January 1st, 1937
At twenty to seven the cab came for us. We were dressed in the best we had. Alice looked sweet in her dark prune with the ruche. I had on my black and Dede’s cameo brooch.
They are great friends of my sister’s. We have known them since we were all girls. We are Alice and Millie; they are Millie and Alice. Their Alice, our Millie are the bossy, disagreeable ones. All of us were grey haired and our hands knotted and bony. I had not been in their house for years. We sort of stepped on each other’s tails. It’s all over now; they’ve had sorrow and we’ve had sorrow and I guess we’ve forgotten all about our tails now. Dinner was good and there was lots of talking.
It was delicious to get home again, warm and peaceful in the cottage. I love this cottage more and more. It’s humble, quiet, suits my needs. I went into the studio and turned the light on two sketches I worked on today. I seem to be after something without a name. It’s to do with movement, a transcendental thing but not quite clear. People don’t know what I’m after now. How would they when it’s so misty to myself? I’ll just go straight on. Maybe it will clarify. Maybe someone else will pick up the thread where I leave off. One can’t tell what they don’t know. I wonder will Lawren understand—I doubt it.
January 2nd
Two men asked if they might come to the studio to see what I had been doing. I had to go out and post some sketches to Lawren and Hatch and so only had one hour to spare. I told Jack and John that but they came half an hour late. I brought out several canvases and sketches. They sat staring, but neither said one word. It became very embarrassing. After showing about six with no comment whatever I clapped them back to the wall and showed no more canvases. A few sketches received the same reception so I sat down and quit. It’s rude of them. Even if they had condemned it would have been easier. They are unmannerly cubs anyhow and their comments not worth registering but these things do affect an artist.
Perhaps there is nothing in my present work. I had hoped there was joy and movement. Joy and movement would not appeal to Jack. His outlook is very morbid. He likes blood and thunder. His big idea is design. He does not know and feel woods. That bunch over there in Vancouver don’t. They want design and technique and colour. The spirit passes their senses without touching. Or am I a doddering old fool weakly toddling round my grave’s brink, nearly through with “seeing”?
January 5th
It is one of our bitterest days. Everything is fighting everything else. The wind is roaring and the ground adamant. The few plants that have not dropped every leaf and gone to sleep are drooped low begging the hard, cold earth to shelter them. It says, “Nothing doing,” and relentlessly shuts down harder than ever. Everything cruel is loose, biting and battering. My cottage is moderately warm, but what of those without fuel, and the cutting winds piercing in through the cracks?
January 9th
Yesterday the pain that has come and gone intermittently for many years came and stayed, protesting at the bitter cold snap. Finally I sent for Dr. MacPherson. He diagnosed it “heart” immediately. I am not to lift or stoop or walk, not even to Alice’s. I have to rest, rest, rest and crawl “crock’s pace” to the tomb. It’s a bit of a blow but today I feel somewhat better and am trying to count up the things I can do and forget the ones I can’t. It will take some reconstruction, like learning to think in a different language. I hope my patience hangs out. I have been a roustabout from a babe, going pell-mell after what I wanted. How can I learn to shove not lift, kneel not stoop, to walk no more in the glorious woods with my sketch sack on my back?
Ah, but while my heart sits pumping furious rebellion, my soul can glide out of itself and be among the trees and the sea of growth. It can smell the damp earth. Oh the joy of a travelling soul that has learned its way about the woods! Suppose I lived always in a city and my soul only knew houses and streets! I do thank God for all the freedom I have had and the power to relive it. I will not moan in self-pity. It is going to be hard enough for Alice, with me so stodgy who had planned on being so useful to her failing sight.
January 10th
Had attacks of pain one on top of another. The whole world seemed full of pain with an extra share of it stuffed into my house and just me to cope with it. Should I send for the doctor? No, certainly not on a Sunday night! So I left undone all the things I should have done and tumbled into bed. Then I fell asleep only to wake to a fresh pile of pain. When I saw it was only 10:20 my mind was made up. The doctor’s young son answered the phone.
The doctor gave me a hypo and expected me to sleep till morning. Not me. After two hours of exquisite, rosy quiet I burst into another attack. Then came three hours’ sleep and from five o’clock on for twelve hours life was good and mean. Now as long as I am still I’m fairly happy. The doctor’s orders are “bed entirely.” Such a comic household, with me in bed, Alice and Elinor and Mrs. Hudson coming and going, Willie trotting in and out. Woo in the kitchen bombarding everyone, and the dogs evading them to sneak in on to my bed. It’s all right till they start to fight on my prone body. Then it is more than I can stand and the silly little pain grows bigger and bigger, tweaking every organ in my body.
January 15th—In hospital
Myriads of nurses fluttering about like white butterflies, sisters as dignified as pine trees, the gracious round-aboutness of them spreading and ample. One could never reach their hearts. If you crushed up close to a prime young pine it would give forth a glorious spicy sweetness, its boughs would sweep round and fold you, but always they would hold you a little aloof; so far, no further; its big branches would hold you back from its heart, though it would bathe you with fragrant sweetness. I do not know my Sister’s name but she’s beautiful and radiant. She is young and straight and serene standing there near the door. Unless you need something she will not touch you and you would never dare to put out your hand to touch her.
Outside I look into a quiet enclosure that sinks down several stories and is floored by a flat roof. It has a quiet north light such as I love and such as cats, too, like when they are sick and crave shadow. There are four stories above us on the other side of the court. The only window that shows life is a semi-private. Nurses are always passing back and forth, and there is a pink cyclamen and a primula looking out across to me. In one corner of the court over the semi-private is a square of sky, the only living, moving, free thing not held in by bricks and mortar. At first I thought the court was just dead windows and tar roof but today, first, a pale woebegone sunbeam sneaked in half-heartedly and the next time I looked snow-flakes were jiggering crazily every way. It was much more entertaining than my book. Three gulls swept over very high just as the sunbeam was going.
