In 1896 he met Mary Perry King, the greatest and most sustained female influence on his life. For the rest of his life he lived either near Mrs. King and her husband or in a house on their grounds in New Canaan, Connecticut. Mrs. King was his patron, influencing him to accept the philosophy of unitrinianism, which offers serenity to the individual through a belief in the symmetry of all things: a person's life should be an equal balance of the physical, emotional, and mental aspects of his personality. This belief created a close personal relationship between Mrs. King and Carman but often alienated him from his family and his country. In the last ten years of his life he again became attached to his Canadian background, did a speaking tour of Canada, was presented with honorary degrees from various Canadian universities, and was buried in Fredericton, New Brunswick, where he was born.
Carman's first book, Low Tide on Grand Pré: A Book of Lyrics (1893), began to establish Carman's reputation and is his most outstanding collection of poems; he was thirty-two when it was published, and except for occasional bursts of imagination, his poetry remained the same in theme, mood, and intensity for the rest of his life.
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