harper was born in the village of cookstown, ontario, on december 9, 1873, but most of his childhood was spent at barrie, one of the most picturesque and beautifully situated of canadian inland towns. the vine-clad lattice alone obstructed the beautiful view from the front veranda of his father’s house across the waters of kempenfeldt bay, and it was to this home and its associations that he was wont to attribute all that was best in his nature and dearest in his affections. it was there that the great joys and the great sorrows of his short life had centred. it was over this barrie home that the skies were the brightest to him; and it was there, too, that for a time the clouds had appeared to return after the rain.
there are few pages anywhere which, in[25] simpler or more tender words, disclose a heart’s love and sorrow, a life’s greatest inspiration and its greatest grief, than those which commence harper’s diary after it had remained closed for nearly three years. they constitute an expression of feeling so personal, a record so sacredly tender, that their publication can be justified only on the ground that they are among the few passages he has left which reveal the influence of his home upon his life, an influence which, as the words themselves show, was the strongest and the sweetest he had known. just a year before his death, harper writes:
“for nearly three years this book has travelled around with me unopened—three years in which i seem to have lived a lifetime. they have been filled with satisfaction enough in some ways, and with pain enough, too. seven months ago, when the world seemed empty, i was inclined to throw myself upon these pages, but my feelings were too much my own, even for that, for, since i last wrote here, i have gazed into the darkest depths.
“though ‘out in the world’ in a measure,[26] since i left home for college, the little home group in barrie remained the centre of my world. the chief reward of success was the ‘well done’ from the kindest father and most loving mother who ever lived. they have gone. after a week’s illness father died on april 6, 1900. mother joined him on april 12th. during thirty-six years of married life they had been loyal and true to each other, and to their duty before god and man. for their children they sacrificed personal comfort and social pleasures. loving sympathy always went out to meet us in joy or in pain. they passed away together into the hereafter with unflinching eye, and with a nobleness and truth of heart which won them the respect of all good men and women who knew them in life.
“i did not reach home until the morning of father’s death, and when i saw that dear beloved face it wore the calmness and pallor of death. that room in which he lay is hallowed. to the last, they say, his carelessness of self was evident. a frank, straightforward man; his life open as a book; his heart kind, with the true love of a christian. he was not particularly demonstrative, but we all knew the breadth and depth of[27] his affection and his sympathy. at the end, conscious of it, he gazed before him towards the face of god, as one ready to appear before the judgment seat. a healthy, honest, wholesome man, he was to me father, brother and friend.
“and my mother. how often has her clinging kiss muttered a prayer as i left home, and impressed a welcome as i returned. an heroic character, enriched by the depth of a mother’s love, was hers. when i reached home on that cold, gray day in early spring, she lay there sorely stricken with the dread pneumonia which had taken my father, but patient, tender, unselfish as ever. to my broken attempt at encouragement, she replied: ‘yes, i must try and live for you children.’ but, as life ebbed and she saw that it was not to be, that noble heart, ever resigned to the will of god, accepted the inevitable. it seemed that to join him who had gone was her dearest wish; without him life, as she lay there suffering, must have seemed cold, empty, cheerless. but even this she seemed prepared to bear, so that she might keep a home open for her children, and endeavour to help them from falling from the path of duty. then came the day when she was told that hope of recovery was gone. ‘i[28] knew it,’ she said. calling us around her, in a voice greatly weakened, she uttered her heart’s wish in a simple sentence—‘i want you all to be good, so that you may meet us there.’ i am naturally rather disposed to be cold, i fear, but in that moment the depth of that mother’s love came to me as never before, and the sublimity of her faith burst upon me. from that day dates a new epoch in my life.
“to the last her thoughts were of us. faithfully, unobtrusively, but unswervingly, she had throughout life worked and lived that we might know truth, and not stray from what she was wont to call ‘the straight and narrow path.’
