Literary Inspiration
A unique figure, Grenfell served to inspire at least two characters in Canadian literature: Dr. Luke in Norman Duncan's Doctor Luke of the Labrador (1904) and Dr. Tocsin in White Eskimo by Harold Horwood (1972).
A biography for children (middle-high school) was written in 1942, by Genevieve Fox. Published by Thomas Y Crowell Company. The book had second and third printings as well.
The following statement has been widely ascribed to him, but cannot be found in any of his books: "The service we render to others is really the rent we pay for our room on this earth. It is obvious that man is himself a traveler; that the purpose of this world is not 'to have and to hold' but 'to give and serve.' There can be no other meaning."
Read more about this topic: Wilfred Grenfell
Famous quotes containing the words literary and/or inspiration:
“Plato—who may have understood better what forms the mind of man than do some of our contemporaries who want their children exposed only to “real” people and everyday events—knew what intellectual experience made for true humanity. He suggested that the future citizens of his ideal republic begin their literary education with the telling of myths, rather than with mere facts or so-called rational teachings.”
—Bruno Bettelheim (20th century)
“Shakespeare carries us to such a lofty strain of intelligent activity, as to suggest a wealth which beggars his own; and we then feel that the splendid works which he has created, and which in other hours we extol as a sort of self-existent poetry, take no stronger hold of real nature than the shadow of a passing traveller on the rock. The inspiration which uttered itself in Hamlet and Lear could utter things as good from day to day, for ever.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)