Ontario. Department of Education

“ Before turning our steps westward from this inland ocean, Lake Superior, it will be well to pause a moment on its shore and look out over its bosom. It is worth looking at, for the world possesses not its equal. Four hundred English miles in length, one hundred and fifty miles in breadth, six hundred feet above Atlantic level, nine hundred feet in depth; one vast spring of purest crystal water, so cold that during summer months its waters are like ice itself, and so clear that hundreds of feet below the surface the rocks stand out as distinctly as though seen through plate-glass. ”

“ The Russian line brings forward each wing as our cavalry advance, and threatens to annihilate them as they pass on. Turning a little to their left so as to meet the Russian right the Greys rush on with a cheer that thrills to every heart—the wild shout of the Enniskilleners rises through the air at the same instant. As lightning flashes through a cloud the Greys and Enniskilleners pierced through the dark masses of Russians. ”

“ The arctic hare, white as snow but for the great bulging black eye, bounds over the boulders. Snow buntings, whistling swans, snow geese, ducks in myriads—flacker and clacker and hold solemn conclave on the adjoining rocks, as though this were their realm from the beginning and for all time.
Of a tremendous depth are the waters of the straits. Not for nothing has the ice world been grinding through this narrow channel for billions of years. No fear of shoals to the mariner. Fear is of another sort. ”

“ In the old man, Nature has fulfilled her work; she loads him with her blessings; she fills him with the fruits of a well-spent life; and, surrounded by his children and his children's children, she rocks him softly away to a grave, to which he is followed with blessings. God forbid we should not call it beautiful. It is beautiful, but not the most beautiful. There is another life, hard, rough, and thorny, trodden with bleeding feet and aching brow; the life of which the cross is the symbol; a battle which no peace follows, this side the grave ”

“ No ocean of water in the world can vie with its gorgeous sunsets; no solitude can equal the loneliness of a night-shadowed prairie: one feels the stillness, and hears the silence: the wail of the prowling wolf makes the voice of solitude audible; the stars look down through infinite silence upon a silence almost as intense. This ocean has no past;—time has been nought to it, and men have come and gone, leaving behind them no track, no vestige of their presence. ”

“ And when Sir Mordred felt that he had his death's wound, he thrust himself, with the might that he had, up to the bur of king Arthur's spear. And right so he smote Arthur with his sword holden in both his hands, on the side of the head, that the sword pierced the helmet and the brain-pan, and therewithal Sir Mordred fell stark dead to the earth. And the noble Arthur fell in a swoon to the earth, and there he swooned oft-times. And Sir Lucan de Butlere and Sir Bedivere oft-times heaved him up, and so weakly they led him betwixt them both to a little chapel not far from the sea side. ”

“ The delight of a boy in a bonfire is a breath of the heaven that is about us in our infancy. Though it be but a heap of rubbish, revealed by the removal of the mantle of snow, lighting up with flickering, changing glow a rectangular door yard, the children stand and gaze into the dancing flame, their vast, distorted, ghostlike shadows lost in the night, their faces reflecting every evanescent glare, and their spirits charmed by the same spell that took form in the fire-worship of their ancestors. How they delight in stirring up the embers and sending up a fountain spray of sparks! ”

“ For half an hour the echoes of the lake are kept alive with sounds portentous of new departures in the loon world. Then a peculiar object is seen to emerge from the marshy bay and cross under the shadowy cedars toward the open water. A field-glass shows it to be the mother loon and her two offspring, the three huddled so closely together that they are almost indistinguishable. The mother is unceasing in her care and attention. She strokes the backs of the young birds with her bill, playing and fussing around and close to them, as if they could not exist without her constant attention. ”

“ And with these people, just as certainly the fee is first, and the work second, as with brave people the work is first, and the fee second. And this is no small distinction. It is the whole distinction in a man; distinction between life and death in him, between heaven and hell for him. You cannot serve two masters:—you must serve one or other. If your work is first with you, and your fee second, work is your master, and the lord of work, who is God. But, if your fee is first with you, and your work second, fee is your master, and the lord of fee, who is the Devil ”

“ Ten thousand fleets sweep over thee in vain;
Man marks the earth with ruin,—his control
Stops with the shore; upon the watery plain
The wrecks are all thy deed, nor doth remain
A shadow of man's ravage, save his own,
When for a moment, like a drop of rain,
He sinks into thy depths with bubbling groan—
Without a grave, unknelled, uncoffined, and unknown.
His steps are not upon thy paths,—thy fields,
Are not a spoil for him,—thou dost arise
And shake him from thee ”

“ The best man shifts his place from the stern to the bow, and stands ready with his long-handled paddle to twist the frail boat out of reach of hidden rocks. The men's faces glow with excitement. Quicker and quicker flows the stream, breaking into little rapids, foaming round rocks, and [Pg 107] rising in tumbling waves over the shallows. At a word from the bowman the crew redouble their efforts, the paddle shafts crash against the gunwale, the spray flies beneath the bending blades. The canoe shakes and quivers through all its fibres, leaping bodily at every stroke. ”

