You Never Know Your Luck | Page 2

story, though it meant the sacrifice
of Kitty's love for Crozier, and the making of his wife happy once
more.
As for 'Wild Youth' I make no apology for it. It is still fresh in the
minds of the American public, and it is true to the life. Some critics
frankly called it melodramatic. I do not object to the term. I know

nothing more melodramatic than certain of the plots of Shakespeare's
plays. Thomas Hardy is melodramatic; Joseph Conrad is melodramatic;
Balzac was melodramatic, and so were Victor Hugo, Charles Dickens,
and Sir Walter Scott. The charge of melodrama is not one that should
disturb a writer of fiction. The question is, are the characters
melodramatic. Will anyone suggest to me the marriage of a girl of
seventeen with a man over sixty is melodramatic. It may be, but I think
it tragical, and so it was in this case. As for Orlando Guise, I describe
the man as I knew him, and he is still alive. Some comments upon the
story suggested that it was impossible for a man to spend the night on
the prairie with a woman whom he loved without causing her to forget
her marriage vows. It is not sentimental to say that is nonsense. It is a
prurient mind that only sees evil in a situation of the sort. Why it
should be desirable to make a young man and woman commit a
misdemeanor to secure the praise of a critic is beyond imagination. It
would be easy enough to do. I did it in The Right of Way. I did it in
others of my books. What happens to one man and one woman does not
necessarily happen to another. There are men who, for love of a woman,
would not take advantage of her insecurity. There are others who would.
In my books I have made both classes do their will, and both are true to
life. It does not matter what one book is or is not, but it does matter that
an author writes his book with a sense of the fitting and the true.
Both these books were written to present that side of life in Canada
which is not wintry and forbidding. There is warmth of summer in both
tales, and thrilling air and the beauty of the wild countryside. As for the
cold, it is severe in most parts of Canada, but the air is dry, and the
sharpness is not felt as it is in this damper climate of England.
Canadians feel the cold of a March or November day in London far
more than the cold of a day in Winnipeg, with the thermometer many
degrees below zero. Both these books present the summer side of
Canada, which is as delightful as that of any climate in the world; both
show the modern western life which is greatly changed since the days
when Pierre roamed the very fields where these tales take place. It
should never be forgotten that British Columbia has a climate like that
of England, where, on the Coast, it is never colder than here, and where
there is rain instead of snow in winter.
There is much humour and good nature in the West, and this also I tried

to bring out in these two books; and Askatoon is as cosmopolitan as
London. Canada in the West has all races, and it was consistent of me
to give a Chinaman of noble birth a part to play in the tragicomedy. I
have a great respect for the Chinaman, and he is a good servant and a
faithful friend. Such a Chinaman as Li Choo I knew in British
Columbia, and all I did was to throw him on the Eastern side of the
Rockies, a few miles from the border of the farthest Western province.
The Chinaman's death was faithful in its detail, and it was true to his
nature. He had to die, and with the old pagan philosophy, still practised
in China and Japan, he chose the better way, to his mind. Princes still
destroy themselves in old Japan, as recent history proves.

YOU NEVER KNOW YOUR LUCK
Volume 1.
PROEM I. "PIONEERS, O PIONEERS" II. CLOSING THE DOORS
III. THE LOGAN TRIAL AND WHAT CAME OF IT IV.
"STRENGTH SHALL BE GIVEN THEE" V. A STORY TO BE
TOLD

PROEM
Have you ever seen it in reaping-time? A sea of gold it is, with gentle
billows telling of sleep and not of storm, which, like regiments afoot,
salute the reaper and say, "All is fulfilled in the light of the sun and the
way of the earth; let the sharp knife fall." The countless million heads
are heavy with fruition, and sun glorifies and breeze cradles them