SOURCE: “Spanish-American Poet: The Life and Ideas of Gabriela Mistral,” in Commonweal, Vol. 35, No. 7, December 5, 1941, pp. 160–63.

In the following essay, Finlayson introduces Mistral to North American readers as a poet of sadness, an advocate for the downtrodden, and as a Christian evangelist of Democracy.

In 1889 there was born in Vicuña, a small town in northern Chile, an infant who in the course of years was destined to be one of the most famous women of our time. Lucila Godoy was of humble parentage. Her family gained its living working in the fields, as did the majority of the neighbors in that agricultural region. Her earliest years were thus spent in the country. At the age of 15 she began her calling as a teacher in a small rural school. For several years, years which were decisive in her development, Lucila Godoy was dealing with children and with the...