(2) Skill in descriptive characterization. How effectively action, explanation, and description are combined to make his characters vivid, cannot be better exhibited than in the introduction of Valmond in When Valmond Came to Pontiac. Yet there is a tendency to cast some of his characters in moulds, so that they become types rather than individuals. ‘Donovan Pasha’ is but ‘Pretty Pierre’ amid new conditions and circumstances. ‘Krool’ of The Judgment House recalls forcibly ‘Soolsby’ of The Weavers.
(3) His versatility is apparent from the survey already made of his works. And to the list of poems, short stories, and novels, might be added his book on the Great War—The World in the Crucible—and his articles on agricultural questions and land settlement.
(4) His breadth of literary canvas. It may seem a simple matter to place one part of a story in England and another in Africa, or part in Canada and another part in the South Seas, but it requires a very broad grasp of material and a wide knowledge of people, and a keen sense of atmosphere to do it effectually. He has been described as the product of the British Empire, and there is little doubt that the breadth of his experience is the basis of his breadth of literary vision.
(5) A sense of the supernatural and touches of mysticism are consequent to his strong dramatic powers and show in many of his short stories, e.g. The Tall Master and The Flood in Pierre and His People, and in some of his novels, notably in The Weavers.
Summing up our impressions of Sir Gilbert Parker, we find that he has a breadth of vision not excelled or even equalled by any other Canadian writer. Comparing him with Norman Duncan, we see that Duncan is a finer workman but in a narrower range. Parker comes close to taking a place with the front rank modern British novelists and yet he does not quite do it. Why? Perhaps because of the fact that a man’s excellences are very often the cause of his defects. He is nothing if not dramatic. He reaches always for the spectacular climax where nature is often satisfied to take things quietly. He has just a little too much of a tendency to play to the gallery. He verges nearer to the melodramatic than do his contemporary British novelists—in fact, he frequently falls to it. There is not enough innate value in his incidents, there is more stage play.