“ Fish are devoted fire-worshippers, and that boy who has never speared by a jack-light is an object of compassion.
The earth and the waters under the earth have no more fascinating sight than the gray, silent form of a pike, moving and motionless in the shallow water, a shadow more tangible than himself thrown by a jack-light on the mottled yellow rocks and sands of the bottom. ”

“ By sheer steel and sheer courage Enniskillener and Scot were winning their desperate way right through the enemy's squadrons, and already gray horses and red coats had appeared right at the rear of the second mass, when, with irresistible force like a bolt from a bow, the second line of the heavy brigade rushed at the remnants of the first line of the enemy, went through it as though it were made of paste-board and, dashing on the second body of Russians as they were still disordered by the terrible assault of the Greys and their companions, put them to utter rout. ”

“ At intervals the clouds are rent asunder, and the moon takes a hurried look at the world below. What does she see? and what do we hear? for there are other sounds stirring besides the ravings of the tempest, in that wild cleft of the mountains, which guard Innsbruck, on the Carinthian side.
There is a hurried tramp of feet, a crowding and crushing up through the steep and narrow gorge, a mutter of suppressed voices, a fitful glancing of torches, which now flare up bravely enough, now wither in a moment before the derisive laugh of the storm. ”

“ The most impressive approach is now by the river through the infinitude of docks, quays, and shipping. London is not a city, but a province of brick and stone. Hardly even from the top of St. Paul's or of the Monument can anything like a view of the city as a whole be obtained. It is indispensable, however, to make one or the other of those ascents when a clear day can be found, not so much because the view is fine, as because you will get a sensation of vastness and multitude not easily to be forgotten. ”

“ At ten minutes past eleven our light cavalry brigade advanced. The whole brigade scarcely made one effective regiment according to the numbers of continental armies, and yet it was more than we could spare. As they rushed towards the front the Russians opened on them from the guns in the redoubt on the right with volleys of musketry and rifles. They swept proudly past, glittering in the morning sun in all the pride and splendour of war.
We could scarcely believe the evidence of our senses. Surely that handful of men are not going to charge an army in position? ”

“ With courage too great almost for credence, they were breaking their way through the columns which enveloped them, when there took place an act of atrocity without parallel in the modern warfare of civilized nations. The Russian gunners, when the storm of cavalry passed, returned to their guns. They saw their own cavalry mingled with the troopers who had just ridden over them, and, to the eternal disgrace of the Russian name, the miscreants poured a murderous volley of grape and canister on the mass of struggling men and horses, mingling friend and foe in one common ruin! ”

“ The tide had risen, and that half-moon of light had disappeared, so that we were now prisoners for many hours, it not being at all probable that we should be able to find our way out during the night ebb. Well, we were not exactly children, to be afraid of the dark, although there is considerable difference between the velvety darkness of a dungeon and the clear, fresh night of the open air. Still, as long as that beggar of a whale would only keep quiet or leave the premises, we should be fairly comfortable. ”

“ Suddenly the southern river bends towards the north, and, at a point some six hundred miles from the mountains, pours its volume of water into the northern channel. Then the united river rolls, in vast, majestic curves, steadily towards the north-east, turns once more towards the south, opens out into a great reed-covered marsh, sweeps on into a large cedar-lined lake, and finally, rolling over a rocky ledge, casts its waters into the northern end of the great Lake Winnipeg, fully one thousand three hundred miles from the glacier cradle where it took its birth. ”

“ Unspeakably touching is it, however, when I find both dignities united; and he, that must toil outwardly for the lowest of man's wants, is also toiling inwardly for the highest. Sublimer in this world know I nothing than a Peasant Saint, could such now anywhere be met with. Such a one will take thee back to Nazareth itself; thou wilt see the splendour of Heaven spring forth from the humblest depths of Earth, like a light shining in great darkness. ”

“ You are right on that rock, and (I don't care who you are) you will feel your heart jump into your mouth, and you will catch the side with a grip that leaves a mark on your fingers afterwards. No! With a shriek of command to the steersman, and a plunge of his paddle, the bowman wrenches the canoe out of its course. Another stroke or two, another plunge forward, and with a loud exulting yell from the bowman, who flourishes his paddle round his head, you pitch headlong down the final leap, and with a grunt of relief from the straining crew glide rapidly into still water. ”

“ The weird, long call, or the shrill, demoniacal laugh coming out of the night tells of the sleepless activity of the loon. The whip-poor-will in the adjacent shrubbery seems companionable, and there is a friendly spirit in the short, shrill tremolo of the night-hawk from the invisible sky. Even the plaint of the screech-owl has a tone of human sympathy. But the dreary cadence of the loon is the voice of the inhospitable night, repelling every thought of human association. ”

“ In winter, when the Canadians, expert in the use of the snow-shoe and fearless of the cold, did much of their fighting, they wore thick peaked hoods over their heads, and looked like a procession of friars wending through the silent forest on some errand of piety or mercy. ”

“ You are standing on a narrow, thread-like road, which has barely room to draw itself along between the rocky bank of the River Inn, and the base of a frowning buttress of the Solstein, which towers many hundred feet perpendicularly above you. You throw your head far back and look up; and there you have a vision of a plumed hunter, lofty and chivalrous in his bearing, who is bounding heedlessly on after a chamois to the very verge of a precipice. ”