Miss Jessie Mackay, who has been described as a Celt transplanted by fate to the Antipodes, is the most honoured and admired figure in New Zealand literature to-day. She combines in her character and her writings the true spirit of our own land with the fire and enthusiasm and intense love of country of the Gael. Her ardent sympathies and her eloquent tongue and pen have throughout her life been devoted to humanitarian progress and to the helping of just causes. The weaker side, the little nations oppressed by the powerful, have drawn her passionate championship. Fire and compassion, one of her fellow-writers has well said, abide together in her nature. She has written much that is distinctively New Zealand; she knows the land as only the native-born and the country-bred know it. With that knowledge and affection there is blended the profound love of the older lands and their associations, and inspiring all is the soul of a mystic. Rightful honour was paid to her when she was chosen some years ago to visit Ireland and England and Europe as a delegate to the Irish Conference in Paris, where she met many of the great figures in the world of Celtic culture. Jessie Mackay, daughter of Robert and Elizabeth Mackay, was born in 1864 at Rakaia Gorge, among the Canterbury foothills of the Alps, where her father had his sheep station. The greater part of her life has been passed in Canterbury, and she lives now on Cashmere Hills, looking out over Christchurch City and the great Plains she knows so well.