was going to Canada. 'A country without a soul!' they cried, and pressed
books upon me, to befriend me through that Philistine bleakness. Their
commiseration unnerved me, but I was heartened by a feeling that I was,
in a sense, going home, and by the romance of journeying. There was
romance in the long grim American train, in the great lake we passed in
the blackest of nights, and could just see glinting behind dark trees;
in the negro car-attendant; in the boy who perpetually cried: 'Pea-nuts!
Candy!' up and down the long carriages; in the lofty box they put me
in to sleep; and in the fat old lady who had the berth under mine, and
snored shrilly the whole night through. There was almost romance, even,
in the fact that after all there was no restaurant-car on the train;
and, having walked all day in the country, I dined off an orange. I
suppose an Englishman in another country, if he is simple enough, is
continually and alternately struck by two thoughts: 'How like England
this is!' and 'How unlike England this is!' When I had woken next
morning, and, lying on my back, had got inside my clothes with a series
of fish-like jumps, I found myself looking with startled eyes out of the
window at the largest river I had ever seen. It was blue, and sunlit,
and it curved spaciously. But beyond that we ran into the squalider
parts of a city. It became immediately obvious that we were not in New
York or Boston or any of the more orderly, the rather foreign, cities
of America. There was something in the untidiness of those grimy houses,
the smoky disorder of the backyards, that ran a thrill of nostalgia
through me. I recognised the English way of doing things--with a
difference that I could not define till later.
Determined to be in all ways the complete tourist, I took a rough
preliminary survey of Montreal in an 'observation-car.' It was a large
motor-wagonette, from which everything in Montreal could be seen in two
hours. We were a most fortuitous band of twenty, who had elected so to
see it. Our guide addressed us from the front through a small megaphone,
telling us what everything was, what we were to be interested in, what
to overlook, what to admire. He seemed the exact type of a spiritual
pastor and master, shepherding his stolid and perplexed flock on a
regulated path through the dust and clatter of the world. And the great
hollow device out of which our instruction proceeded was so perfectly a
blind mouth. I had never understood _Lycidas_ before. We were sheepish
enough, and fairly hungry. However, we were excellently fed. "On the
right, ladies and gentlemen, is the Bank of Montreal; on the left
the Presbyterian Church of St Andrew's; on the right, again, the
well-designed residence of Sir Blank Blank; further on, on the same
side, the Art Museum...." The outcome of it all was a vague general
impression that Montreal consists of banks and churches. The people of
this city spend much of their time in laying up their riches in this
world or the next. Indeed, the British part of Montreal is dominated
by the Scotch race; there is a Scotch spirit sensible in the whole
place--in the rather narrow, rather gloomy streets, the solid, square,
grey, aggressively prosperous buildings, the general greyness of the
city, the air of dour prosperity. Even the Canadian habit of loading the
streets with heavy telephone wires, supported by frequent black poles,
seemed to increase the atmospheric resemblance to Glasgow.
But besides all this there is a kind of restraint in the air, due,
perhaps, to a state of affairs which, more than any other, startles the
ordinary ignorant English visitor. The average man in England has an
idea of Canada as a young-eyed daughter State, composed of millions
of wheat-growers and backwoodsmen of British race. It surprises him to
learn that more than a quarter of the population is of French descent,
that many of them cannot speak English, that they control a province,
form the majority in the biggest city in Canada, and are a perpetual
complication in the national politics. Even a stranger who knows this is
startled at the complete separateness of the two races. Inter-marriage
is very rare. They do not meet socially; only on business, and that not
often. In the same city these two communities dwell side by side, with
different traditions, different languages, different ideals, without
sympathy or comprehension. The French in Canada are entirely devoted
to--some say under the thumb of--the Roman Catholic Church. They seem
like a piece of the Middle Ages, dumped after a trans-secular journey
into a quite uncompromising example of our commercial time. Some
of their leaders are said to have dreams of a French Republic--or
theocracy--on the banks of the St Lawrence. How this, or any other,
solution of the problem is to come about, no man knows. Racial
difficulties are the most enduring of all. The French and British in
Canada seem to have behaved with quite extraordinary generosity and
kindliness towards each other. No one is to blame. But it is not in
human nature that two communities should live side by side, pretending
they are one, without some irritation and mutual loss of strength. There
is no open strife. But 'incidents,' and the memory of incidents, bear
continual witness to the truth of the situation. And racial disagreement
is at the bottom, often unconsciously, of many political and social
movements. Sir Wilfrid Laurier performed a miracle. But no one of French
birth will ever again be Premier of Canada.