“at four o’clock in the morning the end came. how cold the dawn of that morning! without a struggle her soul went to its god. how delicate the thread which binds us to eternity! but a short time before she was there and knew all that was happening; that she was going; and, that we must fight the battle of life, with the snares and temptations with which we are beset by our human passions and weaknesses. not a doubt seemed to enter into that mind, which had held steadfastly to the eternal truth throughout a noble, fearless life. she had run her race, she had kept[29] the faith. the sturdy integrity, inherited from her father, and a gentle, loving kindness, which probably came from the mother who died when she was yet a child, combined to make a character which by its sweetness, beauty and nobility, has woven itself into my life. pray god that i may never be unworthy of her memory.”
and unworthy of so holy a memory harper never was. while spared to him, the love and affection of his father and mother were his greatest inspiration, and his great reward; taken from him, the remembrance of their example, and a belief in their continued existence, constituted an abiding presence, helping him ever to nobler conduct and aim.
yet, how irreparable this loss was, words cannot tell. harper could never bring himself to speak of it without the deepest emotion. what seemed hardest to him was that his father and mother should have been taken just when he had hoped to be able to make them fully conscious of his gratitude.
in a letter written some months after, he says:
[30]
“great as is my pride in the noble lives of my beloved parents, and confident as i am that they will enjoy their reward unto all eternity, i find it impossible to get away from the sense of the emptiness of the world without them. their lives were devoted to their children, and their children were devoted to them. a kinder father, and a more loving mother, never lived. to them we looked for congratulation upon any success which fell to our lot and for sympathy if our sky were dark. they never failed us. and at the moment when we were all comfortably settled in our professions, and there was the prospect of a long peaceful life before them, they were taken away. herein lies the chief bitterness of it all. but we have the lesson of their lives, and fond memories which we can ever cherish.”
some time later, in acknowledging hospitality shown him during a brief visit in toronto, he wrote on his return to ottawa:
“as i lay in my berth last night, looking out at the beautiful, silent, star sprinkled sky, a feeling settled upon me that the curtain had just fallen upon one of the happiest days of my life. the warmth of your welcome, and the kindly[31] thoughtfulness of your every word and action, were appreciated by me the more, because i have learned what it is, both to have, and to be without, that most happy and most sacred of human associations, a home.”
there is less of intensity of grief, but hardly less of tenderness and delicacy of feeling, in his words of sympathy with a friend, which, containing an expression of his own belief, also reveal the continued influence of his home and its associations on his daily actions, even after these associations had vastly changed. in a letter written only a few months before his death, during a short visit to barrie, the last which he spent amid the scenes of his youth, he says:
“and furthermore, i know that you understand that when sorrow crosses your path, your sorrow is mine just as is your happiness. i know the wrenching of the heart-strings which comes when one who is close is taken away, and i feel deeply with you. i can only repeat to you the message which you sent to me when all that i held dearest on earth seemed to have passed out[32] of it. there is no death. life is eternal and makes towards perfection. when those whom we love pass, we are the more linked to that greater, larger, deeper spiritual life which is within us and about us, but which passes our human comprehension. the very air in which i write is filled with a thousand associations which bring me into the closest sympathy with those who have passed through the valley of the shadow. were you here to-night, i might make myself intelligible in a way which i cannot hope to in a letter. as i have been sitting here looking out over the bay with which i am so familiar, my boyhood and my youth have passed before me, and these, as well as the hopes and aspirations of early manhood, are so closely associated with the devoted lives which guarded and nourished all that was good in me, that i could not recognize myself, were i not convinced of their continued existence and their living interest in all that i cherish that is worthy. this afternoon i stood before the grate where, with you, i spent an hour which stands out as a milestone in my life, and to-night i thank god that we have been enabled to accomplish something of what we then contemplated, and that we have before us opportunity of usefulness[33] beyond what we could have imagined as we stood there upon the threshold of life. the very atmosphere of this dear old place is sacred to me through the associations which float through my mind as i breathe it. my visit here has been like a pause in a quiet and familiar eddy in the stream of life, and i feel that it has done me good. it has strengthened me in my resolutions, and has enabled me to see more clearly.”
it is rarely, if ever, that men, especially young men, stop to estimate the influences which are the most potent in their lives, and it is rarer still, in seeking this estimate, that they become conscious, with any true degree of proportion, of the extent to which home, as compared with other influences, has contributed to the result. it was not so with harper. he honoured his father and his mother, and he was wont to attribute to what he inherited by birth, by training, and by example from them, all that made for what was worthiest and best in his life.
