Читать книгу The Consummate Canadian - Mary Willan Mason - Страница 7

INTRODUCTION

SAMUEL EDWARD WEIR, BARRISTER-AT-LAW AND ONE OF HER MAJESTY’S Counsel, Learned-in-the-Law, distinguished internationally and the third lawyer from Ontario to be called to the Bar in the Province of Quebec, was born on August 12, 1898 in London, Ontario, and died in his home, River Brink, at Queenston, Ontario on January 18, 1981.

It has been my privilege to meet, through his friends and an immense body of correspondence and notes, Samuel Weir, a man both deeply loved and reviled with scorn. It is axiomatic that such a human being must have led an interesting, controversial and unusual life. He was a man of many parts, of incisive wit and great intelligence as well as having a breath-taking talent for pursuing the least and most illusive crumb of learning about any subject that caught his interest with single-minded passion. At the same time, oblivious to the interpretation by the world at large, he could put himself into a position that would automatically subject him to a misunderstanding of his motives.

Beautiful objects whether they be flowers, sculptures, art works or art in general, entranced Samuel Weir even as a small child and all became his passion throughout his maturity. A true connoisseur, his strong curiousity led him to enquire, to investigate, to know and to understand his collections of art, of antiquarian books, of antique clocks and of coins and finally to share his pleasure in his acquisitions with all who come to his home, River Brink, the house he designed to be a library and museum for all time.

How did all these characteristics, together with brilliance of mind and stern self discipline, come to rest in one complex person? To begin to understand, we must go back to eighteenth century Germany and early nineteenth century Ireland. On both sides of his family he was descended from pioneer stock, each family coming across the Atlantic with the intention of becoming established in what is now south of the Canada - United States border. Each family eventually settled in what was Canada West in British North America, due in one case to vagaries of wind currents and to unforeseeable political developments in the case of the other.