To a traveler from the Old World, Canada East may appear like a new country, and its inhabitants like colonists, but to me, coming... from New England and being a very green traveler withal,... it appeared as old as Normandy itself, and realized much that I had heard of Europe and the Middle Ages. Even the names of humble Canadian villages affected me as if they had been those of the renowned cities of antiquity. To be told by a habitan, when I asked the name of a village in sight, that it is St. Féreol or St. Anne, the Guardian Angel or the Holy Joseph's; or of a mountain, that it was Bélange or St. Hyacinthe! As soon as you leave the States, these saintly names begin ... and thenceforward, the names of mountains, and streams, and villages reel, if I may so speak, with the intoxication of poetry,--Chambly, Longueuil, Pointe aux Trembles, Bartholomy, etc., etc.; as if it needed only a little foreign accent, a few more liquids and vowels perchance in the language, to make us locate our ideals at once. I began to dream of Provence and the Troubadours, and of places and things which have no existence on the earth. They veiled the Indian and the primitive forest, and the woods towards Hudson's Bay were only as the forests of Germany. I could not at once bring myself to believe that the inhabitants who pronounced daily those beautiful and, to me, significant names lead as prosaic lives as we of New England. In short, the Canada which I saw was not merely a place for railroads to terminate in and for criminals to run to.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
He with cowslips pale, Primrose, and purple lychnis, decked the green... Before my threshold, and my shelving walls With honeysuckle covered.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I always looked to about thirty as the barrier of any real or fierce delight in the passions, and determined to work them out in t...he younger ore and better veins of the mine--and I flatter myself (perhaps) that I have pretty well done so--and now the dross is coming.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Green, green is El Aghir. It has a railway station, And the wealth of its soil has borne many another fruit:... A mairie, a school and an elegant Salle de Fetes. Such blessings, as I remarked, in effect, to the waiter, Are added unto them that have plenty of water.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
I thought when I was a young man that I would conquer the world with truth. I thought I would lead an army greater than Alexander ...ever dreamed of. Not to conquer nations, but to liberate mankind with truth, with the golden sound of the word. But only a few of them heard, only a few of you understood. The rest of you put on black and sat in chapel. Why do you come here? Why do you? Dress your hypocrisy in black and parade before your God on Sunday. From love--no. For you've shown that your hearts are too withered to receive the love of your divine father. I know why you've come. I've seen it in your faces, Sunday after Sunday. Fear has brought you here. Horrible, superstitious fear. Fear of divine retribution. A bolt of fire from the skies. The vengeance of the Lord and the justice of God. But you have forgotten the love of Jesus. You disregard His sacrifice. Death. Fear. Flames. Horror. And black clothes. Hold your meeting then, but know if you do this in the name of good and the house of God, against Him and His word you blaspheme.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »
Men like my father cannot die. They are with me still, real in memory as they were in flesh, loving and beloved forever. How green... was my valley then.LESSATTRIBUTION DETAIL »