To Toronto this evening for the launch of my friend George Fetherling's third novel, Walt Whitman's Secret, at Ben McNally Books.
About nostalgia(s)
6 hours ago
A JOURNEY THROUGH CANADA'S FORGOTTEN, NEGLECTED AND SUPPRESSED WRITING
T.D. MCGEE.Having been kindly invited as a member of the Mechanics' Institute some 25 years ago by the late Jeremiah O'Neill, Esq., to meet that gentleman in company of a number of our townsmen, when Mr. McGee was rising from the table the chair being new stuck to him and it being near a general election he very wittily remarked that he hoped the people of Montreal would be anxious to retain him in his seat as the people here are. We wrote the following lines at the time, the last verse was added afterwards.D'Arcy McGee,All compliment to thee,The hope of the landOn your lecture so grand.Though that is your forte,Oh give us the sportOf an hour of your chat,Then we'll laugh and grow fat.For none but the vileCould 'ere cease to smile,When near to theeSo brilliant and free.Plant of green Erin's isle,Long in Canadian soil,May you take deep rootAnd bear much noble fruit.Our hopes were in vain,Alas he is slain,By a crankish handThe flower of the land.
He does not write at stated intervals.But when some great truth startles and appalls.
Poems of James McIntyre (Ingersoll, ON: Chronicle, 1889)
MRS. MOODY.
In giving glance at various Canadian authors perhaps it would be well to commence with that early writer Mrs. Moody. She was a sister of the celebrated Agnes Strickland, author of "The Queens of England."
When this country it was woody,
Its great champion Mrs. Moody,
She showed she had both pluck and push
In her work roughing in the bush.
For there all alone she will dwell,
At time McKenzie did rebel,
Outbreak her husband strove to quell,
Her own grand struggles she doth tell.
Round bush life she threw a glory,
Pioneer renowned in story,
But her tale it is more cheering
When she wrote about the clearing.
Her other sister, Mrs. Traill*
Though eighty-six, she doth not fail;
She now is writing of wild flowers
Grown in Canada's woody bowers.
* Mrs. Traill lives near Peterboro. Mrs. Moody died in Toronto. I sent her a copy of my poems in 1885, and she thanked me through a friend as she was in feeble health at the time.
The Dusty Bookcase:A Journey Through Canada'sForgotten, Neglected, and Suppressed Writing
The Dusty Bookcase:A Journey Through Canada'sForgotten, Neglected, and Suppressed Writing
Imagine the stories Ann Coulter's little black dress could tell.I want to make it clear that I am a Christian miniskirt. That is, I go to church every Sunday. What's more, I attend an evangelical Church. Of course, I am not the only Christian miniskirt in town. There are many others who go to my church.
Though we represent a variety of colors and patterns there is one thing we have in common. We all have a way of revealing attractive thighs, especially when the legs are crossed. They tell me that's the most comfortable way to sit.
Unless I am misreading the situation we seem to make our wearers a bit self-conscious. At least the girl who wears me is always tugging at my hem. Though I am not an expert on human nature, this appears to indicate some kind of complex.
I have also noted that we miniskirts have the ability to attract a good deal of masculine attention even at church. At first I took pride in the fact that men are fascinated by my pattern and color design. However, just this morning I heard the preacher say that this was not really what the young men (some not so young) were looking at. Though I was all ears when he started to preach, "The Appeal of a Miniskirt," I was embarrassed before he was through.
My thanks to Marc Fischer of Public Collectors for the image of Pastor Hillis' tract.