Out in the sunroom at the end of the hall is a canary. Throb, throb, throb purrs the note in his throat till the whole ecstasy bubbles up and over and splashes down the corridor. All night the flowers sit outside the doors and watch. One night when I came here to see someone flowers were massed outside some rooms, big groups. Gladioli and gay summer fellows seemed to see who could look most giddy and bright. Outside one door was a tiny bunch of common marigolds. I wanted to stoop and kiss the homely little bunch from someone’s own garden, their faces were so honest. When I told Alice about the marigolds she said she would be insulted if any one sent her marigolds. I have a bunch of precious January daffodils and some chrysanthemums.
I was crying when they came, the dreadful depression that follows hypos, but when I put my head down into the box something extraordinary happened to the blues. They put them on my bed table and I kept jigging the bed so that they would nod their heads at me. I crushed up a leaf and it poured out that delicious pungent chrysanthemum smell that is as strong in the leaves as in the flowers. Just above them opposite my bed is a wooden cross with a silver Christ. No matter what light is in the room it always gleams on Christ’s body, across His heart and on His feet.
January 21st
It is a drizzle of a day. I had four visitors besides Alice, and a pudding. Down flat you are a horrible prey to their kisses. Take notice, me, don’t kiss the sick.
A new doctor came to see me. He told me too much and was mad with himself. I told him I knew it before he told me and that I would not tell my own doctor that he had let it out. He patted my head like a good pup. I drowsed all day neither awake nor asleep. Now I have written letters about the dogs and the monkey. It’s like scraping on your raw heart with a dry pen. The babies in the maternity ward have not cried today and the old man across the corridor has not groaned. My nurse has quit and she who substitutes has neither years nor intelligence. I feel as helpless as a nutshell boat with no little boy with a long stick to guide it.
January 22nd
More lovely flowers came today. There were daffodils, high fellows, from a sunny young boy and violets from Mrs. Hudson, sweet-scented, modest, afraid of intruding. There were white chrysanthemums that I buried my face in a long while, from a sweet, thoughtful woman. The parson came (not my parson), and offered a little prayer for Alice and me. Alice comes every day at the same time. The door comes gently open and she steals in like moonbeams. We tell each other the happenings. It is difficult to believe that there is cold and snow and bitter slop outside. In here it’s spring, with daffodils and tulips and violets. I lie selfishly in the peace forgetting the horrible tumult of the angry nations, the floods and freezings and murders and kidnappings. The top of the chapel is just outside my window, which is always open. The sisters’ prayers pass right up past it. If I send mine out maybe they will catch up with and join the bunch.
January 23rd
My little square of sky is blue and a wash of pale sunshine illuminates the court, the grey-washed bricks and the big wasps’ nest opposite. The bird sings very gaily this morning. Someone screamed terribly early and the sisters’ singing in the chapel came up dimly. Now the Cathedral chimes have burst out. The patter of the little white people and the chatter of the bells and buzzer is incessant.
January 25th
Sister, our Sister, has gone into retreat. I wish I knew what “retreat” meant. I know they retire, speak to no one, and take no part in the work, but why? Who tells them it’s for the good of their souls? Do they tell themselves? Does the stress of seeing people suffer and die become too much so that they must pause to collect their garment of peace? Is it because their faith is shaken and they have to seal up the cracks afresh? Or perhaps they’ve kicked over the traces and dipped into worldly thoughts, and have to sit down and untangle themselves. Perhaps it is not self-discipline but a law of the order to sit meditating only on holy things. How can they? Everything is God-filled. Just to sit and contemplate the fact in one’s soul is surely prayer. To say prayers over and over is to churn words and tire God. Is it voluntary or enforced? That’s what I want to know. I miss her beautiful face. I seem to feel a serene light under the sombre trappings. I wish I knew about it. I wish I knew that it was not selfish to quit and pray and pray. The new Sister is playful and bright and radiant but not so serene.
The evenings are long and silent but the visitors of the day have left themselves, some in books, some in flowers, some in the kind things they said. Ruth read “The Little Street” aloud to me. She went away a little thoughtful and took it with her. It is amazing how kind everyone is. I did not guess that people would be so tender and loving to me. I seem so little to deserve it. Alice is the peach of them all. My room is full of kind, gentle things and thoughts.
When a boy thumped on my door and bounced a telegram at me I went to pieces. Of course at first I was quite sure that Alice was dead or at least broken, though afterwards Reason said, “Why wire?” Well, it was from a man at the Vancouver Art Gallery asking for an appointment next Friday for an art critic from the Manchester Guardian who had been told by the Canadian National Gallery to inspect my pictures. I began to write, “No,” and then asked the telegram boy what he thought I had better say. I lost my breath and saw fifteen telegraph boys at once.
Fortunately a friend was there and saw what a mess my brain was in and phoned to Willie to answer the telegram. I blithered and dithered and recovered after a bit till they came back from the telegraph office to say that Vancouver was waiting for an answer. Then I broke up again and this time Alice and Harry came in and sorted me out. The rest of the day I was like a beached cod.
The doctor says that I have kept going all keyed up and now I have cracked and will have to relax. I guess I need the prop of St. Joseph’s a bit longer. Again I have rolled the load over to Willie but I believe he’ll like showing the pictures. I believe he almost feels as if he’d done them himself. He does not know that one day they will be half his, half Alice’s. Oh, I wish they were ever so much better, that I could have been pure-souled enough to see deeper and express what I saw in paint or words or something. Maybe next time I shall see and understand more.
