Hurrah! For The Sturdy Maple-Tree!
Long May Its Green Branch Wave;
In Native Strength Sublime And Free,
Meet Emblem
For the brave.
May the nation's peace
With its growth increase,
And its worth be widely spread;
For it lifts
Not in vain
To the sun and rain
Its tall, majestic head.
May it grace our soil,
And reward our toil,
Till the nation's heart is dead.
CHAPTER XXVIII
CANADIAN SKETCHES
The preceding sketches of Canadian life, as the reader may well
suppose, are necessarily tinctured with somewhat somber hues,
imparted by the difficulties and privations with which, for so many
years the writer had to struggle; but we should be sorry should
these truthful pictures of scenes and characters, observed fifteen
or twenty years ago, have the effect of conveying erroneous
impressions of the present state of a country, which is manifestly
destined, at no remote period, to be one of the most prosperous in
the world. Had we merely desired to please the imagination of our
readers, it would have been easy to have painted the country and the
people rather as we could have wished them to be, than as they
actually were, at the period to which our description refers; and,
probably, what is thus lost in truthfulness, it would have gained
in popularity with that class of readers who peruse books more for
amusement than instruction.
When I say that Canada is destined to be one of the most prosperous
countries in the world, let it not be supposed that I am influenced
by any unreasonable partiality for the land of my adoption.
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