s were not uncommon down to
comparatively recent years. Tatonkanazin the Dahcota, Sapo-Maxika
the Blackfoot, Atakakoop the Cree, not to speak of Yellow Quill
and others, were noted in their day for their noble features and
dignified deportment.

In our history the Indians hold an honoured place, and the average
reader need not be told that, at one time, their services were
essential to Canada. They appreciated British justice, and their
greatest nations produced great men, who, in the hour of need,
helped materially to preserve our independence. They failed,
however, for manifest reasons, to maintain their own. They had to
yield; but, before quitting the stage, they left behind them an
abiding memory, and an undying tradition. And, thus, "Romanticism,"
which will hold its own despite its hostile critics, is their
debtor. Their closeness to nature, their picturesque life in the
past, their mythical religion, social system and fateful history
have begot one of the wide world's "legends," an ideal not wholly
imaginary, which, as a counterpoise to Realism, our literature
needs, and probably never shall outgrow.

These references to the Indian character may seem too extended for
their place, yet they are genre to the writer's subject. For Miss
Johnson's mentality was moulded by descent, by ample knowledge of
her people's history, admiration of their character, and profound
interest in their fate.

Hence the oncoming into the field of letters of a real Indian poet
had a significance which, aided by its novelty, was immediately
appreciated by all that was best in Canadian culture. Hence, too,
and by reason of its strength, her work at once took its fitting
place without jar or hindrance; for there are few educated Canadians
who do not possess, in some measure, that aboriginal, historic sense
which was the very atmosphere of Pauline Johnson's being.

But while "the Indian" was never far from her thoughts, she was a
poet, and therefore inevitably winged her way into the world of
art, into the realm common to all countries, and to all peoples.
Here there was room for her imaginings, endowed, as she was, with
power to appeal to the heart, with refinement, delicacy, pathos,
and, above all, sincerity; an Idealist who fused the inner and the
outer world, and revelled in the unification of scenery and mind.

The delight of genius in the act of composition has been called the
keenest of intellectual pleasures; and this was the p