Arthur Stringer Under the Influence

Emmeline

Arthur J. Stringer

The Canadian Magazine, vol. XVII, no. 3 (July 1901)

Something less than not much of anything, the plot of this early Arthur Stringer story is simple. A middle-aged man marries a young beauty. The young beauty loses her baby and becomes depressed. Work calls her husband away and a young man aims to fill the void. Gossip grows. The climax occurs after the husband's return. Loggers both, the husband and aspiring paramour disappear in the drink while trying to clear a log jam; only the older man survives. "W'ere is he? W'ere is he?" screams the young beauty. Told that "he" is dead, she poisons herself. The gentle twist comes with the revelation that – gossip be damned – the young wife had remained true; she poisoned herself thinking that it was her husband who'd been killed.

Far from Shakespeare – though something might be owed Romeo and Juliet – I was surprised to discover that so slight a story went on to be reprinted throughout the English-speaking world.

I think that language had everything to do with its considerable commercial success. You see, the description of our heroine as a "young beauty" is mine. Stringer's narrator has her as "de mos' pretty girl on all de Reever, wit' cheeks lak de peach-blossom, an' de hair w'at she braid alms' down to de knee." Her husband – Patrice Gérin – is a "qui't feller" who "try hard to make some plaisurement for hees young wife an' always mos' kind wit' her." And the unfortunate man who tried to break up their marriage? He wasn't such a bad sort; one cannot fault him for "fall in loaf wit' Emmeline."

With "Emmeline", the ever-savvy Stringer sees and seizes the poetry of William Henry Drummond to produce profitable prose. Clever. In 1901, Dr Drummond was our best-selling writer; his distinctive dialectic verse sold in the tens of thousands. It had been that way ever since his debut, The Habitant and Other French Canadian Poems, arrived in bookstores four years earlier. Nineteen-aught-one saw the publication of Drummond's second biggest selling book, Johnnie Courteau and Other Poems. 

Who was de man can walk de log
W'en w'ole of de reever she's black wit' fog
An' carry de beeges' load on hees back?

Johnnie  Courteau! 

Johnnie, meet Patrice. He's a good man, though he doesn't have your skill in walk de log.

Dr. Drummond's Curious St. Patrick's Day Poem

The Quebec Saturday Budget, 2 April 1892

"He only Wore a Shamrock" 

He only wore a shamrock
On his faithful Irish breast,
Maybe a gift from his colleen one,
The maiden whom he loved best;
But the emblem of dear old Ireland,
Tho' worn on a jacket of red,
Was the emblem of rank disloyalty,
And treason most foul, they said. 

Had he but borne the heather,
That grows on the Scottish hills,
A rose from an English garden,
Or a leek from the Cambrian rills,
Then he might summon his comrades,
With trumpet, and fife, and drum.
And march through the breadth of England,
Till trumpet and fife were dumb.
But he only wore a shamrock,
And tho' Britain's most gracious Queen
Had pinned her cross on his bosom,
Yet the little trefoil of green
Might not nestle down beside it,
For the color, alas! was banned,
And the Celtic soldier was made to feel
That he trod an alien land.

Oh! poor little modest symbol,
Of the glorious Trinity,
Rather bloom on your native hill-side,
Than cross the dark Irish sea;
Rather rest on the loving bosom,
Of the Mother that gave you birth,
For even your virtues can't chasten
The ungrateful English earth.

Atypical verse from William Henry Drummond, the poet we prefer to forget, "He only Wore a Shamrock" was inspired by an incident in which an Irish soldier in the British Army was punished for refusing to remove a shamrock from his non-dress uniform. We know this because the poet tells us much in an appended note that credits an anonymous headline writer for giving his poem its title:

Here's the thing: On 18 March 1894, a Sunday, there was no edition of the Gazette. While it's tempting to think that Drummond merely misremembered the year – the incident in question having taken place on  St Patrick's Day 1892 – there's no such heading in the 18 March 1892 edition. In fact, it wasn't until the next day that the story was broken by the Daily News. Despite dogged detective work, the Gazette heading has eluded me.

I'm not sure what to make of the  awkwardly composed quote. A sub-heading? Drummond's own words? In either case, it's all wrong. According to Hansard, Private O'Grady's bit 'o green was stuck not in a buttonhole, but his glengarry cap. More importantly, O'Grady was not court marshalled, but was received a punishment of 48 hours of hard labour.

William Henry Drummond, physician, poet and poor historian? Or is this just a case of poetic licence spilling over onto an explanatory note?

Our Embarrassing Poet Reconsidered

Just over a century ago, he was the toast of Montreal. His poetry collections sold tens of thousands of copies; two universities gave him an honorary degree; the Royal Society of Literature elected him a member. He travelled across the United States, Canada and Britain, lecturing before admiring crowds. In 1907, when he died of a stroke just before his 53rd birthday, his reputation seemed assured.

Today almost nobody reads William Henry Drummond. In the literary world, he's close to an embarrassment.

So begins a very fine piece by my pal Mark Abley, published in yesterday's Gazette – available online here.

Mark is spot on in writing that almost nobody reads Dr Drummond today. I don't; in fact, I've never read a single poem by the man. Strange this, because his The Habitant and Other French-Canadian Poems was one of only four books of Canadian verse present in my childhood home. I took it with me to university, thinking that at some point I might have to read a poem or two by this once popular poet. Never happened – his name wasn't so much as mentioned.

I've been carrying The Habitant with me ever since. A first edition, published in 1897 by G.P. Putnam's Sons, it once belonged to A. Berenice Hunt (née Coslett), who was a neighbour of my father when he was growing up on Pointe Claire's Claremont Avenue. It's pretty clear that Mrs Hunt was a fan of Drummond. Found within the book's leaves are numerous newspaper clippings of the doctor's verse, all dating from the early years of the last century. Added into the mix is something called "Lac Felice" credited to Joe Picard.

I've not been able to find out anything about M Picard, nor have I been able to track down any more of his verse, but I think it safe to say that Drummond was an influence. Did the doctor's reach extend even farther? Louis Dudek thought so, writing in his Selected Essays and Criticism that the poet "loosened the straightjacket of literary puritanism and made it possible to free language for the expression of real life and human character."

Drummond might be worth a second look... or, in my case, a first.