Adapted from:
Cushing, Esther. "Emily Carr as Writer".
Montréal Gazette, November 28, 1953.
PAUSE: A Sketch Book.
By Emily Carr.
Clarke, Irwin. 146 pages. $3.00.
In 1902 when Emily Carr was an art student in London at the Westminster School, she seriously undermined her health by overwork, so seriously indeed, that she unwillingly obeyed the fiat of a pundit from Harley Street who ordered complete rest for at least a year. She, a natural rebel who loathed restraint, voluntarily submitted to imprisonment in Sunhill Sanatorium presided over by Dr. Sally Bottle, eminent lung specialist.
A rest cure in an establishment maintained primarily for tubercular patients seems to modern minds a strange remedy for someone suffering from strain and excessive fatigue, a drastic measure of "cure or kill." Fortunately for posterity, it was "cure." Forbidden to paint, the one creative medium left to Emily was a little black-covered sketch book, which for 18 long months was to be her chief safety valve. This manuscript which she called "Pause" has now been released by her literary executors; here she jotted down her thoughts and experiences. With her we share the dreary, dragging, spartan routine of sanatorium life among doctors, nurses, and patients, all conjured back to life again by the magic of one very special patient's pen. Listen to her graphic description of "Odd Jobs:" Beyond all ranking, at the tail of the list (of sanitorium personnel) came 'nondescript,' neither nurse, maid, nor patient. Her neck was a continuation of her lean cheeks; she had no chin, she had sly eyes which skidded. The nurses called on her inefficiency for bits of help if they were extra busy."
Often gaiety elbows sadness out of the way in this story of a hiatus in the creative life of a great Canadian, for no bludgeonings of fate (and she had many) could suppress her innate joy in the beauties of life. Yet because she was never one to shirk stark realities, and because she had a heart as big as the earth, her own sensitivity compelled her to sorrow and suffer with suffering humanity and animals. So we in turn grieve with and for her at the failure of her plan to bring home to Canada some of Britain's loved song birds.
Scattered throughout the book at appropriate intervals are delightfully intimate and apt sketches which cast little flashes of light into corners of her personality not revealed in her more serious and so-called "important" artistic expression. Her humor, her sense of the ludicrous, her power to caricature, her devotions to birds and beasts are all set down for us to admire, appreciate, and enjoy. Best of all, she had the appealing quality of being able to poke fun at herself and her own foibles. Her amusing minor talent for versifying points up many of the drawings. Even her own handwriting is reproduced, and affection for her grew when my eye caught two spelling mistakes! There is something particularly endearing which warms the cockles of the heart when someone so greatly gifted can come down to ordinary life size and makes little common slips, even as you and I.
by ESTHER CUSHING
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Copyright. The National Library of Canada.
(Revised: 19 August 1997).
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