and proper to investigate the
family sources from which the individual member is sprung; but I must
content myself within the bounds which I have set, and leave the larger
task to a more laborious hand. The essence of history lies in the
character of the persons concerned, rather than in the feats which
they performed. A man neither lives to himself nor in himself. He is
indissolubly bound up with his stock, and can only explain himself in
terms common to his family; but in doing so he transcends the limits of
history, and passes into the realms of philosophy and religion.

The life of a Canadian is bound up with the history of his parish, of
his town, of his province, of his country, and even with the history of
that country in which his family had its birth. The life of John McCrae
takes us back to Scotland. In Canada there has been much writing of
history of a certain kind. It deals with events rather than with the
subtler matter of people, and has been written mainly for purposes of
advertising. If the French made a heroic stand against the Iroquois, the
sacred spot is now furnished with an hotel from which a free 'bus runs
to a station upon the line of an excellent railway. Maisonneuve fought
his great fight upon a place from which a vicious mayor cut the trees
which once sheltered the soldier, to make way for a fountain upon which
would be raised "historical" figures in concrete stone.

The history of Canada is the history of its people, not of its railways,
hotels, and factories. The material exists in written or printed form in
the little archives of many a family. Such a chronicle is in possession
of the Eckford family which now by descent on the female side bears the
honoured names of Gow, and McCrae. John Eckford had two daughters, in
the words of old Jamie Young, "the most lovingest girls he ever knew."
The younger, Janet Simpson, was taken to wife by David McCrae, 21st
January, 1870, and on November 30th, 1872, became the mother of John. To
her he wrote all these letters, glowing with filial devotion, which I am
privileged to use so freely.

There is in the family a tradition of the single name for the males. It
was therefore proper that the elder born should be called Thomas, more
learned in medicine, more assiduous in practice, and more weighty in
intellect even than the otherwise more highly gifted John. He too is
professor of medicine, and co-author of a profound work with his master
and relative by