generous praise, though not without some criticism. It made its place,
however, at once, and later appeared another series, called 'An
Adventurer of the North', or, as it is called in this edition, 'A Romany
of the Snows'. Through all the twenty stories of this second volume the
character of Pierre moved; and by the time the last was written there was
scarcely an important magazine in the English-speaking world which had
not printed one or more of them. Whatever may be thought of the stories
themselves, or of the manner in which the life of the Far North was
portrayed, of one thing I am sure: Pierre was true to the life--to his
race, to his environment, to the conditions of pioneer life through which
he moved. When the book first came out there was some criticism from
Canada itself, but that criticism has long since died away, and it never
was determined.

Plays have been founded on the 'Pierre' series, and one in particular,
'Pierre of the Plains', had a considerable success, with Mr. Edgar
Selwyn, the adapter, in the main part. I do not know whether, if I were
to begin again, I should have written all the Pierre stories in quite the
same way. Perhaps it is just as well that I am not able to begin again.
The stories made their own place in their own way, and that there is
still a steady demand for 'Pierre and His People' and 'A Romany of the
Snows' seems evidence that the editor of an important magazine in New
York who declined to recommend them for publication to his firm (and
later published several of the same series) was wrong, when he said that
the tales "seemed not to be salient." Things that are not "salient" do
not endure. It is twenty years since 'Pierre and His People' was
produced--and it still endures. For this I cannot but be deeply
grateful. In any case, what 'Pierre' did was to open up a field which
had not been opened before, but which other authors have exploited since
with success and distinction. 'Pierre' was the pioneer of the Far North