Montreal and Eastern Canada suffer from that kind of ill-health which
afflicts men who are cases of 'double personality'--debility and
spiritual paralysis. The 'progressive' British-Canadian man of commerce
is comically desperate of peasants who _will not_ understand that
increase of imports and volume of trade and numbers of millionaires are
the measures of a city's greatness; and to his eye the Roman Catholic
Church, with her invaluable ally Ignorance, keeps up her incessant
war against the general good of the community of which she is part. So
things remain.
I made my investigations in Montreal. I have to report that
the Discobolus [Footnote: See Samuel Butler's poem, "Oh God! oh
Montreal!"--Ed.] is very well, and, nowadays, looks the whole world in
the face, almost quite unabashed. West of Montreal, the country seems
to take on a rather more English appearance. There is still a French
admixture. But the little houses are not purely Gallic, as they are
along the Lower St Lawrence; and once or twice I detected real hedges.
Ottawa came as a relief after Montreal. There is no such sense of strain
and tightness in the atmosphere. The British, if not greatly in the
majority, are in the ascendency; also, the city seems conscious of other
than financial standards, and quietly, with dignity, aware of her own
purpose. The Canadians, like the Americans, chose to have for their
capital a city which did not lead in population or in wealth. This is
particularly fortunate in Canada, an extremely individualistic country,
whose inhabitants are only just beginning to be faintly conscious of
their nationality. Here, at least, Canada is more than the Canadian. A
man desiring to praise Ottawa would begin to do so without statistics
of wealth and the growth of population; and this can be said of no
other city in Canada except Quebec. Not that there are not immense
lumber-mills and the rest in Ottawa. But the Government farm, and the
Parliament buildings, are more important. Also, although the 'spoils'
system obtains a good deal in this country, the nucleus of the Civil
Service is much the same as in England; so there is an atmosphere of
Civil Servants about Ottawa, an atmosphere of safeness and honour and
massive buildings and well-shaded walks. After all, there is in the
qualities of Civility and Service much beauty, of a kind which would
adorn Canada.
Parliament Buildings stand finely on a headland of cliff some 160 feet
above the river. There are gardens about them; and beneath, the wooded
rocks go steeply down to the water. It is a position of natural boldness
and significance. The buildings were put up in the middle of last
century, an unfortunate period. But they have dignity, especially of
line; and when evening hides their colour, and the western sky and the
river take on the lovely hues of a Canadian sunset, and the lights begin
to come out in the city, they seem to have the majesty and calm of a
natural crown of the river-headland. The Government have bought the
ground along the cliff for half a mile on either side, and propose to
build all their offices there. So, in the end, if they build well, the
river-front at Ottawa will be a noble sight. And--just to show that it
is Canada, and not Utopia--the line of national buildings will always be
broken by an expensive and superb hotel the Canadian Pacific Railway has
been allowed to erect on the twin and neighbouring promontory to that of
the Houses of Parliament.
The streets of Ottawa are very quiet, and shaded with trees. The houses
are mostly of that cool, homely, wooden kind, with verandahs, on which,
or on the steps, the whole family may sit in the evening and observe the
passers-by. This is possible for both the rich and the poor, who live
nearer each other in Ottawa than in most cities. In general there is an
air of civilisation, which extends even over the country round. But in
the country you see little signs, a patch of swamp, or thickets of still
untouched primaeval wood, which remind you that Europeans have not long
had this land. I was taken in a motor-car some twenty miles or more over
the execrable roads round here, to a lovely little lake in the hills
north-west of Ottawa. We went by little French villages and fields at
first, and then through rocky, tangled woods of birch and poplar, rich
with milk-weed and blue cornflowers, and the aromatic thimbleberry
blossom, and that romantic, light, purple-red flower which is called
fireweed, because it is the first vegetation to spring up in the prairie
after a fire has passed over, and so might be adopted as the emblematic
flower of a sense of humour. They told me, casually, that there was
nothing but a few villages between me and the North Pole. It is probably
true of several commonly frequented places in this country. But it gives
a thrill to hear it.