January 29th
Mr. Eric Newton, art critic for the Manchester Guardian, came to see me in hospital. He is medium-sized, lean and earnest. I should like to have heard his lecture. Willie and Ruth and Alice had him down at my cottage but he said that he had only seen a little. He and Ruth came to the hospital to see me during hours. He stayed half an hour and my heart bore up well. He was quiet. He said what he had seen had impressed him very greatly, more than anything he had seen anywhere else, even in London, because it was honest and deep. He said that he’d driven through such country all day coming from Duncan and in my studio he had seen it expressed. “Get better,” he said, “and go on. Those hands must not lie idle there when you can do things like that with them.”
He liked the woods best and I am so glad. I was just afraid that the queerness of the totems might have led him off the track, but I believe he was very sincere. Dear Willie, he had everything all tabulated, dated, dusted and in order. Ruth took Mr. Newton for a bite to eat and then they went back to my house to see the pictures. He said, “I have till midnight to revel and glory in them. I’m looking out for a good time after seeing a few. I knew that I’d have to see you and then come back.” It is a big honour he did me. It is those honours that make one feel very lowly and get down and beg God to let you see clearer and interpret more wisely.
Willie came in earlier in the day. I went through a lot of things with him and rocketed about and collapsed hauling out papers about exhibitions and dates. He left, scared, and told my nurse and she came in and brought brandy. They were for not allowing me to see the man, but Dr. MacPherson knew it would bother me less to see him and said go ahead. I kept a good hold on my wits and came through fine, but I wish I’d been healthy to talk to a big man like that and get his ideas on things. He evidently has the big outlook and spirit counts with him.
January 30th
I have suffered from great weariness all day and a severe headache. Have not seen Willie or Ruth since Mr. Newton made his selection. Willie sent me a list. Rather a poor choice, I thought, from my different periods. Drat periods! They don’t seem to me to matter. Today I seem to have lost all interest in the pictures and the choice, and would rather think of the great outdoors and what it is trying to say through me. I want to hear more distinctly. Why must everything one does be measured up, tabulated and exhibited? It ought to be just joy, not information.
Willie and Alice have both been here. Willie brought some pictures I had to sign and a bottle of gas and a brush like a kalsomine brush. They’ve wired again from Ottawa to send on Mr. Newton’s choices. What a time they did have there by themselves last night! It’s comic. It must have been almost as if I was dead. I don’t want to be dead; I want to search and understand deeper. This I know, whether here or there it will be the right place for me to be growing.
February 1st
I don’t seem to get much stronger. I’m not fussing to return. It would be hard on everyone, and I have not got a cat’s strength at present. Alice looks tired and a little down. Living in perpetual twilight is enough to make one so. I’m not thinking about things. For me it’s O.K. somehow. For Alice it’s blur and blind and alone. I could almost wish her to be gone first. She is very alone, but for me. Sister is back, gliding into my room like a sea gull with the sun on it and all the calm of the sea behind. I was so glad my hand flew out and touched hers. She gave no response except a smile. “I enjoyed my retreat,” she said, “but it’s nice to be back on the floor. The nurses need a sister. They’ve been so busy.” Bless them; they have indeed.
February 2nd
Rain is falling in sheets. Nothing in the air of my court is ever done; it is always doing. The snow-flakes are fluttering and rain pouring, but you never see them arrive, only on the way, because for me the court has no bottom. I haven’t seen dear Mother Earth for three weeks. Even the gulls never come into the court. They fly over the top. Just their shadows flicker down, if there is a sun.
February 3rd
I progress slowly. These queer blobs beneath me are not my own feet yet. Being sick is a horrid way to spend your money. Alice brought me all her cherished Chinese lilies and her Christmas cactus. I just revelled in their perfume all night. Smells lift you, and the heart knows their words well. If in the next life we have no noses or ears or organs we will surely have some medium of contact with these lovely things, a beautiful drawing of these essences into ourselves; ourselves being drawn into still bigger ones.
February 9th
The doctor told me I could begin to make arrangements for going home in a day or two. When he’d gone out of the room I cried. I felt so unequal to coping with life on my own and with the “person” who has yet to be found. I suppose I might give her the chance to be a nice one, but I am all prickles out when I feel her in the air. It is intolerable to think of her bossing me and my house, and I don’t feel fit to boss a caterpillar. I want to be home, but I’m so flabby that I shall miss the care. But after the first kick-off I’ll begin to get stronger and throw out new shoots. I think perhaps it’s the beginning of leading an invalid’s life that I hate so, but I must not let Alice see.
The last few days have been bad—overpowering headaches, hot salty tears running down into my pillow. Because I got exhausted trying to walk a few steps, blub. Because my bell broke, blub. Because the door banged all day and night, blub. Because the next-door radio boomed, blub. Because two would-be ladies-in-waiting came to interview, blub. (Not to their faces but as soon as they were gone, from the effort of talking and explaining.) Because I got a cheque for $200 for a picture I lay awake all night, dry and exhausted.
Funny about that girl. We both liked her so. She seemed so suitable and she liked us and was definitely engaged. Elinor took her down to the cottage, lit fires, etc., then she came and said, “I can’t stay. I can’t accept the post. I’m sorry, but I can’t.” She went up and told Alice she did not know why, but she could not live there and she couldn’t explain why. She just could not. It was as if she’d seen a ghost. Very baffling. Possibly she was afraid of my dying, being alone there with me. It seemed as if she had a hunch or something. So it’s all to do over again. The first question all ask is, “How much time do I have out?” And then money. Few want to sleep in. Mother used to say, “There’s as good fish in the sea as ever came out of it.” They are over-full and short staffed at the hospital. Home would be good if I only had a little more strength to cope with it.
