Flint and Feather

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Johnson #2 in our series by E. Pauline Johnson
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Title: Flint and Feather
Author: E. Pauline Johnson
Release Date: May, 2004 [EBook #5625]
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[This file was first posted on July 25, 2002]
Edition: 10
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0. START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK FLINT AND

FEATHER ***
Etext prepared by Andrew Sly
FLINT AND FEATHER
The Complete Poems of E. Pauline Johnson
To his Royal Highness
The Duke of Connaught
Who is Head Chief
of the Six Nations Indians
I inscribe this book by his own gracious
permission
INTRODUCTION
IN MEMORIAM: PAULINE JOHNSON
I cannot say how deeply it touched me to learn that Pauline Johnson
expressed a wish on her death-bed that I, living here in the mother
country all these miles away, should write something about her. I was
not altogether surprised, however, for her letters to me had long ago
shed a golden light upon her peculiar character. She had made herself
believe, quite erroneously, that she was largely indebted to me for her
success in the literary world. The letters I had from her glowed with
this noble passion: the delusion about her indebtedness to me, in spite
of all I could say, never left her. She continued to foster and cherish
this delusion. Gratitude indeed was with her not a sentiment merely, as
with most of us, but a veritable passion. And when we consider how
rare a human trait true gratitude is--the one particular characteristic in
which the lower animals put us to shame--it can easily be imagined
how I was touched to find that this beautiful and grand Canadian girl
remained down to the very last moment of her life the impersonation of
that most precious of all virtues. I have seen much of my fellow men
and women, and I never knew but two other people who displayed
gratitude as a passion--indulged in it, I might say, as a luxury--and they
were both poets. I can give no higher praise to the "irritable genus." On
this account Pauline Johnson will always figure in my memory as one
of the noblest minded of the human race.
Circumstances made my personal knowledge of her all too slight. Our

spiritual intimacy, however, was very strong, and I hope I shall be
pardoned for saying a few words as to how our friendship began. It was
at the time of Vancouver's infancy, when the population of the beautiful
town of her final adoption was less than a twelfth of what it now is, and
less than a fiftieth part of what it is soon going to be.
In 1906 I met her during one of her tours. How well I remember it! She
was visiting London in company with Mr. McRaye--making a tour of
England--reciting Canadian poetry. And on this occasion Mr. McRaye
added to the interest of the entertainment by rendering in a perfectly
marvellous way Dr. Drummond's Habitant poems. It was in the
Steinway Hall, and the audience was enthusiastic. When, after the
performance, my wife and I went into the room behind the stage to
congratulate her, I was quite affected by the warm and affectionate
greeting that I got from her. With moist eyes she told her friends that
she owed her literary success mainly to me.
And now what does the reader suppose that I had done to win all these
signs of gratitude? I had simply alluded--briefly alluded--in the London
"Athenaeum" some years before, to her genius and her work. Never
surely was a reviewer so royally overpaid. Her allusion was to a certain
article of mine on Canadian poetry which was written in 1889, and
which she had read so assiduously that she might be said to know it by
heart: she seemed to remember every word of it.
Now that I shall never see her face again