THIS book, as first prepared in manuscript, bore its
present title, “The Many-Mansioned House,”
and its contents then had their present arrangement
or order of succession, except that some previously
unpublished matter is now included.
Such of the poems as have political
bearing were composed to supplement one another, that
they might collectively evince sympathy with a variety
of local and national sentiments which some have supposed
irreconcilable. The design accords with hope to
aid in furthering not only goodwill between those elements
of Race and Creed which constitute the Canadian people,
but between the countries of English language and English
common law, which may well be regarded as essentially
a Unity of the Spirit, unbroken by geographic severance
and governmental differences.
In Great Britain and the United
States, where nearly all the poems were lately published
in a volume entitled “When Lincoln Died,”
the purpose would appear to be understood and approved,
since English voices have been peculiarly kind to the
“Lincoln and Civil War” section, and Americans
to that which is distinctively Canadian and British.
EDWARD
WILLIAM THOMSON.
OTTAWA, August,
1909. [Page ix]
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