February 14th
Tomorrow, joyful tomorrow, home! There are two pots of tulips and one of hyacinths on my table, and the air is like spring and my eyes have dried up. A lovely letter from Lawren, one from Mr. Band and one from Mr. Brown. All say they can’t see me any way but on the bustle and in the woods. They don’t see a meek me by the fire with my hands folded so I must buck up patiently and paint again. Lawren and Bess like their sketch, feel it, feel the joy of the growth, and live happily with it.
Blessed, blessed woods! I want to be out in them. It’s a long time yet to summer. Maybe by then I can kick the moon. If the “person” is satisfactory to me and I to her I shall get on famously. There are stories to be worked up, things to be rooted out of the storage of young womanhood—Indian forests and deep waters. What words are there for these things, solemn big things with joy wrapped deep in their middles? Episode after episode comes back, not photographically, not the surface. I was consciously striving to reproduce; I was unconsciously absorbing. We are always hearing things we don’t recognize at the moment. Alice has packed me and I’m terribly excited for tomorrow.
February 16th
Said goodbye to hospital yesterday. Mr. and Mrs. Hudson came for me, one boosting each side with Elinor behind. I mounted the four or five steps and was hustled straight to bed. Everything looked lovely. I was not allowed to wait to inspect. I feel one hundred per cent better already. The “person” I dreaded is nice and the dogs are all back, but not Pout yet. It’s delicious to feel their warm bodies cuddling into mine. Home is heavenly!
February 24th
I progress slowly, lying in bed to do it. Getting up is not so good—sudden spells of extreme weariness. The nurse says that I’m a good patient, taking my treatment well and not fussing. She told the doctor and I swelled proudly because I’m considered a crank.
February 27th
Every day is the same and yet every day is different a little. At seven in the morning Mrs. H. comes in, toothless and tousle-headed and her elbows sticking out of a hole in her sweater. She does not want to be spoken to. I used to say, “Good morning,” but now I don’t, as it’s not advisable. After my breakfast tray, when Eliza and Matilda are out and the chickens’ hot mash is given, she always comes in quite bright. It’s the beasts that do it I think. She chats to the pups. She really likes them I think. Me she tolerates and does her duty by, also the house, keeps us clean, overlooks our shortcomings as much as she can. We are just a woman and a house and we don’t touch her heart at all. Her job touches her sense of duty and self-respect. She says I’m a good patient, and I think she is an excellent nurse, and there we stop. We don’t want to know any more about each other and probably never will. She has absolute control over everything and does what she wants to, but I am there and so are my things. They do not unbend or kowtow. The pictures shut themselves up and have no meaning.
March 9th
I have been home over three weeks. I can do more now, I can see, looking back, but it is slow work. I get up for a few hours and dress and listen to Dr. Clem and do some typing. I have two stories, “Eight From Nine” and “Time,” roughly typed and corrected, and a beginning to “Indian.” I am getting restless as the days get spring-like. I don’t want to paint yet. I get too tired just sitting. Mrs. H. goes when her month is up. She has kept things and me beautifully. I dread a new person. It won’t be a nurse now; it will be a housekeeper. I’ll take care of myself.
March 10th
Mr. Band has bought “Nirvana” for $200, Mr. Southam “Haida Village” for $150, and Lawren Harris another for $200. A number of others are over in the East being sat on and considered. It is funny, but I can’t enthuse over my sales. Sort of ashamed that the pictures are not worthier. Praise always makes me feel humble. I do rejoice in the sales in that I am able to pay my bills. I am truly grateful to the pictures for that.
March 14th
An old pupil of some thirty years back in Vancouver came to Victoria and looked me up. She is a charming woman. She came in with arms out to me and a smile on her face. Not one bit changed. She exclaimed and laughed at the griffons asleep on my bed, one under each arm. She looked through my sketches and went off with one really pleased. She told me that she had always been glad she had taken lessons from me because it had put something into her life that made her outlook bigger and her seeing of nature different. We had good times in the old Vancouver studio. Belle, who used to help me there, writes letters full of memories. There were seventy-five pupils, little children and young people, and we made a joy of it. There was always fun flying round, and dogs, parrots, white rats, bullfinches, parents, exhibitions, sweethearts, Indians, artists. I cried little in those days. There were lonely spots and some bad health, but there was joy, independence, and lots of laughing. Life’s that way, but one remembers the ups more than the downs, afterwards. The best endowment we’ve got is humour.
March 16th
Dead alone for first time in nine weeks. I am very helpless, not a soul to call upon. Alice could not come anyway because she could not see. Dear soul, how patient she is! I’d rail, I know I would. How it must hurt to be tied like that!
March 23rd
Soon I’ll have tried all the women in the world. It embarrasses me to think people will blame me for a crank, but only one has left nastily. The others seem like bad luck.
Alice has been to see about her eyes. The verdict is not clear yet. It does not seem too good, but the doctor has not said it is definitely hopeless. If only she had gone sooner, but she is so hopelessly stubborn and put off longer the more we wanted her to go. Poor darling, if only she does not have to go into the dark for good. I am afraid it will break her heart to depend on others, and me so useless. I shall take all the care possible and do what they say so as to stand by her. I wish she had friends, loads of good ones, but she has ceased to cultivate them for so long; she has drowned herself in school and now that is failing. They’ve sucked her dry, taken everything, and now they forget how good she was to their children and how patient with all their tomfoolery.
March 24th
How selfish everyone is, and me too, I suppose. These women who come to tend one don’t give a hoot. They want to get as much as possible and give as little as they can. They like to make one feel it is very good of them to look after anything so lazy as you are and to indicate that they are rather martyrs and that you are taking rather more care than necessary and are quite capable. Poor old women, we are not nice as we begin to decay, to slow up and grow stupid. We hang on to youthful ideas and the youngsters laugh at us. We love our liberty and ability whereas we have no strength and ought to be in homes and cared for like the too-young-to-be-sensible are. We are no more fit than they to cope with heavy problems but we have known the freedom of independence and they have not.
