W. D. Lighthall

“ Night hides all that is common, and sprinkles the dark-blue vault with gold-dust; the planets gleam far and pure amidst it, and Space sings his awful solo."
"All is one mighty Being. There he moves, the Great Creature, his crystal boundlessness encompassing his countless shapes. He faces us from every point. His God-soul looks through to us. He rises at our feet. He surrounds us in ourselves; speaks and lives in us. Is he not resplendent, wondrous?"
"We are out of the world of vain phantoms, Chamilly! We are above the chatter of a wretched spot, a narrow life. ”

“ Believe me, I am not unpractical, but only seeking a higher plane of practicality."
"But how do you propose to get the people to follow this aim?"
"If they were shown a sensible reason why they ought to be a nation," said he with calm distinctness,—"a reason more simple and great than any that could be advanced against it—it is all they would require. I propose a clear ideal for them—a vision of what Canada ought to be and do; towards which they can look, and feel that every move of progress adds a definite stage to a definite and really worthy edifice." ”

“ The windows of the Parish Church were darkened with thick black curtains, the altar was heavily draped, the strains of the mournful Mass of the Dead swayed to the responses of a sorrowing people. In the midst, raised upon a lofty catafalque whose sable drapery was surrounded with a starry maze of candle-lights, lay the silent remains of Chamilly Haviland, who loved Canada. Pure and earnest in life, he receives his reward in the world of her he loved, who went before him. ”

“ A stout, stone sacristy grew out behind. A low pebbled platform, two steps high, extended in front, and had a crier's pulpit upon it. And amid these varied features, the body of the church on all sides cloaked itself in its black roof with a mien of dignity, and its graceful tin-covered belfries, fair in their mediæval patterns and pointing sweetly to heaven, glinted far over the leagues of the River.
Yet it was not alone as to prominence of appearance, situation, and architectural attractiveness—that Dormillière found its centre in the Parish Church. ”

“ Behold Quinet, poor fellow, Quinet is too earnest for Society. Some supercilious young creature has cut him to the quick for commencing a historical remark. Smarting under his rebuke he withdraws a step or two. A kind voice accosts him; it is Alexandra. "Come here and speak to me, Mr. Quinet. You always talk what is worth while." "To talk of what is worth while makes enemies," he answered bitterly: "I am thinking of giving it up." "You should not do that," she said. "If I were a man I would think of nothing but the highest things." ”

“ Genest.
Another scream pierced their ears. "Justice, oh God;" the old wife of Le Brun shrieked in trembling syllables. "They kill without hanging. I demand JUSTICE! Hear me, great God!" and her bent frame and wrinkled face writhed pitiably.
But it was done. Spoon descended with a sudden, wild grin and found himself free. "In a few hours," he probably thought obscurely, "I can be far on my road."
"Pardon me," said Chrysler, however, standing up, to the surprise of everybody. "Your Honor, I have another charge to bring against the prisoner, and I ask his re-arrest." ”

“ But looking along this glassy avenue of water, flushed with the reflection, it was the great sunrise itself, in its own unobstructed fullness, spreading higher and broader than ever less level country had permitted the Ontarian to behold it, that towered above them over the reedy landscape, in grand suffusions and surges of color.
"It is in Nature," said Chamilly, comprehending that Chrysler felt the scene, "that I can love Canada most, and become renewed into efforts for the good of her human sons. ”

“ The air immediately bustled with hospitality.
"Come in, sir, come in," feebly rasped the voice of the old man from the door. "Josephte, bring a chair for Monsieur." "I will fetch one!" cried the good-wife. The girl Josephte, rose from her seat and followed her mother quickly into the house; the pale young man in the garden doubled his cheerful smile; and only the bar-tender endued himself in an aggressive grin of independence.
"I assure you, monsieur," pronounced Jean Benoit, with his full armory of oratorical gestures, "that a friend of Monseigneur Chamilly will always have our best. ”

“ Chrysler moves his deliberative survey over the neat-clipped grass and the tall hedge, the poplars looking over it from the other side of the highway, the boughs and trunks of the great triple tree—and the little pinnacles along the Manor-house. A couple of the visitors along the paths are discussing the situation with dapper Parisian steps and gestures.
Suddenly the shades creep perceptibly deeper. The gate rattles. A wild acting man—it is Benoit in his sky-blue clothes—rushes panting in, throwing out his arms before him, stumbling and gasping inarticulately lamentations of anguish. ”

“ Its mien seemed to say: "I am not of yesterday, and shall pass tranquilly on into the centuries to come: old traditions cluster quietly about my gables; and rest is here."
"That is the Manoir of Dormillière," replied the Montrealer, as the steamer, whose paddles had stopped their roar, glided silently by.
Impressive was the Manoir, with its cool shades and air of erect lordliness, its solemn grey walls and pinnacled gables, the beautiful depressed arch of its front door; and its dream-like foreground of river mirroring its majestic guard of pines. ”

“ Messieurs of Dormillière, you can judge of me! They have said of me all sorts of calumnies, all kinds of insinuations. I have been painted as black as the evil spirits. Men are here who will tell you 'Grandmoulin is a hypocrite; Grandmoulin is a robber, a liar, a libertine,'—that I have ruined my Province and sold my people and committed all the list of mortal sins. ”

“ A half-haze, precursive of the twilight, lent scenic softness to the forms of old men puffing their pipes before the doors, a maiden listlessly strolling on the sward, a swarm of children playing near the road, a distant toiler making his way home, bearing his scythe. The visitors went down into the place and Chrysler saw that the artistic shapes and ideal colors were worn with daily use, the men and women, serene-looking, were still the every day mortals of the region. ”

