LONDON
KEGAN PAUL, TRENCH, TRÜBNER & CO., LTD.
DRYDEN HOUSE, GERRARD STREET, W.
1911
PREFACE
You know how long ago, in the earlier-than-Victorian days, the country cousin, in order to see life, went up to the Metropolis. A terrible journey it was, but well worth the labour and anxiety. Accounts are still extant of how the bustle and noise of the streets amazed him, of how endless the houses seemed, how startled he was by the glittering, clattering folk, how innocent and countrified he felt by comparison with them. Nowadays, though the London we know is to that old London as a vast and sleepless city to a small somnolent town, the country cousin is no longer carried off his feet by a visit to it. It is not vast enough or noisy enough or new enough to impress him. Perhaps no single city ever will be again.
But Canada! Some Winnipeg school teachers who came over recently to see London, told a journalist that it seemed so quiet compared with Canadian cities. 'In our cities,' they said, 'it is impossible to escape from the noise of the streets.' ... Yet the streets and the cities are not really the things that impress one most in Canada. The amazing things are the forests and the fields, the prairies and the lakes and the mountains: all the illimitable space and the irrepressible men who are closing it in and giving it names for us to know it by.
Clearly the English country cousin who wishes to be impressed should go to Canada. It is as easy to reach as London was in the old days, and there are no highwaymen. He will come back—if he comes back—with many stories to tell his friends of the wonders he has seen and of the still more incredible things that will soon be visible. That is at least my position. I went out originally for the Bystander, which wanted its Canadian news, like all its other news, up-to-date and not too solemn, and I am indebted to the editor of that journal for permission to make use in parts of the articles I sent him for this book, in which, by the way, I have still endeavoured to avoid solemnity. For some reason or other, many writers upon Canada do fall into a solemn and portentous way of describing the country—with the result that people who know nothing of the facts say to themselves, 'This is indeed an important Dominion, but dull.' As a matter of fact, of course, Canada is a highly exciting country—from its grizzly bears to its political problems—and having spent delightful months in various parts, some well known, others, such as the French River, the Columbia Valley, and the Selkirks, very little known; riding in trains or on mountain ponies, sometimes trying to catch maskinongés (a tigerish kind of pike), sometimes trying to catch prime ministers (who cannot be described in such a general way)—I have tried to set down my impressions as incompletely as I received them. Never, I hope, have I fallen into the error of describing exactly how many salmon are canned in the Dominion, or what Sir Wilfrid Laurier should do if he really wishes to remain a great party leader. The errors I have fallen into will be obvious, and I need not run through them here.... As for criticisms—if now and then I stop to make some—if I start saying, 'Canada is a great country, nevertheless, we do some things just as well or better at home,' no Canadian need mind. Country cousins have said just that sort of thing from all time. Every cousin—even the most countrified—makes some reservations in favour of his own place; he would not be worth entertaining otherwise. If the criticisms are pointless, Canadians may say, 'What can you expect from a country cousin?' If there is something in them, they will be entitled to remark, 'This English country cousin shows some intelligence. But then he has been to Canada—the centre of things.'
CONTENTS
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