaspé, "Les Anciens Canadiens,"[47] which has been
translated by Roberts and one or two others, but it has rather the
value of historical annals than the spirit and form of true romance.
It is the very poverty of our production in what ought to be a rich
source of literary inspiration, French Canadian life and history, that
has given currency to a work whose signal merit is its simplicity of
style and adherence to historical fact. As Parkman many years ago first
commenced to illumine the too often dull pages of Canadian history,
so other American writers have also ventured in the still fresh field
of literary effort that romance offers to the industrious, inventive
brain. In the "Romance of Dollard," "Tonty," and the "Lady of Fort St.
John," Mrs. Mary Hartwell Catherwood has recalled most interesting
episodes of our past annals with admirable literary taste and a deep
enthusiasm for Canadian history in its romantic and picturesque
aspects.[48] When we read Conan Doyle's "Refugees"--the best historical
novel that has appeared from the English Press for years--we may well
regret that it is not Canadian genius which has created so fascinating
a romance out of the materials that exist in the history of the
_ancien régime_. Dr. Doyle's knowledge of Canadian life and history is
obviously very superficial; but slight as it is he has used it with a
masterly skill to give Canada a part in his story--to show how closely
associated were the fortunes of the colony with the French Court,--with
the plans and intrigues of the king and his mistresses, and of the
wily ecclesiastics who made all subservient to their deep purpose. It
would seem from our failure to cultivate successfully the same popular
branch of letters that Canadians are wanting in the inventive and
imaginative faculty, and that the spirit of materialism and practical
habits, which has so long necessarily cramped literary effort in this
country, still prevents happy ventures in this direction. It is a pity
that no success has been won in this country,--as in Australia by Mrs.
Campbell Praed, "Tasma," and many others,--in the way of depicting
those characteristics of Canadian life, in the past and present, which,
when touched by the imaginative and cultured intellect, will reach the
sympathies and earn the plaudits of all classes of readers at home and
abroad. Perhaps, Mr. Gilbert Parker,[49] now a resident of London,
but a Canadian by birth, education and sympathies, will yet succeed
in his laudable ambition of giving form and vitality to the abundant
materials that exist in the Dominion, among the habitants on the old
seigneuries of the French province, in that historic past of which the
ruins still remain in Montreal and Quebec, in the Northwest with its
quarrels of adventurers in the fur trade, and in the many other sources
of inspiration that exist in this country for the true story-teller who
can invent a plot and give his creations a touch of reality, and not
that doll-like, saw-dust appearance that the vapid characters of some
Canadian stories assume from the very poverty of the imagination that
has originated them.
That imagination and humour have some existence in the Canadian
mind--though one sees little of those qualities in the press or in
public speeches, or in parliamentary debates--we can well believe
when we read "The Dodge Club Abroad," by Professor De Mille,[50] who
was cut off in the prime of his intellectual strength, or "A Social
Departure," by Sara Jeannette Duncan,[51] who, as a sequence of a trip
around the world, has given us not a dry book of travels but a story
with touches of genial humour and bright descriptions of life and
nature, and who is now following up that excellent literary effort by
promising sketches of East Indian life. A story which attracted some
attention not long since for originality of conception and ran through
several editions, "Beggars All," is written by a Miss L. Dougall, who
is said to be a member of a Montreal family, and though this book does
not deal with incidents of Canadian life it illustrates that fertility
of invention which is latent among our people and only requires a
favourable opportunity to develop itself. The best literature of this
kind is like that of France, which has the most intimate correspondence
with the social life and development of the people of the country.
"The excellence of a romance," writes Chevalier Bunsen in his critical
preface to Gustav Freytag's "Debit and Credit," "like that of an epic
or a drama, lies in the apprehension and truthful exhibition of the
course of human things.... The most vehement longing of our times
is manifestly after a faithful mirror of the present." With us, all
efforts in this direction have been most common place--hardly above the
average of "Social Notes" in the columns of Ottawa newspapers.
I do not for one depreciate the influence of good fiction on the minds
of a reading community like ours; it is inevitable that a busy people,
and especially women distracted with household cares, should always
find that relief in this branch of literature which no other reading
can give them; and if the novel has then become a necessity of the
times in which we live, at all events I hope Canadians, who may soon
venture into the field, will study the better models, endeavour to
infuse some originality into their creations and plots, and not bring
the Canadian fiction of the future to that low level to which the
school of realism in France, and in a minor degree in England and the
United States, would degrade the novel and story of every-day life.
