And With What Loveliness Does The Whole
Face Of Plain, River, Lake And Mountain Turn From The Iron Clasp Of
Icy Winter To Kiss The Balmy Lips Of Returning Summer, And To Welcome
His Bridal Gifts Of Sun And Shower!
The trees open their leafy lids to
look at him - the brooks and streamlets break forth into songs of
Gladness - "the birch tree," as the old Saxon said," becomes beautiful
in its branches, and rustles sweetly in its leafy summit, moved to and
fro by the breath of heaven" - the lakes uncover their sweet faces, and
their mimic shores steal down in quiet evenings to bathe themselves in
the transparent waters - far into the depths of the great forest speeds
the glad message of returning glory, and graceful fern, and soft
velvet moss, and white wax-like lily peep forth to cover rock and
fallen tree and wreck of last year's autumn in one great sea of
foliage. There are many landscapes which can never be painted,
photographed, or described, but which the mind carries away
instinctively to look at again and again in the after-time - these are
the celebrated views of the world, and they are not easy to find. From
the Queen's rampart, on the citadel of Quebec, the eye sweeps over a
greater diversity of landscape than is probably to be found in any one
spot in the universe. Blue mountain, far-stretching river, foaming
cascade, the white sails of ocean ships, the black trunks of many-
sized guns, the pointed roofs, the white village nestling amidst its
fields of green, the great isle in mid-channel, the many shades of
colour from deep blue pine-wood to yellowing corn-field - in what other
spot on the earth's broad bosom lie grouped together in a single
glance so many of these "things of beauty" which the eye loves to
feast on and to place in memory as joys for ever?" (The Great Lone
Land.)
Let us complete this mosaic of descriptions and literary gems, borrowed
from English, French and American writers, by a sparkling tableau of the
historic memories of Quebec, traced by a French Canadian litterateur,
the Honourable P. J. O. Chauveau: -
"History is everywhere - around us, beneath us; from the depths of
yonder valleys, from the top of that mountain, history rises up and
presents itself to our notice, exclaiming: 'Behold me!'
"Beneath us, among the capricious meanders of the River St. Charles,
the Cahir-Coubat of Jacques Cartier, is the very place where he first
planted the cross and held his first conference with the Seigneur
Donnacona. Here, very near to us, beneath a venerable elm tree,
which, with much regret, we saw cut down, tradition states that
Champlain first raised his tent. From the very spot on which we now
stand, Count de Frontenac returned to Admiral Phipps that proud
answer, as he said, from the mouth of his cannon, which will
always remain recorded by history. Under these ramparts are spread the
plains on which fell Wolfe and where, in the following year, the
Chevalier de Levis and General Murray fought that other battle, in
memory of which the citizens of Quebec are erecting (in 1854) a
monument.
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