I shall see you so again many times, my friend Annabel Lee.—
The fact remains that I am in Montreal and Canada. And as the days run along I am reminded that I have in me the old Canadian instincts. The word “Canadian” has always called up in my mind a confused throng of things, like—porridge for tea, and Sir Hugh MacDonald, and Dominion Day, and my aunt Elizabeth MacLane, and old-fashioned pictures of her majesty the queen, and Orangemen’s Day, and “good-night” for good-evening, and “reel of cotton” for spool of thread, and “tin” instead of can, and Canadian cheese, and rawsberries in a patent pail, and the Queen’s Own in Toronto, and soldiers in red coats, and children in Scotch kilts, and jam-tarts, and barley-sugar, and whitefish from Lake Winnipeg, and the C. P. R., and the Parliament at Ottawa, and coasting in toboggans, and Lord Aberdeen, and everything-coming-over-from-England-so-much-better-and-cheaper-than-American-ware,—and all that sort of thing. And my mind has always had a color for Canada—a shade of mingled deep green and golden brown.
Even in Montreal, where so much is French, there is enough to stamp it as beyond question Canadian. One still sees marks of her majesty the queen—but shop-keepers assert confidently that “Edward is going to make a good king,” and Canadian men are made up as nearly as possible after his pattern, stout and with that short pointed beard.
In the greenness of Dominion Square is the most beautiful piece of sculpture I have seen. All the statues that stand about in Montreal are finer than most of their kind, and there are no such hideous creations as are set up in Boston and New York. The Dominion Square statue is a bronze figure of a Sir John A. MacDonald. The face of the figure is all that is serene and benign, and the lines of the body and of the hands are made with strength and beauty. Whether it is like Sir John A. MacDonald, one does not know—’tis enough that it’s an exquisite piece of workmanship with which to adorn a city. And the Maisonneuve statue is a fine, handsome thing, and is altogether alive. The bronze is no bronze, but has seventeenth-century red blood in its veins, and the arm that is held high and the hand with the flag mean conquest and victory.
I shall see Quebec and the length of the blue river before I see you again, and they, like Montreal, will be mingled with a many-tinted looking-forward to being with you again.
High upon the tower of a gray-stone building that I see from my window is a carved gorgon’s head, a likeness of Medusa with snaky locks. She is hundreds of feet above me as I sit here, but I see the expression of her face plainly—it is desolate and discouraging. It says, Do you think you will see that fair lily Annabel Lee again? Well, then, how foolish are you in your day and generation! I in my years have seen the passing of many fair lilies. Always they pass.—
Tell me, Annabel Lee,—always do they pass? But no—I shall find you again. You will make all things many-tinted for a thousand thousands of gold days. And are we not good friends in way and manner? And do we not go the foot-pathway together?
But I wonder always why the gorgon seems so fearfully knowing.—
Always my love to you.
Mary MacLane.