The Portland daily press., 1866-10-08

1 ANhEE In OANADA.-IuiS pleaSaHb COL
lection of papers by the late Henry D. Tho
reau, has already been noticed in the Press
In turning over the volume we find some pas.
sages which are well worth quoting. Arriv-
ing in Montreal he tell us that his first impulse
was to visit the Cathedral of Notre Dame. He
| thus gives his impressions of the worshippers: :
| Presently came in troop of Canadians in
their home-spun, who had come to the city in
boat with us, and one and all kneeled down in
the aisle before the high altar to their devotions
somewhat awkwardly as cattle prepare to lie
| down, and then we left them. Asif you were to
catch some farmers sons from Marlboro come
| to cattle show, silently kneeling in Concord
| Meeting-house, some Wednesday! Would there
not soon be a crowd peeping in at the windows?
1t is true, these Roman Catholics priests and
| all impress me as people who have fallen far
| behind the significance of their symbols. 1t is
| as if an OK had strayed into a church and was
trying to bethink himself Nevertheless they
are capable of reverence; but we Yankees are
| a people in whom this sentiment has nearly
died out, and in this respect we cannot bethink
ourselves even as an OK. et 500 F.,
The prominence given to the soldiers in Cam
ada struck him. He says; "On every promi-
nent ledge you could England's hands
holding the Canadas, and judged by the red
ness of her knuckles that she would soon have
to let CO." OfQuebec, he says:
The founders of the colony thought this an
excellent site for a wall-and no doubt, it was
better sight in some respects for wall than
| city, but it chanced that city got behind it,
1t chanced, too, that a Lower Town got before
it, and clung like an oyster to the outside of the
crags, as you may see at low tide. 1t is as if
you were to come to a country village sur
rounded by palisades in the old Indian fashion
interesting only as a relic of antiquity and
barbarism. A fortified town is like a man cas-
ndl ftlnh
load of broad-Swords and small arms slung to
him, endeavoring to go about his business.
Going from Quebec into the rural districts
he rambles about among the hdbitans, striving
to understand both their dialect and their mode
of life. One old fellow was too much for him,
for she talked with pipe in his mouth beside,
kind oftobacco-French." The rural old French
names pleased his fancy. He says: I'D
began to dream of Provence and the Trou-
badOurs, and of places and things which have
no existence on the earth. They yelled the
Indian and the primitive forest, and the woods
toward Hudson's Bay were only as the forests
of France and Germany. 1 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 in New England. In short the Canada
which l saw, was not merely place for rail-
roads to terminate in and for criminals to run
to.
He finds that the farmhouses have, properly
speaking, no front doors, and thus philoso-
phizes:
Every New England house, on the contrary
has a front and principal door opening to the
great world, though it may be on the coli side,
for it stands ON the highway of nations, and the
road which runs by it comes from the Old
World and goes to the far West; but the Ca
nadian's door opens into his backyard and
farm alone, and the road which leads behind
his house leads only from the church of one
saint to that of another.
He says of these rural Canadians:
They have no money invested in railroad
stocks, and probably never will have. If they
have got a French phrase for railroad, it is
as much as you can expect of them. They are
very far from a revolution; have no quarrel
with church or state, but their vice and their
virtue is content. AS for annexation they have
never dreamed of it, indeed, they have not
clear idea of what or where the States are.
The English government has been remarkable
liberal to its Catholic subjects in Canada, per-
mitting them to wear their iron fetters both
political and religious, as far as was possible
,ur s,nos SUBJECTS. Their government is even too