“ Leave us Reason in any existence;—strip us of sight, sound, touch, and all the external constitution of nature, clothe us with whatever feelings and powers, place us in whatever scenes may come—but gift us with this universal faculty, our power of knowing truth. Otherwise, with rudder lost, we are dreamers on a drifting wreck, and where were the Divine One, and this harmonious architecture of the universe, and all things trustworthy, proportioned, eternal, exalting? ”

“ There are no facts more patent than that the English are our conquerors, that they rule our country, that they are aliens, heretics, enemies of our Holy Religion, and that they are heaping up unrighteous riches, while we are becoming despised and poor."
"Think not that I speak without emotions in my breast. There was a day, my poor French-Canadian brothers,—a solemn day, when I bound myself by a great oath to the cause of my people. It was when my father told me, his voice choking with, tears, of the murder of my grandfather, ignominiously thrown from the gallows for the felony of patriotism! ”

“ Once Xiste Brin said to me, 'Monsieur the Director, you have a good heart.' Deign to accept my professions, monseigneur, of a loyalty the most solemn, of a breast for ever faithful."
"I have always accepted your friendship, Benoit, and trusted you," smiled generous Haviland. "See here, Zotique, give Benoit a responsible post.—How different must be our feelings at this priceless service of personal affection from those of our opponents, served only for money."
"No money!" blurted Spoon. "Taurieu! An election without money?"
Chamilly, with one quiet glance, turned away to L'Honorable. ”

“ Mass is over, the whole parish, aye and crowds from far and near behind, surge all over the square, where the Church looks down upon them in serenity and silence.
When Chrysler came up, the Cure and his vicar were sitting on their gallery, and a man of strong frame stood upon the crier's rostrum looking round with the assertive consciousness that he was a recognized figure. ”

“ Flying, stumbling, pained, groaning, out of breath, fearing the lone hedges of the road, in wild struggle throwing his vain lust of appearances for once to the winds, and having behind and above him as he fled, the sky filled with vast pursuing shapes, with shrieks and curses, and before all the pursuers the CORPSE, he reaches at last the Manoir, and stops before it crying out. ”

“ In truth, it is a queer, romantic Province, that ancient Province of Quebec,—ancient in store of heroic and picturesque memories, though the three centuries of its history would look foreshortened to people of Europe, and Canada herself is not yet alive to the far-reaching import of each deed and journey of the chevaliers of its early days.
Here, a hundred and thirty years after the Conquest, a million and a half of Normans and Bretons, speaking the language of France and preserving her institutions, still people the shores of the River and the Gulf. ”

“ Paterfamilias sat on the top step with his back to Chrysler, barring the stair rather awkwardly with his legs. A second young man slender, and dressed in a frock coat of black broad-cloth, and silk hat, and with face pale, but of undiscourageable obserfulness, though without doubt repulsed by the father's attitude from a front attack on the position, was taking the three steps in the garden necessary to bring him alongside the gallery. And, unobserved, down beside her dress, the maiden's fair hand was dropping him a sprig of lilac.
Within, the grandfather bent crooked over his violin. ”

“ As we whirled along in the carriage, the half-moon in the dark blue sky, making heavy shadows on the trees and mansions, lit her cheek and Greek-knotted hair on the side next me with a glamour so that her head and shoulders shone softly in it like a bust of Venus.
Picault's was an extensive family mansion of sandstone, built thirty years before for one of the wealthiest merchants of Montreal. ”

“ You said a nation must have a reason for existing and that Canada should have a clear ideal of hers. What is the raison d'être of Canada?"
"To do pre-eminently well a part of the highest work of all the world! If by being a nation we can advance mankind; if by being a nation we can make a better community for ourselves; our aims are founded on the highest raison d'être,—the ethical spirit. ”

“ I never saw anyone so anxious to do a thing perfectly. The great Bertini in Florence said of her—'She will certainly be greater than Angelica Kauffman.' ... 'Alexandra,' he said, 'will rank with men.' The egotism of the creature! You see there are others who admire her besides yourself."
"None more passionately."
"I thought so.—But look this way, Tityrus," said she, wheeling quickly and stepping forward. "How do you do, Alexandra!"
There she stood, pale and ill, but proud of carriage as ever.
"So you came after all? Here is Mr. Haviland, gladder even than I to see you!" ”

“ Quickly, through these surroundings, our knowledges and tastes advanced—Quinet's verging to the path of social science—mine to an artistic sense which suddenly unfolded into life and became my chief delight. The enthusiasm for Paris gradually led me to another offer by Life of a Highest Thing. To say it shortly—the salons led to a pleasure in the artistic, the society of artists to a growing appreciation of fine works of skill, and these, to Italy and Rome.
Do you desire to rest eyes upon the noblest products of the hand of man? ”

“ Her dark eyes looked over my face as a possible conquest.
"I tremble when I think it is not for ever. But look at my aunt's and that of Madame de Rheims!"
These ladies were indeed distinguished by their hair; but I suspect that it was not the mere fact of its greyness to which she wished to draw my attention—rather it was to the manner in which they wore it, brushed up high and away from their foreheads, like dowagers of yore. Standing in a corner together very much each other's counterpart, both a trifle too dignified, they were obviously proud leaders of society. ”

“ Chrysler mounted the stairs with his entertainer and came upon an entirely different scene. De Bleury's spacious attic was appropriated to the rough and ready convenience of himself alone, and there was something quizzical about its expanses of brown dimnesses and darknesses, the cobwebby light that struggled in through the one high dormer window, the closet-like partition in the middle with a ticket-selling orifice, and the three or four rough chairs, which, with table, newspaper, and a basket of bottles, formed the furniture of this apartment. ”