DESTROYING A LEGEND.

Auckland Star, Volume LXI, Issue 141, 17 June 1930, Page 6

DESTROYING A LEGEND.

The unveiling "on the historical banks of the River Thames" of Canada's gift statue of General Wolfe is bound to revive the legend of Wolfe's recital of Gray's "Elegy" as his. army floated silently down the St. Lawrence (says the Christchurch "Press"). It has, of course, been pointed out by many factual investigators that silence on that journey was commanded under pain of death, and that Wolfe was not the man to break his own orders; and it is quite thirty years since the legend was so ruthlessly handled in the "Historical Review" that its survival, even as a legend, is proof of the sentimentality of our race. It was further "blown sky high" (the "Times" reviewer said) in Professor Waugh's biography, which appeared two years ago, though his version of the faqts out of which the legend grew is not generally accepted either as to the date, or the place, or the speaker. Apparently someone—it is extremely unlikely that it was Wolfe himself— did, during a reconnaissance a night or two before the attack, say something about the "paths of glory," and a remark dropped by an "elderly professor" half a century later, and later still imperfectly remembered and inaccurately recorded, did the rest. Yet there have not been many heroes better entitled to a legend than Wolfe was, or better able to sustain it after death by the record of their actual achievements. When he took Quebec he was only thirty-two, and handicapped by at least half a dozen serious diseases. (The following account of his physical condition seems to have authority: He suffered at times from ague; on several occasions he was afflicted with scorbutic trouble; often he was racked with rheumatism; before he was twenty-five he had developed stone, which for the short remainder of his life often caused him great pain; he was undoubtedly tubercular; and towards his end was afflicted with chronic tuberculosis of the bladder and kidneys.

The man who could triumph over infirmities like those/in the comfortless surroundings which even generate , of those days had to put up with, had ■a will of iron and a §pkit of tuujuenehable fire.