To my mind it goes without saying that a history written with that
fidelity to original authorities, that picturesqueness of narration,
that philosophic insight into the motives and plans of statesmen, that
study and comprehension of the character and life of a people, which
should constitute the features of a great work of this class,--that
such a history has assuredly a much deeper and more useful purpose
in the culture and education of the world than any work of fiction
can possibly have even when animated by a lofty genius. Still as the
novel and romance will be written as long as a large proportion of the
world amid the cares and activities of life seeks amusement rather
than knowledge, it is for the Canadian Scott, or Hawthorne, or "George
Eliot," or Dickens of the future, to have a higher and purer aim than
the majority of novel writers of the present day, who, with a few
notable exceptions like Black, Besant, Barrie, Stephenson or Oliphant,
weary us by their dulness and lack of the imaginative and inventive
faculty, and represent rather the demands of the publishers to meet the
requirements of a public which must have its new novel as regularly as
the Scotchman must have his porridge, the Englishman his egg and toast,
and the American his ice-water.
If it were possible within the compass of this address to give a list
of the many histories, poems, essays and pamphlets that have appeared
from the Canadian press during the first quarter of a century since the
Dominion of Canada has been in existence, the number would astonish
many persons who have not followed our literary activity. Of course
the greater part of this work is ephemeral in its character and has
no special value; much of the historical work is a dreary collection
of facts and dates which shows the enterprise of school publishers
and school teachers and is generally wanting in that picturesqueness
and breadth of view which give interest to history and leave a vivid
impression on the mind of the student. Most of these pamphlets have
been written on religious, political or legal questions of the day.
Many of the poems illustrate rather the aspirations of the school boy
or maiden whose effusions generally appeared in the poet's corner
of the village newspaper. Still there are even among these mere
literary "transients" evidences of power of incisive argument and
of some literary style. In fact, all the scientific, historical and
poetical contributions of the period in question, make up quite a
library of Canadian literature. And here let me observe in passing,
some persons still suppose that _belles-lettres_, works of fiction,
poetry and criticism, alone constitute literature. The word can take
in its complete sense a very wide range, for it embraces the pamphlet
or monograph on the most abstruse scientific, or mathematical or
geographical or physical subject, as well as the political essay, the
brilliant history, or the purely imaginative poem or novel. It is not
so much the subject as the form and style which make them worthy of a
place in literature. One of the most remarkable books ever written,
the "Esprit des Lois" by Montesquieu, has won the highest place in
literature by its admirable style, and in the science of politics
by the importance of its matter. The works of Lyell, Huxley, Hunt,
Dawson, Tyndall, and Darwin owe their great value not entirely to the
scientific ideas and principles and problems there discussed, but also
to the lucidity of style in which the whole subject is presented to
the reader, whether versed or not in science. "Literature is a large
word," says Matthew Arnold,[52] discussing with Tyndall this very
subject; "it may mean everything written with letters or printed in a
book. Euclid's Elements and Newton's Principia are thus literature.
All knowledge that reaches us through books is literature. But as I
do not mean, by knowing ancient Rome, knowing merely more or less
of Latin _belles-lettres_, and taking no account of Rome's military,
and political, and legal, and administrative work in the world; and
as, by knowing ancient Greece, I understand knowing her as the giver
of Greek art, and the guide to a free and right use of reason and to
scientific methods, and the founder of our mathematics, and physics,
and astronomy, and biology, I understand knowing her as all this, and
not merely knowing certain Greek poems, and histories, and treatises
and speeches, so as to the knowledge of modern nations also. By knowing
modern nations, I mean not merely knowing their _belles-lettres_, but
knowing also what has been done by such men as Copernicus, Galileo,
Newton, Darwin." I submit this definition of literature by a great
English critic and poet who certainly knew what he was writing about,
to the studious consideration of Principal Grant who, in an address
to the Royal Society two years ago,[53] appeared to have some doubt
that much of its work could be called literature; a doubt that he
forgot for the moment actually consigned to a questionable level also
his many devious utterances and addresses on political, religious and
other questions of the day, and left him entirely out of the ranks
of _littérateurs_ and in a sort of limbo which is a world of neither
divinity, nor politics, nor letters. Taking this definition of the
bright apostle of English culture, I think Canadians can fairly claim
to have some position as a literary people even if it be a relatively
humble one, on account of the work done in history, _belles-lettres_,
political science and the sciences generally Science alone has had
in Canada for nearly half a century many votaries who have won for
themselves high distinction, as the eminent names on the list of
membership of the Royal Society since its foundation can conclusively
show. The literature of science, as studied and written by Canadians,
is remarkably comprehensive, and finds a place in every well furnished
library of the world.
The _doyen_ of science in Canada, Sir William Dawson,[54] we are
all glad to know, is still at work after a long and severe illness,
which was, no doubt, largely due to the arduous devotion of years to
education and science. It is not my intention to refer here to other
well-known names in scientific literature, but I may pause for an
instant to mention the fact that one of the earliest scientific writers
of eminence, who was a Canadian by birth and education, was Mr. Elkanah
Billings,[55] palæontologist and geologist, who contributed his first
papers to the _Citizen_ of Ottawa, then Bytown, afterwards to have
greatness thrown upon it and made the political capital of Canada.