a very vigorous campaign. In June and July Sir Wilfrid faced much pain. A visit to Senator Casgrain's home at Val Morin and to Sydney Fisher's Alva Farm, restored something of his strength, but every exertion left him exhausted; he would nod in conference, fumble for a word. Yet his wonderful memory for men at least had not yet failed him. As he was sailing down Lake Memphremagog, in a little steamer, an old man came aboard from a wayside port, passed along the gangway, halted, to be greeted by a sharp glance from Sir Wilfrid, the glad uttering of his name, a warm handclasp, and a lively exchange of reminiscences. It was a friend of law-student days whom he had not seen for fifty years, and yet through all the disguises of age and time he had instantly recalled him.

Well or ill, Sir Wilfrid never lost interest in books, and particularly in books bearing on Canadian life; a letter to a young friend in these months is typical:

(Wilfrid Laurier to Léon Mercier Gouin.-Translation) Ottawa, September 8, 1918.

MY DEAR LEON:

Yes, I know quite well Louis Hémon's "Marie Chapdelaine," the first and unfortunately the last work of that young author too soon taken from us. As I was taking the train at Quebec one day to return to Ottawa, an enthusiastic friend put it in my hands. I read it through at a sitting, at first from curiosity, and then with growing interest.

It is a very thorough psychological study of the life of our pioneers and settlers.

The opening pages are very vivid and very true to life. The worshipping assembly scattering after the "Ite Missa est"; the hubbub at the church door; the interjections, the sallies full

of wit and malice, all that is closely observed and well described.

The characters are excellently drawn. Father Chapdelaine, eager not so much to farm as to clear the ground and make a farm; Mother Chapdelaine who would have liked to live out her whole reign in the old parishes; François Paradis, brave in toil as in peril, at once adventurous and calculating; Marie Chapdelaine, strong and valiant, all these characters have lived; all are clearly types which the author has met and has studied from the life.

Might I, however, make a further comment? Hémon has not been as fortunate in grasping the spirit of all this sturdy folk. He pictures them as striving, but striving joylessly, with a sort of resigned but sombre fatalism, to snatch from the soil a wretched existence, regretting their lot and yet persisting in it.

That is not the attitude of the settlers who attack our forests, not from necessity but from choice; for proof, Samuel Chapdelaine himself.

In

Beyond doubt, the labour is hard and it must be unceasing. The soil, in our northern climes, is not as lavish as in the lands of the sun, but it responds freely to labour and effort. the humble settler's hut, his log cabin, one must not look for the abundant comfort of the old parishes, but there are always bread in the pantry, pork in the salting-tub, warmth and gaiety at the fireside.

All these pioneers, it is true, love to dwell on the obstacles they have to surmount and to exaggerate the rudeness of their life. Odilon Desbois, a settler whom I knew very well in Arthabaska, said one day in my presence: "I am on the eleventh range of Trigwick, far from bread, behind the meat." That is the invariable story of our people; they are pleased to cry poverty and famine. Hémon should have remembered that "the Frenchman born a grouser" remains a grouser.

With this reservation, and it is the only one, Hémon's book remains a work of worth and beauty.

You have piqued my curiosity with the photograph you have sent me, and for which please accept my thanks. Some day

you must explain to me all the people in the group. It is not enough that you have marked Hémon and Chapdelaine; there is in this photograph a whole story which I should be happy to learn.

I should have liked to reply immediately to your last letter, but at that time I was absolutely incapable of writing a letter or even of dictating it. I was then absolutely without strength; my strength had failed me at a stroke, and it has taken weeks to pull me together. Heaven be thanked, I am myself again. You will lose nothing by delay: some fine day I shall send you a reply to your heresies [on federalism]. My best wishes to your gracious little wife.

Your devoted friend,

W. L.

During the winter Sir Wilfrid's strength seemed to revive. His speeches at meetings of the newly formed Western Ontario Liberal Association, at London in November and the Eastern Ontario Association in Ottawa in January were vigorous and in his best vein. He concluded his London address to the Young Liberals with the memorable words:

As for you who stand today on the threshold of life, with a long horizon open before you for a long career of usefulness to your native land, if you will permit me, after a long life, I shall remind you that already many problems rise before you: problems of race division, problems of creed differences, problems of economic conflict, problems of national duty and national aspiration. Let me tell you that for the solution of these problems you have a safe guide, an unfailing light, if you remember that faith is better than doubt and love is better than hate.