Today I sat in the back yard with the chickens and dogs, seeing a million things that needed doing, little things but beyond me. I said to myself, “Quit it. Remember that you’ve done these things in your day and now you must sit and watch others do some things for themselves, not for you. You’re finished. You now take on a different phase of life. What is the good of struggling to keep up? That’s going back. Your job now is different. If you would go forward you must adapt and press on into something new befitting the development you have attained, less bodily activity and more spiritual activity, accepting the change happily.”
March 28th—Easter Sunday
It is a glorious day with a bitter wind. I am restless and empty. Want to stir and live again, to refill and relive. I do not want to write. I am dried up. Funny, sometimes you are juicy and ripe and sometimes you are like an empty cocoon. Mount Tolmie is quiet. Even the wind that buffeted it all day is dead. Under the brown of everything the sap is running. The green is bursting, shouting, hollering a song of growth.
April 3rd
Ottawa has bought two canvases, a paper sketch, “Blunden Harbour,” a Haida village and “Sky” for $750. Madame Stokowski, wife of the composer and conductor, bought a small canvas for $75. Mr. Southam bought a small Skidigate sketch in oils for $150 and Mrs. Douglas a French cottage for $15. An old Vancouver pupil took a Pemberton sketch, also for $15. How lucky I am, or rather, how well taken care of!
15 |
15 |
150 |
75 |
750 |
—— |
$1005 | Goodness!
April 6th
How comfortable Willie is! We had a long talk. If there was war and he had to go I’d die I think. It’s so awful about Alice’s eyes. If you sympathize with her she says, “Don’t moan, I hate it.” It seems so heartless just to say nothing, and all the time you ache for her. Barriers, why must they be between all humans, even the ones we love best, things our self-consciousness will not let us voice, so scared of showing ourselves. Sometimes I feel as if it would be easier to see Alice die than go blind. It’s going to hurt her independence so. She just can’t stand being led or pitied or helped. I think I like a little to be babied and wheedled and coaxed (by some people). Alice repels petting or softness. She gives grandly and takes poorly.
April 10th
Alice goes into hospital Wednesday to have one eye done. She is brighter, talks freely, so it’s much easier.
April 14th
Alice did not go to hospital. They could not operate for another week. I’d have been all edgy. She is calm and resigned.
I have been painting a Nass pole in a sea of green and finished “Cauve,” an Indian story. I sent four pictures off to the Vancouver exhibition, “Massett Bears,” “Metchosen,” “Alive,” and “Woods Without Man” (invitation B.C. Artists show). I got a nice little maid, a farm girl from near Edmonton, called Louise. She mothers me.
April 16th
I heard yesterday about my one-man show in Toronto. There were about twenty canvases collected from Toronto and Ottawa. I got two good write-ups from different papers and two letters, also a cheque for $50 from a Miss Lyle for a canvas.
I have been thinking that I am a shirker. I have dodged publicity, hated write-ups and all that splutter. Well, that’s all selfish conceit that embarrassed me. I have been forgetting Canada and forgetting women painters. It’s them I ought to be upholding, nothing to do with puny me at all. Perhaps what brought it home was the last two lines of a crit in a Toronto paper: “Miss Carr is essentially Canadian, not by reason of her subject matter alone, but by her approach to it.” I am glad of that. I am also glad that I am showing these men that women can hold up their end. The men resent a woman getting any honour in what they consider is essentially their field. Men painters mostly despise women painters. So I have decided to stop squirming, to throw any honour in with Canada and women. It is wonderful to feel the grandness of Canada in the raw, not because she is Canada but because she’s something sublime that you were born into, some great rugged power that you are a part of.
April 17th
Today another cheque came, for $225. It’s almost unbelievable. Mr. McLean of Toronto bought one little old canvas and one brand new. Everyone is tickled. One thing I must guard against, I must never think of sales while I am painting. Sure as I do, my painting will roll downhill. Mr. Band writes, “I am considering ‘Grey.’ Do you like it? I do.” Yes and no. I did like it and many people have liked it, but since painting it my seeing has perhaps become more fluid. I was more static then, and was thinking more of effect than spirit. It is like the difference between a play and real life. No matter how splendid the acting is you can sit there with your heart right in your mouth but way down inside you know that it is different to the same thing in life itself.
April 19th
It seems to me that a large part of painting is longing, a fluid movement ahead, a pouring forward towards the unknown, not a prying into things beyond but a steady pressing towards the barriers, an effort to be on hand when the barriers lift. A picture is just an on-the-way thing, not something caught and static, something frozen in its tracks, but a joyous going, towards what? We don’t know. Music is full of longing and movement. Painting should be the same.
April 20th
Alice went into hospital to have her eye operated on tomorrow.
I have been painting all day, with four canvases on the go—Nass pole in undergrowth, Koskimo, Massett bear, and an exultant wood. My interest is keen and the work of fair quality. I have been sent more ridiculous press notices. People are frequently comparing my work with Van Gogh. Poor Van Gogh! Well, I suppose they have to say something. Some say I am great and some that I am not modern. I don’t think these young journalists know what or where or how I am. I am glad that all seem to agree that I am pre-eminently Canadian. I do hope I do not get bloated and self-satisfied. When proud feelings come I step up over them to the realm of work, to the thing I want, the liveness of the thing itself.
It’s splendid to have the money just when Alice and I need it. I don’t feel as if it was money paid for my work joy. It doesn’t seem to have any connection. It is as if the money had tumbled out of the clouds, not as if I had bartered my thoughts for it. I feel that it came fairly and honestly and welcome. Alice is pleased about it, and very glad for me but the pictures or press notices or work don’t enter her head. When I mentioned that I had been sent more press notices in letters she said, “That’s nice,” but she never asked to hear them or were they good or bad. She just rejoices in my luck as a bit of sheer luck; that’s all it is to her.
April 24th
Alice’s eye was operated on this morning. I went to hospital where she lies patiently, bandaged up, shut into the blackness. It sickens one. Is it the beginning of the dark for her? I find myself shutting my eyes and imagining it night all through the day. We took sweet smelling flowers to her.
April 25th
She’s had a good night and does not feel too bad this morning. I am back in bed. Felt weepy and not up to shucks. Guess the nervous tension was higher than I realized the last few days. If one could only do something for her. There’s going to be heaps of heartaches.
April 26th
Victoria University Women’s Club are making me an honorary member. “In appreciation of your contribution to the world of creative art,” the letter said. It is very lovely of them and very embarrassing to me. Why should one be honoured for doing what one loves to do? If I have “contributed” it was because it was my job and I couldn’t help it.
April 30th
I had a letter from Toronto this morning. Toronto Art Gallery has purchased “Western Forest,” “Movement in the Woods” and “Kispiax Village” for $1,075. I was stunned when I opened the letter. It is wonderful. I should feel hilarious. I am truly grateful but so heavily sunk in pain (liver or gall) that I am dull as a log and rather cranky. I’d rather have twenty-five sick hearts than one sick liver. The doctor came today. Says heart fairly improved but liver ructious. Ruth came to say goodbye. She is a staunch and true friend.
May 3rd
I am afraid. Vancouver Art Gallery is considering buying some pictures. Suppose this sudden desire to obtain “Emily Carrs” were to knock me into conceit. Suppose I got smug and saw the dollar sign as I worked. That would be worse than dying a “nobody,” a thousand times worse. When they sat picking possibilities to be sent forward a great revolt filled me. I did not mind parting with the old pictures. I was glad of the money and a little glad that those who had always jeered at my work should see it bear fruit, but there was not the deep satisfying gladness of letters from someone who has felt something in my work that thrilled or lifted them.
May 12th
King George VI and Queen Elizabeth were crowned today. I went to bed feeling punk and determined not to get up at 1:30 a.m. to listen to the broadcast but I woke promptly on time. I woke the maid, who was sleeping like a log. She is young and it seemed right that she should hear it to remember. She came in like one drugged. We sat till 4:30 listening. I was disgusted not to hear a peep out of the Queen. On and on it spun, one giddy succession of gaudiness and magnificence. Your mind saw them, up and down on their knees, sitting in this state chair and that and saying, “I will” and “I do,” putting on crowns and taking them off. I just thought that if the King and Queen could be off in a wood and vow their vows straight to God away from the crowd, how much happier they would be, but perhaps they would not.
Night
King George VI spoke to the people all over the world. I honour him tremendously. He spoke with extremely slow deliberateness. It must have been an ordeal for a nervous man with an impediment that has only recently been overcome holding that enormous position and facing the world. What he said always included his Queen and was solemnly grand too. Long live our King! I am glad the popular hail-fellow-well-met with all his lovableness has given place to this more sober, home-loving man, dignified and kingly.
May 14th
The day is too glorious for words. Things are growing like wildfire. I am in a blither of embarrassment over a great coffin full of lovely flowers that came from the University Women’s Club to welcome me as a member. It’s wonderful. I feel like old Koko at the Empress Hotel when they brought him a huge silver salver of cream that was upset. He was far too embarrassed to lap it. But I have sniffed and gloried in the flowers. Only it seems as if it was all a mistake, just old Millie Carr being a member of that group and being so honoured, and here I am such a liverish wreck, too nauseated and depressed to put a brush to work. I want to cry, but I haven’t any tears. I want to work. There are such lots of things to do and maybe only a little time to do them in. I don’t know, sometimes I feel finished and in tatters and then I think I am good for aeons of ages. Ruth has gone. I did not know how blue I’d be without her. She has meant an awful lot these last months. Must hurry and get to another Indian village. It is marvellous how they help to keep one in place. There is something about the great calm of them.
May 22nd
Ruth has seen Dr. Sedgewick who likes my stories and will be glad to write an introduction if Macmillan’s will publish them. He is also willing to edit them.
June 10th
I have been too busy writing Indian stories to enter my diary. I have been very absorbed. Some days it seems hopeless trying to say what I want. I just flounder in mediocre thoughts and words and paint. Well, those days one should plod away at technical difficulties and not worry or be depressed because that which is greater than oneself seems to have forsaken you and that which is greater than the objects to which it belongs seems to be asleep.
I am very tired. I corrected and typed the Skidigate story, “My Friends,” and worked on the gravel pit picture. Jack Grant came.
June 14th
Dr. Sedgewick came to visit. It was the first time I had met him. He is a funny, merry person.
June 24th
I posted twenty stories to Dr. Sedgewick for his reading and criticism. I had worked on them very hard and felt that there was good stuff in them but bad workmanship. I was very disgusted and tired and felt one minute that I never wanted to see the things again and the next was ardently anxious to know what Dr. Sedgewick would find in them.
The stories were “Ucluelet,” “Kitwancool,” “Sailing to Yan,” “Tanoo,” “Skedans,” “Cumshewa,” “Friends,” “Cha-atl,” “Greenville,” “Sophie.” “Juice,” “Wash Mary,” “Martha’s Joey,” “Two Bits and a Wheelbarrow,” “Sleep,” “The Blouse,” “The Stare,” “Balance,” “Throat and a Monkey’s Hands,” and “The Heart of a Peacock.” The last three are not Indian stories. Probably when people do not know the places or people they will be flat but they are true and I would rather they were flat than false. I tried to be plain, straight, simple and Indian. I wanted to be true to the places as well as to the people. I put my whole soul into them and tried to avoid sentimentality. I went down deep into myself and dug up.
August 1st
It is a long time since I wrote here. The stories have taken all my energy and satisfied for the time being my desire to express myself in words. It is a week since I finished them. For some days I was too tired to think about writing or painting. For the last three days I’ve painted. I turned out a box of small paper sketches and found some thrill in them. I did not know that some of them were so good. I can see what I was after more plainly than at the time I did them. Some seem stronger than the things I am doing now. Now I understand the things I did then better than when I did them. I was, as it were, working ahead of myself.
August 3rd
Little Beckley Street got a shock today! The vice-regal chariot rolled into its one-block length of dinginess. Just before Lady Tweedsmuir was due the most disreputable vegetable cart drew up at my gate and John went up and down pounding at doors and coming back to his cart for dibs of vegetables in baskets. The old horse hung between the shafts and the tatters of oilcloth flaps drooped over the vegetables. Thank the Lord, John moved his rusty waggon and musty roots just in time for the resplendent vice-regal motor. As I went out on to the porch to meet her Vice-Highness, I could not help an anxious look across the street and, thank Heaven, “the Nudist” had his shirt on.
Lady Tweedsmuir looked like a racing yacht as she headed for my door. Her lady-in-waiting and equerry trailed behind. I said, “It is very kind of you to come to see me. Lady Tweedsmuir.” She replied, “Not at all. I am much interested in your work. I have one of your canvases in Government House in Ottawa.” I hauled out much stuff—Indian and woodsy. She liked the woods best. The good-natured equerry helped me, also the English lady-in-waiting. Lady Tweedsmuir wanted to see some rugs and so I took her into my funny little sitting-room. They stayed three-quarters of an hour, bought a sketch and trooped out.
August 4th
The equerry brought the sketch back to be signed today. Had four good days’ painting. I worked on a mountain and the inside of a woods, up a hill. So far it is mediocre; it all depends on the sweep and swirl and I have not got it yet.
My blue budgerigar is like a lovely flower. I keep him close to me and he is taming fast. He gives me great pleasure. His colouring and marking are so exquisite. Had a letter from Ruth from Norway. In the afternoon a professor from Edmonton, a Mr. Kerr and wife, came to buy. He was charming. They bought a paper sketch for $30. Then I painted.
September 6th
I started a new canvas today, a skyscape with roots and gravel pits. I am striving for a wide, open sky with lots of movement, which is taken down into dried greens in the foreground and connected by roots and stumps to sky. My desire is to have it free and jubilant, not crucified into one spot, static. The colour of the brilliantly lighted sky will contrast with the black, white and tawny earth.
September 9th
I have started a woods canvas. I am aiming at a trembling upward movement full of light and joy. I blocked in movement first thing with a very large brush and was thrilled. Mr. Band came from Toronto. It was a real treat to see him. We had one and a half hours of hard talking on work and news. He has ordered three canvases to be sent to Toronto, where he thinks he can sell them. They are “Lillooet Indian Village,” “Trees in Goldstream Park” and “Sunshiny Woods.” Willie is going to crate them tomorrow. I sent Vancouver the pictures for the show today.
September 14th
It is intensely hot. I have been painting up to all hours and am very tired. I am working on two woods canvases. One shows a small pine in undulating growth and the other is a tall shivery canvas. I began them with huge brush strokes, first going for the movement and direction such as I got in my sketches, and with great freedom. The danger in canvases is that of binding and crucifying the emotion, of pinning it there to die flattened on the surface. Instead, one must let it move over the surface as the spirit of God moved over the face of the waters.
October 12th
Alice and I are clearing up the old home at 207 Government Street, preparatory to letting it go to the city. We plodded up and down, up and down, lugging trash out of the cellar. It was mostly broken and empty bottles. We had the stuff put on the back verandah and sorted—hoarded inanities of Dede’s, religious books of Lizzie’s. The house that was once the pride of Father’s heart is a dreadful place, dingy, broken and battered. Apart from Lizzie’s personal things, there is no sentiment.
October 18th
Alice’s birthday. I went to dinner and provided a chicken. Louise iced her a cake and I put a big tallow candle in the middle and “Happy Returns” round it. Took a bunch of gay autumn flowers.
October 25th
Yesterday we finished the sorting and clearing. The stoves are gone, Lizzie’s massage books and electrical things. Florence has taken some of the old suite of Lizzie’s furniture. Everything else is trash. Great bonfires have roared on the gravel walk. Tomorrow we are going to attack the garden. We will transplant some of Lizzie’s favourites to Alice’s garden and mine.
November 17th
I have had such a treat this week. Nan Cheney has been here every day. She is over from Vancouver to paint a portrait of me so we have chatted for long hours while she worked. She has made me look a jolly old codger and did not force me to sit like the dome of the Parliament Buildings. I could wiggle comfortably with Pout in my lap.
I finished “The House of All Sorts” two days ago. I think the sketches are a little more concise and to the point. They are in a series of what Dr. Sedgewick calls “pen sketches” on the various tenants who lived in my 646 Simcoe Street house. Nan likes them very much, so does Flora. They are the only two who have heard them. There is room yet to have them more smooth, but I am pretty old to start in to write and am thankful if they even improve some. I don’t believe they will ever be up to an editor’s standard. Already things are teasing in the back of my brain for a fresh spasm. A new picture is fermenting to get on canvas, too, a big woods picture.
