1962 Fredericton Convocation
Stewart, John Innes MacKintosh
Doctor of Letters (D.Litt.)
Orator: Cattley, Robert E.D.
Image
Image Caption
L to R: J. M. Wardell, John Innes MacKintosh Stewart, K. H. Mackay, J. Leonard O'Brien
Second Image Caption
Source: UA PC-2 no.50; Photo by The Harvey Studios Ltd.
Citation:
CONVOCATION, OCTOBER, 1962
JOHN INNES MACINTOSH STEWART
to be Doctor of Letters
That scholars are, first and last, what constitute a university our Chancellor in his wisdom annually reminds us by inviting Oxford to live and lecture among us. To Rowse and Taylor, historians, has succeeded a brilliant exponent of English letters.
This year His Lordship has given with both hands. He has sent us two roses on a single stem or, to avoid horticultural entanglements, two brains in one pan, two personalities in one very engaging person. On this side we have J. I. M. Stewart the scholar and novelist, on that side Michael Innes, writer of cultured detective fiction -- that
branch of literature in which we can boast of having stolen the field from our Gallic cousins.
Innes' detective was long familiar to us as plain John Appleby, Inspector of Scotland Yard. How proud his creator must have felt when his hero was finally knighted; on which no mere Birthday Honour I am instructed to convey to you, Sir, and through you to Sir John, our sincere if tardy congratulations.
From J. I. M. Stewart our halls have witnessed Oxford lecturing at its purest and best -- no theatricals, no concessions to immaturity; lucid exposition, measured delivery. Happy that after-dinner coterie which, in a séance charged with Freud and fustian, heard don and detective blend in one compulsive ectoplasm and, under the title
Fratricide at Elsinore, reduce Hamlet to a "whodunnit". The voice was Stewart's voice, but the clues were the clues of Innes.
I ask you, J. I. M. Stewart and you, Michael Innes, gentlemen both, to share equably between you the single degree we have, alas, to offer in discharge of our double debt.
From:
Cattley, Robert E.D. Honoris causa: the effervescences of a university orator. Fredericton: UNB Associated Alumnae, 1968.
JOHN INNES MACINTOSH STEWART
to be Doctor of Letters
That scholars are, first and last, what constitute a university our Chancellor in his wisdom annually reminds us by inviting Oxford to live and lecture among us. To Rowse and Taylor, historians, has succeeded a brilliant exponent of English letters.
This year His Lordship has given with both hands. He has sent us two roses on a single stem or, to avoid horticultural entanglements, two brains in one pan, two personalities in one very engaging person. On this side we have J. I. M. Stewart the scholar and novelist, on that side Michael Innes, writer of cultured detective fiction -- that
branch of literature in which we can boast of having stolen the field from our Gallic cousins.
Innes' detective was long familiar to us as plain John Appleby, Inspector of Scotland Yard. How proud his creator must have felt when his hero was finally knighted; on which no mere Birthday Honour I am instructed to convey to you, Sir, and through you to Sir John, our sincere if tardy congratulations.
From J. I. M. Stewart our halls have witnessed Oxford lecturing at its purest and best -- no theatricals, no concessions to immaturity; lucid exposition, measured delivery. Happy that after-dinner coterie which, in a séance charged with Freud and fustian, heard don and detective blend in one compulsive ectoplasm and, under the title
Fratricide at Elsinore, reduce Hamlet to a "whodunnit". The voice was Stewart's voice, but the clues were the clues of Innes.
I ask you, J. I. M. Stewart and you, Michael Innes, gentlemen both, to share equably between you the single degree we have, alas, to offer in discharge of our double debt.
From:
Cattley, Robert E.D. Honoris causa: the effervescences of a university orator. Fredericton: UNB Associated Alumnae, 1968.
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