The writer therein alludes to that short-lived bell of Madame de la
Peltrie, melted in the memorable fire of the 31st December, 1650, which
the pious lady used to toll, to call "the Neophytes to the waters of
baptism, or the newly made Christians to Holy Mass."
(See page 113.)
(From "Trifles from my Diary.")
"GENERAL WOLFE'S STATUE," CORNER PALACE STREET
BY THE AUTHOR OF "MAPLE LEAVES."
Olim truncus eram ficulnus, inutile lignum,
Cum faber, incertus scamnum faceretne Priapum
Maluit esse Deum.
Horace, Sat I. 8.
Henry Ward Beecher begins an amusing sketch of our city with the words,
"Queer old Quebec, - of all the cities on the Continent of America, the
quaintest." He concludes his humorous picture by expressing the wish that
it may remain so without being disturbed by the new-fangled notions of the
day. Some one has observed that its walls, streets, public places,
churches and old monasteries, with the legends of three centuries clinging
to them, give you, when you enter under its massive gates, hoary with age,
[344] the idea of an "old curiosity shop," or, as the name Henry Ward
Beecher well expresses it, "a picture book, turning over a new leaf at
each street." It is not then surprising that the inhabitants should have
resorted not only to the pen of the historian to preserve evergreen and
fragrant the historical ivy which clings to its battlements, but even to
that cheap process, in use in other countries, to immortalize heroes -
signboards and statues - a process recommended by high authority.
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