01 July 2018

Laura Salverson's 'For Canada' for Canada Day



A poem – and prayer – by Laura Salverson, from Wayside Gleams, her only collection of verse, published in 1925 by McClelland & Stewart.

For Canada 
               Grant us, O Lord, within the coming year.
               Some vision of our noble destiny... 
*  *  *  * 
               Give unto us the strength to face anew
               Adversity and sorrows... or again
               Good fortune, with that valiant humbleness
               Which ever marks a depth of inward grace;
               Grant us, we pray, sincere, courageous hearts.
               Wide sympathies, with minds that seek to see
               In giving joy, and pride in honest toil,
               In beauty, truth, and good for all mankind;
               For every race, for every land, we pray;
               Lift them, O God, from out enthralling thought
               And prejudice, that they, directing, find
               Thy presence manifest on land and sea.
               But last, O Lord, for this is our Canada
               We crave Thy blessing and eternal aid;
               Keep her fair soul unflinching, aye, and true
               That she, among the nations, may arise.
               Made string with the greatness from the fount within,
               Imbued with love that knows not any death,
               This gracious land, so young, so little tried.
               O'er-shadow her with Thy own righteousness.
               That she may stand a New Jerusalem
               Where man, by giving much, may gather more;
               Where thy same speech and creed of kindliness
               At last take root to flourish far and wide,
               Till thereon in very truth become
               The citadel of justice on earth.  
*  *  *  * 
               Grant us, O Lord, within the coming year,
               The vision of our final destiny —
               A nation worthy of her ancient dead —
               A fabric perfected from deathless dreams.
In 2014, I bought this first and only edition of Wayside Gleams for one dollar. The dust jacket features an advert for eight other McClelland & Stewart books.



I haven't read one.

How 'bout you?


Related posts:

25 June 2018

The Dustiest Bookcase: E is for Eaton


Short pieces on books I've always meant to review (but haven't).
They're in storage as we build our new home.
Patience, please.

Memory's Wall
Flora McCrae Eaton
Toronto: Clarke Irwin, 1956
213 pages

The Bombardier Guide to Canadian Authors places Flora McCrae Eaton as second only to Malcolm Frye. Both writers transcend the boundaries of our literature: Frye rates 6½ out of a possible five skidoos, while Lady Eaton is an even six. According to the Guide, Morley Callaghan is a third the writer she is, and yet I've never read Lady Eaton's work.


Memory's Wall was Flora McCrae Eaton's second and last book. The first, Rippling Rivers: My Diary of a Camping Holiday, was published in 1920 by the T. Eaton Company, the department store headed by husband Sir John Craig Eaton. That just two books propelled her to such heights in the Bombardier Guide speaks to her talent.

Before moving to St Marys, Ontario, our home these past ten years, I'd never seen a copy of Memory's Wall. They're not at all uncommon in this small town. My copy, purchased four blocks down the street, set me back a dollar.

It's signed.


The Eatons were once prominent in St Marys; Lady Eaton's father-in law, Timothy, had a store on Queen Street, as did his brother Robert. They stand with celebrated violinist Nora Clench (Lady Streeton) and Arthur Meighen as the town's most famous residents. The latter, our ninth prime minister, provided a forward to Memory's Wall.

It begins: "This book is truly a Canadian product." 

That's as far as I've made it.

Related posts:

24 June 2018

Root Beer for a Sober Fête de la St-Jean Baptiste



The visage of Louis-Joseph-Paul-Napoléon Bruchési, Italian-Canadian Archbishop of Montreal, dominates the first page of this 1898 Souvenir de la fête de la St-Jean Baptiste, but the most prominent spot belongs to the English firm of Newball & Mason, which placed this ad at the very top of the front cover:


I'd long been aware that root beer was once promoted by teetotals – Hires sold it as the "temperance drink for temperance people" – but had never seen the beverage described as the "Biere de Temperance."

Don't like root beer? Newball & Mason had other drinks to lure one away from that ol' demon alcohol: botanic beer, hop ale, ginger beer, ginger ale, horehound beer, and Devonshire Cider were just six.

Looking through the many ads in the Souvenir, I see no other teetotals.


Newball & Mason's address – 943 St-Laurent – was razed in the 'seventies to make way from the Ville-Marie Expressway. I'm betting the Nottingham, Angleterre firm had long since vacated the building.

Bonne fête!

Related posts:

18 June 2018

The Dustiest Bookcase: D is for Daniells


Short pieces on books I've always meant to review (but haven't).
They're in storage as we build our new home.
Patience, please.

Deeper Into the Forest
Roy Daniells
Toronto: McClelland & Stewart, 1948
72 pages

A thing of beauty, and so a joy forever, I bought my pristine copy of Deeper Into the Forest three years ago for fifteen dollars. That price – less than a can of President's Choice coffee – speaks ill of this country's recognition of its literature.

But who am I to judge? I still haven't read Daniells' collection.

Deeper Into the Forest holds the distinction of being the very first Indian File Book, a series that would include three Governor General's Award-winners: James Reaney's The Red Heart (1949), James Wreford Watson's Of Time and the Lover (1950), and P.K. Page's The Metal and the Flower (1956). The ninth and last last Indian File Book, John Glassco's The Deficit Made Flesh (1958), is the one I know the best. For a time, Leonard Cohen's The Spice Box of Earth was under consideration as the tenth title.


Indian File Books had uniform dust jackets; the series name had to do with the boards hidden underneath each. All nine were adaptations of designs by "West Coast and Plains Indians" by WASP Torontonian Paul Arthur.

Deeper Into the Forest
Roy Daniells

Of Time and the Lover
James Wreford Watson

The Deficit Made Flesh
John Glassco

Cultural appropriation, of course.

Did anyone notice?

Indian File Books had print runs of 400 copies.

The bulk of Glassco's were remaindered for 29¢.

Hardly anyone pays them notice now.


Related post: