Page:Facts and Fancies about Our "Son of the Woods", Henry Clarence Kendall and his Poetry (IA factsfanciesabou00hami).pdf/52

 tobacco his comfort) and thinking, when he was engaged over a poem. He would sometimes write for hours. But his best things were often written in the snatches of time between his services (for he was a book-keeper and accountant for Mr. Fagan at the time he was preparing his volume published as "Songs from the Mountains"; and in the midst of his compositions he was often called away on his duty in that capacity.

He naturally liked to be quiet when he was writing; and when seriously engaged in that way the children had to be sent out all day.

When composing some of his poetry he used to walk up and down crooning and murmuring and speaking not above a whisper; and sometimes he would be walking up and down for hours murmuring to himself and absentminded to all else; or he would wander in the bush by the twilight in reverie.

He would read his poems (in the course of composition, sometimes) to his wife, who used to be called away from her domestic work, for there were young children and babies to attend to, and they were living in the homely way of the country there. When he was reading aloud he was very nervous of interruption; to use the words of his wife, "the air had to be hushed."

These little accounts of him in the privacy of his own home prove that the social and domestic nature was warm and glowing underneath his usual shyness and reserve when among new acquaintances.

His wife says (and who should know better) that he was peculiarly refined in his regards for the opposite sex, and of strict moral sentiment in that respect. He hated a bold woman, and, in his own words, considered that "anything less than strict morality between the sexes contaminated the soul as well as the body." One of his expressions was, "I hope you now see the wisdom of giving Delilah a wide berth; a man is not less masculine because he is a chaste." In this poem "Lilith," his fear and horror of the woman of loose morals is therefore realistic, from his point of view.