November 28th
We are nearly at November’s tail and are hurrying towards December and Christmas, hurrying on through our span and soon out of life. I think about death a lot, always wondering what the surprises of death will be like, the things that eye hath not seen nor ear heard, nor that have entered into the heart of man. When the shudder of the plunge is over and our spirit steps out of this shell we have treasured, and all its aches and pains, I don’t suppose we will ever turn back to look at it. A butterfly bursts its cocoon and leaves it hanging there dried up without a thought of it again. I can’t see people hovering round their old treasures or desires after they have gone on. Youngsters don’t hang round the doors of the classroom after they have passed out. They are too proud of having passed on.
Three new pictures are on the way, an immense wood, a wood edge and a woods movement. These woods movements should be stupendous, the inner burstings of growth showing through the skin of things, throbbing and throbbing to burst their way out. Perhaps if one had felt the pangs of motherhood in one’s own body one could understand better. Until people have been fathers or mothers they can hardly understand the fullness of life.
When you want depth in a woods picture avoid sharp edges and contrasts. Mould for depth, letting the spaces sink and sink back and back, warm alternating with cool colour. Build and build forward and back.
December 13th
Sixty-six years ago tonight I was hardly me. I was just a pink bundle snuggled in a blanket close to Mother. The north wind was bellowing round, tearing at everything. The snow was all drifted up on the little balcony outside Mother’s window. The night before had been a disturbed one for everybody. Everything was quietened down tonight. The two-year Alice was deposed from her baby throne. The bigger girls were sprouting motherisms, all-over delighted with the new toy. Mother hardly realized yet that I was me and had set up an entity of my own. I wonder what Father felt. I can’t imagine him being half as interested as Mother. More to Father’s taste was a nice juicy steak served piping on the great pewter hotwater dish. That made his eyes twinkle. I wonder if he ever cosseted Mother up with a tender word or two after she’d been through a birth or whether he was as rigid as ever, waiting for her to buck up and wait on him. He ignored new babies until they were old enough to admire him, old enough to have wills to break.
December 21st
I have got my stories back from Dr. Sedgewick. He says, “I have no criticism of the sketches. The pieces need no revision but what can be supplied by a publisher’s office. They are very sharply etched as they are now, in the main, and should not be tampered with. Matter and manner seem to me very well fused indeed. . . . They certainly should be published for the benefit of those who have eyes and ears. They aren’t likely to have a large audience. The select few will be appreciative.”
December 22nd
Somewhere there is a beautiful place. I went there again last night in my dreams. I have been there many, many times. It is extremely Canadian—typically Vancouver Island. It ought to be in a particular coastal spot not far out from Victoria but it is not there. I know all that coast. It is a wide snubby point. On the east it is bounded by a deep bay with a beach along the edge. I had never seen it from that side till last night. The beach is sandy and covered with drift-wood, and all the steep bank above is covered with arbutus trees, monstrous ones with orange-scarlet boles twisting grandly in a regular, beautiful direction that sings, slow powerful twists all turning together, shifting angle and turning again. It is a long, long row and superb.
Other nights I have been to other sides of this place so I know what is up beyond the arbutus trees. That is where the buildings are. I have only seen the tops of the roofs. It is not public property. You approach the other side from a high earth road, unpaved, and you look down on the tops of the pine trees. Something seems to keep you out, I don’t know what, a certain private feel, not law but delicacy. I wonder where this place is, what it belongs to, why I go there and love it and am content, for the present anyway, to keep out.
Christmas Day
There is deep snow but it is not bitter. I heard King George VI at 7 o’clock this morning speaking to his empire. It was wonderful. Maybe one day it will come so that the empire can shout back to the King. There is great peace in the cottage this morning. Louise is very busy “lining up” so that she can get away early for all day. Alice and I Christmased yesterday. We had a tiny tree in a flowerpot on the table and the presents round it. In the other window burned three red candles in my old red Swedish candlestick. Louise cooked good turkey and plum pudding and brandy sauce. There was a dandy fire. The lovebirds, chipmunks, and dogs and we ate, enjoyed, and were thankful. Then we undid the tree. Willie came. Edythe and Frederick came in the afternoon. I got millions of presents. People were good and we were happy.
December 31st
In one and a half hours it will be 1938, and a new year will have begun. What has 1937 contributed to life? Invalidism. Teaching me what? Alice says I’ve been sweet-tempered over it. Perhaps I’ve been too busy to cuss for I’ve written a lot, painted a lot, and have had lots of visitors. Illness has not meant idleness. It’s drawn Alice and me closer. It’s seen the last of our old 44 Carr Street-207 Government Street home. It’s seen Alice and me setting out in our little, frail old boats on the last lap. The year has aged us both. Both of us have had a lot to give up, loosening of the ties. I have thought about Death a great deal this year. Sometimes he seems quite close and then again as if there’d have to be a long hard kick before it finished. And the world? Oh, the world that is said to be going to be finished in this era is breathing hard but going on just the same, on and on and on forever.
I am very settled in the cottage. It has grown round me. If I were pulled up now there’d be a tearing of roots. I have made it to fit myself. All my bumps are accounted for and my peculiarities taken care of nicely since the old house stuff came into it. It is very homey. Everyone says how cosy the cottage is and how attractive.
The little Christmas tree burned for its last time tonight. Such a silent, still glow the lights of a Christmas tree have. Up the street there is a wink-light tree—on and off, on and off. It has lost all the still radiance of Christmasy holiness and become a jazz show tree.
11 p.m.
I rang the bell and yelled, “Happy New Year” to Louise and it was only eleven, not twelve, that struck. There is one hour more of 1937 to live.
12 p.m.
It is 1938. Without one second’s pause between old and new, 1938 is here.
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