On the other hand, the Catholic schools and
universities, though they are reported to keep up the old medieval
mistrust of Greek, teach the classics as lovingly, tenderly, and
intimately as the old Church has always taught them. After all, it must
be worth something to say your prayers in a dialect of the tongue that
Virgil handled; and a certain touch of insolence, more magnificent and
more ancient than the insolence of present materialism, makes a good
blend in a new land.
I had the good fortune to see the cities through the eyes of an
Englishman out for the first time. 'Have you been to the Bank?' he
cried. 'I've never seen anything like it!' 'What's the matter with the
Bank?' I asked: for the financial situation across the Border was at
that moment more than usual picturesque. 'It's wonderful!' said he;
'marble pillars - acres of mosaic - steel grilles - 'might be a cathedral.
No one ever told me.' 'I shouldn't worry over a Bank that pays its
depositors,' I replied soothingly. 'There are several like it in Ottawa
and Toronto.' Next he ran across some pictures in some palaces, and was
downright angry because no one had told him that there were five
priceless private galleries in one city. 'Look here!' he explained.
'I've been seeing Corots, and Greuzes, and Gainsboroughs, and a
Holbein, and - and hundreds of really splendid pictures!' 'Why shouldn't
you?' I said. 'They've given up painting their lodges with vermilion
hereabouts.' 'Yes, but what I mean is, have you seen the equipment of
their schools and colleges - desks, libraries, and lavatories? It's miles
ahead of anything we have and - no one ever told me.' 'What was the good
of telling? You wouldn't have believed. There's a building in one of the
cities, on the lines of the Sheldonian, but better, and if you go as far
as Winnipeg, you'll see the finest hotel in all the world.'
'Nonsense!' he said. 'You're pulling my leg! Winnipeg's a prairie-town.'
I left him still lamenting - about a Club and a Gymnasium this time - that
no one had ever told him about; and still doubting all that he had heard
of Wonders to come.
If we could only manacle four hundred Members of Parliament, like the
Chinese in the election cartoons, and walk them round the Empire, what
an all-comprehending little Empire we should be when the survivors got
home!
Certainly the Cities have good right to be proud, and I waited for them
to boast; but they were so busy explaining they were only at the
beginning of things that, for the honour of the Family, I had to do the
boasting. In this praiseworthy game I credited Melbourne (rightly, I
hope, but the pace was too good to inquire) with acres of municipal
buildings and leagues of art galleries; enlarged the borders of Sydney
harbour to meet a statement about Toronto's, wharfage; and recommended
folk to see Cape Town Cathedral when it should be finished.
