Humour and balance in The Imperialist: Sara Jeannette Duncan’s “Instinct of Presentation”

Humour and balance in The Imperialist: Sara Jeannette Duncan's "Instinct of Presentation" MICHAEL PETERMAN Early in the 1960's, while preparing his contributions to the Literary History of Canada , Professor Gordon Roper was surprised to discover a letter from Sara Jeannette Duncan to her old friend, Lord Lansdowne. It was tucked ins·ide the cover of the Toronto Public Library's copy of The Imperialist and read as follows: 56 The Ladies Empire Club 89, Grosvenor Station Jan. 8th [ 1905] Dear Lord Lansdowne, I wonder if I may count upon your affection for Canada and the kind interest you expressed in the beginnings of my literary work there [Duncan had sent him a copy of her first book, A Social Departure], far enough to send you my Canadian novel "The Imperialist"? The book was publ'ished a few months ago, but I was in India at the time, and felt too far out upon the periphery of the Empire to take a very active share in its distribution from the centre. It seems to me that among the assumptions and disputes over here as to what the "colonial view" really is, it might be worth while to present the situation as it appears to the average Canadian of the average small town, inarticulate except at election times, but whose view, in the end counts for more than those of those pictorial people whose speeches at Toronto banquets go so far to over-colour the British imag·ination about Canadian sentiment I thought it might be useful to bring this practical person forward and let him be seen. I hope I have not made him too prominent, but he is there. My book offers only a picture of life and opinion, and attempts no argument. I have on this account the better courage in sending it. I should be very happy indeed if it might claim some stray half-hour of your leisure time. and I am, yours sincerely, Sara Jeannette Cotes. 1 Two aspects of this letter are particularly intriguing. The first is her statement that "My book offers only a picture of life and opinion, and attempts no argument." Though, like Stephen Leacock, she was herself an ardent Imperialist, it was her design in The Imperialist to present the political issue in a balanced way. B·alance, in fact, is the ordering principle of the novel; it extends beyond the political question to the presentation of the town itself and, in the degree that Elgin ( Brantford, Ontario) is a microcosm of the country, to the presentation of Canada as a whole. A brief piece of dialogue between the restless Advena Murchison, a young Elgin schoolteacher, and her romantic interest, a Scottish minister named Hugh Finlay, catches the novel's sprightly sense of balance in a representative way: Finlay said when he came in that the heat for May was extraordinary; and Advena reminded him that he was in a country where everything was accomplished quickly, even summer. "Except perhaps civilization," she added. They were both young enough to be pleased with cleverness for its specious self (108).2 Such a passage reminds the re:ader of the sustained humour, charm and amiability of Duncan's writing. She is adept at developing the comedy of contrasting points of view and at making both the humour and the contrast serve her larger thematic interests. Indeed her sense of humour, a careful and Revue d'etudes canadiennes ingenious balancing of wry sympathy and probing satire, pervades the novel, providing its buoyancy of tone and, more importantly, an inteHigent perspective in which to view the complexities of the political and social analysis on the one hand and the excessive self-seriousness of certain of her characters on the other. Certainly, no other Canadian novel of Duncan's time achieved such a convinGing picture of social life or such an effeGtive sense of balanced presentation. In The Imperialist, Canada is both "elbowroom " and "an empty horizon"; it is a place where there is "scope" for the individual, a "chance of self-respect, ... of significance and success," a place distinguished by "the plenty of things" while at the same time it is a place...