Canada by Sir John George Bourinot (10 best novels of all time TXT) 📕

agriculturists, Their province is less favoured than Ontario with respect to climate and soil. The French system of sub-dividing farms among the members of a family has tended to cut up the land unprofitably, and it is a curious sight to see the number of extremely narrow lots throughout the French settlements. It must be admitted, too, that the French population has less enterprise, and less disposition to adopt new {447} machines and improved agricultural implements, than the people of the other provinces.

As a rule, the _habitant_ lives contentedly on very little. Give him a pipe of native tobacco, a chance of discussing politics, a gossip with his fellows at the church door after service, a visit now and then to the county town, and he will be happy. It does not take much to amuse him, while he is quite satisfied that his spiritual safety is secured as long as he is within sound of the church bells, goes regularly to confession, and observes all the _fetes d'obligation_. If he or one of his family can only get a little office in the municipality, or in the "government," then his happiness is nearly perfect. Indeed, if he were not a bureaucrat, he would very much belie his French origin. Take him all in all, however, Jean-Baptiste, as he is familiarly known, from the patron saint of French Canada, has many excellent qualities. He is naturally polite, steady in his habits, and conservative in his instincts. He is excitable and troublesome only when his political passions are thoroughly aroused, or his religious principles are at stake; and then it is impossible to say to what extreme he will go. Like the people from whom he is descended--many of whose characteristics he has never lost since his residence of centuries on the American continent--he is greatly influenced by matters of feeling and sentiment, and the skilful master of rhetoric has it constantly in his power to sway him to an extent which is not possible in the case of the stronger, less impulsive Saxon race, with whom reason and argument prevail to a large degree.

In the present, as in the past, the Church makes every effort to supervise with a zealous care the mental food that is offered for the nourishment of the people in the rural districts, where it exercises the greatest influence. Agnosticism is a word practically unknown in the vocabulary of the French Canadian _habitant_, who is quite ready to adhere without wavering to the old belief which his forefathers professed. Whilst the French Canadians doubtless lose little by refusing to listen to the teachings which would destroy all old-established and venerable institutions, and lead them into an unknown country of useless speculation, they do not, as a rule, allow their minds sufficient scope and expansion. It is true that a new generation is growing up with a larger desire for philosophic inquiry and speculation. But whilst the priests continue to control the public school system of the province, they have a powerful means of maintaining the current of popular thought in that conservative and too often narrow groove, in which they have always laboured to keep it since the days of Laval.

It is obvious, however, to a careful observer of the recent history of the country that there is more independence of thought and action showing itself in the large centres of population--even in the rural communities--and that the people are beginning to understand that they should be left free to exercise their political rights without direct or undue interference on the part of their spiritual advisers. English ideas in this respect seem certainly to be gaining ground.

In the days of the French regime there was necessarily no native literature, and little general culture except in small select circles at Quebec and Montreal. But during the past half century, with the increase of wealth, the dissemination of liberal education, and the development of self-government, the French Canadians have created for themselves a literature which shows that they inherit much of the spirituality and brilliancy of their race. Their histories and poems have attracted much attention in literary circles in France, and one poet, Mr. Louis Frechette, has won the highest prize of the French Institute for the best poem of the year. In history we have the names of Garneau, Ferland, Sulte, Tasse, Casgrain; in poetry, Cremazie, Chauveau, Frechette, Poisson, Lemay; in science, Hamel, Laflamme, De Foville; besides many others famed as savants and litterateurs. In art some progress has been made, and several young men go to the Paris schools from time to time. The only sculptor of original merit that Canada has yet produced is Hebert, a French Canadian, whose monuments of eminent Canadians stand in several public places. Science has not made so much progress as belles-lettres and history, though Laval University--the principal educational institution of the highest class--has among its professors men who show some creditable work in mathematics, geology, and physics. In romance, however, very little has been done.

The French Canadians have a natural love for poetry and music. Indeed it is a French Canadian by birth and early education--Madame Albani--who {451} not long ago won a high distinction on the operatic stage. No writer of this nationality, however, has yet produced an opera or a drama which has won fame for its author. The priesthood, indeed, has been a persistent enemy of the theatre, which consequently has never attained a successful foothold in French Canada. Sacred music, so essential a feature of a Roman Catholic service, has been always cultivated with success.

The _chansons populaires_, which have been so long in vogue among the people of all classes in the province of Quebec are the same in spirit, and very frequently in words, as those which their ancestors brought over with them from Brittany, Normandy, Saintonge, and Franche-Comte. Some have been adapted to Canadian scenery and associations, but most of them are essentially European in allusion and spirit. The Canadian lumberer among the pines of the Ottawa and its tributaries, the _Metis_ or half-breeds of what was once the great Lone Land, still sing snatches of the songs which the _coureurs de bois_, who followed Duluth and other French explorers, were wont to sing as they paddled over the rivers of the West or camped beneath the pines and the maples of the great forests. It is impossible to set the words of all of them to the music of the drawing-room, where they seem tame and meaningless; but when they mingle with "the solemn sough of the forest," or with the roar of rushing waters, the air seems imbued with the spirit of the surroundings. It has been well observed by M. Gagnon, a French Canadian, that "many of them have no beauty {452} except on the lips of the peasantry." There is "something sad and soft in the voices that imparts a peculiar charm to these monotonous airs, in which their whole existence seems to be reflected."

I give below the most popular and poetical of all the Canadian ballads, and at the same time a translation by a Canadian writer:[2]

A LA CLAIRE FONTAINE. TRANSLATION.

A la claire fontaine Down to the crystal streamlet
M'en allant promener, I strayed at close of day;
J'ai trouve l'eau si belle Into its limpid waters
Que je m'y suis baigne. I plunged without delay.
Lui ya longtemps que je t'aime, I 've loved thee long and dearly,
Jamais je ne t'oublierai. I 'll love thee, sweet, for aye.

J'ai trouve l'eau si belle Into its limpid waters
Que je m'y suis baigne, I plunged without delay;
Et c'est au pied d'un chene Then 'mid the flowers springing
Que je m'suis repose. At the oak-tree's foot I lay.

Et c'est au pied d'un chene Then 'mid the flowers springing
Que je m'suis repose; At the oak-tree's foot I lay;
Sur la plus haute branche Sweet the nightingale was singing
Le rossignol chantait. High on the topmost spray.

Sur la plus haute branche Sweet the nightingale was singing
Le rossignol chantait; High on the topmost spray;
Chante, rossignol, chante, Sweet bird! keep ever singing
Toi qui as le coeur gai. Thy song with heart so gay.

Chante, rossignol, chante, Sweet bird! keep ever singing
Toi qui as le coeur gai; Thy song with heart so gay;
Tu as le coeur a rire, Thy heart was made for laughter,
Moi je l'ai-t a pleurer. My heart 's in tears to-day.

Tu as le coeur a rire, Thy heart was made for laughter,
Moi je l'ai-t a pleurer; My heart 's in tears to-day;
J'ai perdu ma maitresse Tears for a fickle mistress,
Sans pouvoir la trouver. Flown from its love away.

J'ai perdu ma maitresse Tears for a fickle mistress,
Sans pouvoir la trouver; Flown from its love away,
Pour un bouquet de roses All for these faded roses
Que je lui refusai; Which I refused in play.

Pour un bouquet de roses All for these faded roses
Que je lui refusai; Which I refused in play--