But what Ottawa leaves in the mind is a certain graciousness--dim, for
it expresses a barely materialised national spirit--and the sight of
kindly English-looking faces, and the rather lovely sound of the soft
Canadian accent, in the streets.
VI
QUEBEC AND THE SAGUENAY
The boat starts from Montreal one evening, and lands you in Quebec at
six next morning. The evening I left was a dull one. Heavy sulphurous
clouds hung low over the city, drifting very slowly and gloomily
out across the river. Mount Royal crouched, black and sullen, in the
background, its crest occluded by the darkness, appearing itself a cloud
materialised, resting on earth. The harbour was filled with volumes of
smoke, purple and black, wreathing and sidling eastwards, from steamers
and chimneys. The gigantic elevators and other harbour buildings stood
mistily in this inferno, their heads clear and sinister above the mirk.
It was impossible to decide whether an enormous mass of pitchy and
Tartarian gloom was being slowly moulded by diabolic invisible hands
into a city, or a city, the desperate and damned abode of a loveless
race, was disintegrating into its proper fume and dusty chaos. With
relief we turned outwards to the nobility of the St Lawrence and the
gathering dark.
On the boat I fell in with another wanderer, an American Jew, and we
joined our fortunes, rather loosely, for a few days. He was one of
those men whom it is a life-long pleasure to remember. I can record his
existence the more easily that there is not the slightest chance of
his ever reading these lines. He was a fat, large man of forty-five,
obviously in business, and probably of a mediocre success. His eyes were
light-coloured, very small, always watery, and perpetually roving. The
lower part of his face was clean-shaven and very broad; his mouth wide,
with thin, moist, colourless lips; his nose fat and Hebraic. He was
rather bald. He had respect for Montreal, because, though closed to
navigation for five months in the year, it is the second busiest port
on the coast. He said it had Boston skinned. The French he disliked. He
thought they stood in the way of Canada's progress. His mind was even
more childlike and transparent than is usual with business men. The
observer could see thoughts slowly floating into it, like carp in a
pond. When they got near the surface, by a purely automatic process they
found utterance. He was almost completely unconscious of an audience.
Everything he thought of he said. He told me that his boots were giving
in the sole, but would probably last this trip. He said he had not
washed his feet for eight days; and that his clothes were shabby (which
was true), but would do for Canada. It was interesting to see how Canada
presented herself to that mind. He seemed to regard her as a kind of
Boeotia, and terrifyingly dour. "These Canadian waiters," he said, "they
jes' _fling_ the food in y'r face. Kind'er gets yer sick, doesn't it?" I
agreed. There was a Yorkshire mechanic, too, who had been in Canada four
years, and preferred it to England, "because you've room to breathe,"
but also found that Canada had not yet learnt social comfort, and
regretted the manners of "the Old Country."
We woke to find ourselves sweeping round a high cliff, at six in the
morning, with a lively breeze, the river very blue and broken into
ripples, and a lot of little white clouds in the sky. The air was full
of gaiety and sunshine and the sense of the singing of birds, though
actually, I think, there were only a few gulls crying. It was the
perfection of a summer morning, thrilling with a freshness which, the
fancy said, was keener than any the old world knew. And high and grey
and serene above the morning lay the citadel of Quebec.