Banish doubt and hate from your life. Let your souls be ever open to the promptings of faith and the gentle influence of brotherly love. Be adamant against the haughty, be gentle and kind to the weak. Let your aim and purpose, in good report or ill, in victory or defeat, be so to live, so to strive, so

to serve as to do your part to raise ever higher the standard of life and of living.

Next

Yet force was failing fast, and it was only his strong will that enabled him to persist in the preparations for the second session, which was to open on February 20, 1921. On the preceding Saturday he attended a Canadian Club luncheon, going on to his office in the Victoria Museum. While alone in his inner rooms, he had a slight stroke of paralysis and fell, injuring his head slightly. Recovering, he showed his characteristic dislike of fuss by saying nothing of it to those about him, and going home in the street car rather than have his motor sent for earlier than the usual hour. morning, as he was dressing for church, a second stroke came. He rallied slightly, but lapsed into unconsciousness at midnight. The end came at three on Monday afternoon. A pressure from his hand to the hand of the companion of his life beside him and the whispered words, "C'est fini," were the only signs of consciousness in his last hours. Then came a week of a nation's mourning, the thronging to Ottawa of vast crowds of sorrowing pilgrims, the tribute of parliament, voiced feelingly by Sir Thomas White and Rodolphe Lemieux, the thousands of messages of sympathy and tribute from King and cottager, the State funeral, the solemn services in the Basilica with orations in French by Mgr. Mathieu and in English by Father Burke, and the laying to rest in the cemetry of Notre-Dame. Wilfrid Laurier's body had gone back to the soil of his native land and his memory had become its abiding heritage.

APPENDIX I

Translation

CONTRACT OF MARRIAGE BETWEEN FRANÇOIS COTTINEAU, CALLED CHAMPLAURIÉ AND MAGDELAINE MILLOTS

1676 August 24th

Before Benigne Basset, King's Notary, of the Island of Montreal in New France, and the undersigned witnesses, appeared François Cottineau called Champlaurié, resident of the Seigneurie of La Chesnaye, at present living in this city of Montreal, son of the late Jean Cottineau, formerly a vinegrower of the borough of St. Clou, near La Rochefoucaut of the diocese of Angoulesme, and of Jeanne Dupuis, his father and mother, on the one part, and Magdelaine Millots, daughter of Jacques Millots, resident of the said city of Montreal, and of Jeanne Hébert, her father and mother, on the other part. These parties, in the presence and with the consent of their parents and friends, for this purpose assembled for both parties, namely, for the said François Cottineau, Seraphin Marganne, Esquire, Sieur de la Valtrye, Lieutenant in the Carignan Regiment, Pierre Perthuy called La Line, resident of the said city of Montreal, and Bernard Mercier called La Fontaine, resident of the said seigniory of La Chesnaye; and for the said Magdelaine Millots, the said Jacques Millots and Jeanne Hébert, her father and mother, Robert le Cavellier called Deslauriers, and Adrianne du Vivier, her grandfather and grandmother, Sieur Antoine Forestier, her uncle, representing Marie Magdelaine Cavelier, his wife and maternal aunt of the said Magdelaine Millots, Ignace Hébert, her uncle, Jean Baptiste Le Cavelier, her uncle on the maternal side; Philippes de Carion, Esquire, Sieur du Fresnoye, Lieutenant of a Company of Infantry in the L'Estrade Regiment, Paul Maurel, Esquire, Ensign in the same Regiment, Sieur Abraham Bouat, Nicolas Hubert, Master Tailor, Pierre Caillé, Sieur de la Rochelle, also Master Tailor, Sieur Gilles Lauson, Master Copper-smith, Urbain Geté, farmer, Jacques Hubert, also a farmer, Guillaume Gourany, Antoine Brunel, all living in the said city of Montreal; they avowed and confessed having made and agreed in the articles and promise of marriage which follow: that is, the said François Cottineau has promised to take the said Magdelaine Millots as his wife and spouse, and likewise the said Magdelaine Millots has promised to take the said François Cottineau as her husband and spouse, and to make and solemnise marriage in the faith of the Holy Catholic and Apostolic Church of Rome as soon as may be, and as will be advised and determined among them, their parents and friends, if God and our Holy Mother Church consent and agree thereto, and according to the Custom of Paris to be one and common in all goods movable and immovable owned and acquired.

They will not be bound by the debts and mortgages of one another made and created before the solemnization of their marriage; those of the future, if any there are, will be paid and acquitted by the person who