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.