Is there any city in the world that stands so nobly as Quebec? The
citadel crowns a headland, three hundred feet high, that juts boldly out
into the St Lawrence. Up to it, up the side of the hill, clambers the
city, houses and steeples and huts, piled one on the other. It has the
individuality and the pride of a city where great things have happened,
and over which many years have passed. Quebec is as refreshing and as
definite after the other cities of this continent as an immortal among
a crowd of stockbrokers. She has, indeed, the radiance and repose of an
immortal; but she wears her immortality youthfully. When you get among
the streets of Quebec, the mediaeval, precipitous, narrow, winding, and
perplexed streets, you begin to realise her charm. She almost incurs the
charge of quaintness (abhorrent quality!); but even quaintness becomes
attractive in this country. You are in a foreign land, for the people
have an alien tongue, short stature, the quick, decided, cinematographic
quality of movement, and the inexplicable cheerfulness, which mark a
foreigner. You might almost be in Siena or some old German town, except
that Quebec has her street-cars and grain-elevators to show that she is
living.
The American Jew and I took a _caleche_, a little two-wheeled local
carriage, driven by a lively Frenchman with a factitious passion for
death-spots and churches. A small black and white spaniel followed
the _caleche_, yapping. The American's face shone with interest. "That
dawg's Michael," he said, "the hotel dawg. He's a queer little dawg. I
kicked his face; and he tried to bite me. Hup, Michael!" And he laughed
hoarsely. "Non!" said the driver suddenly, "it is not the 'otel dog."
The American did not lose interest. "These little dawgs are all alike,"
he said. "Dare say if you kicked that dawg in the face, he'd bite you.
Hup, Michael!" With that he fell into deep thought.
We rattled up and down the steep streets, out among tidy fields, and
back into the noisily sedate city again. We saw where Wolfe fell, where
Montcalm fell, where Montgomery fell. Children played where the tides of
war had ebbed and flowed. Mr Norman Angell and his friends tell us that
trade is superseding war; and pacifists declare that for the future
countries will win their pride or shame from commercial treaties and
tariffs and bounties, and no more from battles and sieges. And there is
a part of Canadian patriotism that has progressed this way. But I wonder
if the hearts of that remarkable race, posterity, will ever beat the
harder when they are told, "Here Mr Borden stood when he decided to
double the duty on agricultural implements," or even "In this room Mr
Ritchie conceived the plan of removing the shilling on wheat." When that
happens, Quebec will be a forgotten ruin.... The reverie was broken by
my friend struggling to his feet and standing, unsteady and bareheaded,
in the swaying carriage. In that position he burst hoarsely into a song
that I recognised as 'The Star-Spangled Banner.' We were passing the
American Consulate. His song over, he settled down and fell into a deep
sleep, and the _caleche_ jolted down even narrower streets, curiously
paved with planks, and ways that led through and under the ancient,
tottering wooden houses.
But Quebec is too real a city to be 'seen' in such a manner. And a
better way of spending a few days, or years, is to sit on Dufferin
Terrace, with the old Lower Town sheer beneath you, and the river
beyond it, and the citadel to the right, a little above, and the Isle of
Orleans and the French villages away down-stream to your left. Hour by
hour the colours change, and sunlight follows shadow, and mist rises,
and smoke drifts across. And through the veil of the shifting of lights
and hues there remains visible the majesty of the most glorious river in
the world.
From this contemplation, and from musing on men's agreement to mark by
this one great sign of the Taking of the Heights of Quebec, the turning
of one of the greatest currents in our history, I was torn by a journey
I had been advised to make. The boat goes some hundred and thirty miles
down the St Lawrence, turns up a northern tributary, the Saguenay, goes
as far as Chicoutimi, ninety miles up, and returns to Quebec. Both on
this trip, and between Quebec and Montreal, we touched at many
little French villages, by day and by night. Their _habitants_, the
French-Canadian peasants, are a jolly sight. They are like children
in their noisy content. They are poor and happy, Roman Catholics; they
laugh a great deal; and they continually sing. They do not progress at
all. As a counter to these admirable people we had on our boat a great
many priests. They diffused an atmosphere of black, of unpleasant
melancholy. Their faces had that curiously unwashed look, and were for
the most part of a mean and very untrustworthy expression. Their eyes
were small, shifty, and cruel, and would not meet the gaze.... The
choice between our own age and mediaeval times is a very hard one.
