The Book of the West / The story of western Canada, its birth and early adventures, its youthful combats, its peaceful settlement, its great transformation, and its present ways

by Howard Angus Kennedy

THE SPIRIT OF THE WEST

“What is the Spirit of the West?” I was asked when I began to write.

You have read the book? Then you have seen the fruits of that Spirit, in its actions and achievements. If that is not answer enough, here is the Spirit of the West as I have seen it; here are the dominant ideals of Western life.

The Spirit of Courage. The brave heart for a short heroic dash, and for persistence, more heroic still, through the long march to a distant goal. The spirit that never flinches at an obstacle or set-back, but fights its way through to victory. The spirit that finds pleasure in other toils than play, and saving humor in grave events which overwhelm a dull and bitter mind.

The Spirit of Independence. The spirit that takes pride in swimming the creeks in its way without waiting or shouting for some one else to fetch a boat.

The Spirit of Ambition—often hasty and overgrown in our exhilarating air of boundless possibilities, but, when turned by buffeting experience from the goal of quantity to that of quality, capable of winning both.

The Spirit of Truth. The ideals of frankness, candor, straightness and fair play. The spirit of scorn for crookedness, trickery, graft, lying and pretence, in business, politics and social life. The spirit that wants to think straight as well as act straight, refusing to deceive itself by prejudice and conventional parrot-phrases. The spirit of open-mindedness, of quick willingness to learn.

The Spirit of Unselfishness. The ideals of hospitality, sociability, geniality, generosity, and neighborly helpfulness. [a]The Spirit of the West]

Selfishness, envy and suspicion, an ill disposition to blame anyone but ourselves for every wrong; a passing frown of discouragement and complaint, sometimes with fair excuse; these you may find in the West, as you may strike a misty morning on the sunny plain or a hard frost on the balmy coast; but they are foreign to the Spirit of the West.

Without that Spirit, though the land should rise to gorgeous heights of moneyed wealth by perfecting its science of material production and commercial organization, the West would be poor and mean, a body without a soul.

Therefore, of all the proud ambitions of the West, the proudest is to keep that noble Spirit strong.

The Spirit has hours of weakness, but it soon revives, to proclaim with the strength of a giant refreshed—

“In the fell clutch of circumstance

I have not winced nor cried aloud.

Under the bludgeonings of chance

My head is bloody, but unbowed.

“It matters not how strait the gate,

How charged with punishment the scroll.

I am the master of my fate,

I am the captain of my soul.”

THE END