And Who Knows, It Is Perhaps Due To This Sympathetic Feeling Of Its Population Towards Literary Men And Writers That

This city of Quebec has seen such an array of talent within her bosom, such a succession of Pleiades of

Distinguished litterateurs, who have glorified her name and that of their country. For the last fifty years, men eminent in all branches of literature have made a gorgeous and resplendent aureole around the city of Quebec. In the generation immediately preceding us, we see Petitclerc, Parent, Soulard, Chauveau, Garneau, L'Ecuyer, Ferland, Barthe and Real Angers, these grand pioneers of intellect, who in history, poetry, drama and romance, made such a wide opening for the generation which followed them. Then we have l'Abbe Laverdiere, l'Abbe Casgrain, LeMoine, Fiset, Tache, Plamondon, LaRue, and the first among all Octave Cremazie, who coming at different times bravely and constantly continued the labours of their predecessors, until we reach the brilliant phalanx of contemporary writers, Lemay, Fabre, l'Abbe Begin, Routhier, Oscar Dunn, Faucher de St. Maurice, Buies, Marmette and Legendre, all charged with the glorious task of preserving for Quebec her legitimate title of the Athens of Canada. And how could it be otherwise? Is not Quebec the cradle of our nationality - the spot whereon is engraved the most illustrious pages of our history - heroic annals, touching souvenirs, all combining with the marvels of nature to speak here the soul of the historian and of the poet. What a flourishing field for the historian and poet is not the tale of that handful of Breton heroes, who, three centuries ago, planted on the rock of Quebec the flag of Christianity and civilization! What innumerable sources of inspiration can we not find in our majestic river, our gigantic lakes, our grand cascades, our lofty mountains, our impenetrable forests and in all that grand and wild nature, which will ever be the characteristic feature of our dear Canada. Oh! our history, gentlemen! Oh, the picturesque beauties of our country! Two marvellous veins - two mines of precious material open at our feet. The European writers are ever striving to discover something fresh. Having exhausted all kinds of themes, they are now stooping to the dust to find an originality which seems to fly from them. Well, this freshness, this originality, so courted and so rare now-a-days, may be found within our grasp, - it is there in our historical archives - in our patriarchal customs - in the many characters of a people young and thirsting for independence - a robust and healthy poetry, floats on our breezes - breathes in our popular songs - sings in the echoes of our wild forests, and opens graceful and proud her white wings to the winds of the free aspirations of the new world. To us this virgin field belongs, gentlemen! Take from Europe her form and experience, but leave to her, her old Muses. Let us be true to ourselves! Be Canadians and the future is ours. "That which strikes us most in your poems" said a member of the French Academy to me, "is that the modern style, the Parisian style of your verses is united to something strange, so particular and singular - it seems an exotic, disengaged from the entire." This perfume of originality which this writer discovered in my writings was then unknown to myself.

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