It was almost full night when we left the twenty-mile width of the St
Lawrence, and turned up a gloomy inlet. By reason of the night and of
comparison with the river from which we had come, this stream appeared
unnaturally narrow. Darkness hid all detail, and we were only aware of
vast cliffs, sometimes dense with trees, sometimes bare faces of sullen
rock. They shut us in, oppressively, but without heat. There are no
banks to this river, for the most part; only these walls, rising sheer
from the water to the height of two thousand feet, going down sheer
beneath it, or rather by the side of it, to many times that depth. The
water was of some colour blacker than black. Even by daylight it is inky
and sinister. It flows without foam or ripple. No white showed in the
wake of the boat. The ominous shores were without sign of life, save
for a rare light every few miles, to mark some bend in the chasm. Once a
canoe with two Indians shot out of the shadows, passed under our
stern, and vanished silently down stream. We all became hushed and
apprehensive. The night was gigantic and terrible. There were a few
stars, but the flood slid along too swiftly to reflect them. The whole
scene seemed some Stygian imagination of Dante. As we drew further and
further into that lightless land, little twists and curls of vapour
wriggled over the black river-surface. Our homeless, irrelevant, tiny
steamer seemed to hang between two abysms. One became suddenly aware of
the miles of dark water beneath. I found that under a prolonged gaze
the face of the river began to writhe and eddy, as if from some horrible
suppressed emotion. It seemed likely that something might appear. I
reflected that if the river failed us, all hope was gone; and that
anyhow this region was the abode of devils. I went to bed.
Next day we steamed down the river again. By daylight some of the horror
goes, but the impression of ancientness and desolation remains. The
gloomy flood is entirely shut in by the rock or the tangled pine and
birch forests of these great cliffs, except in one or two places, where
a chine and a beach have given lodging to lonely villages. One of these
is at the end of a long bay, called Ha-Ha Bay. The local guide-book, an
early example of the school of fantastic realism so popular among
our younger novelists, says that this name arose from the 'laughing
ejaculations' of the early French explorers, who had mistaken this
lengthy blind-alley for the main stream. 'Ha! Ha!' they said. So like an
early explorer.
At the point where the Saguenay joins the St Lawrence, here twenty miles
wide, I 'stopped off' for a day, to feel the country more deeply.
The village is called Tadousac, and consists of an hotel and French
fishermen, to whom Quebec is a distant, unvisited city of legend. The
afternoon was very hot. I wandered out along a thin margin of yellow
sand to the extreme rocky point where the waters of the two rivers
meet and swirl. There I lay, and looked at the strange humps of the
Laurentian hills, and the dark green masses of the woods, impenetrable
depths of straight and leaning and horizontal trees, broken here and
there by great bald granite rocks, and behind me the little village,
where the earliest church in Canada stands. Away in the St Lawrence
there would be a flash as an immense white fish jumped. Miles out an
occasional steamer passed, bound to England perhaps. And once,
hugging the coast, came a half-breed paddling a canoe with a small
diamond-shaped sail, filled with trout. The cliff above me was crowned
with beds of blue flowers, whose names I did not know. Against the
little gulfs and coasts of rock at my feet were washing a few white logs
of driftwood. I wondered if they could have floated across from England,
or if they could be from the _Titanic_. The sun was very hot, the sky a
clear light blue, almost cloudless, like an English sky, and the water
seemed fairly deep. I stripped, hovered a while on the brink, and
plunged. The current was unexpectedly strong. I seemed to feel that
two-mile-deep body of black water moving against me. And it was cold as
death. Stray shreds of the St Lawrence water were warm and cheerful. But
the current of the Saguenay, on such a day, seemed unnaturally icy. As
my head came up I made one dash for the land, scrambled out on the hot
rocks, and lay there panting. Then I dried on a handkerchief, dressed,
and ran back home, still shivering, through the woods to the hotel.
VII
ONTARIO