with so much domestic virtue, so much education and intelligence, and so deep and simple a religious life; nor have I ever seen a priesthood at once so devoted and high-minded in all the concerns the home life of their people, as in French Canada. A land without poverty and yet without riches, French Canada stands alone, too well educated to have a peasantry, too poor to have an aristocracy; as though in her the ancient prayer had been answered: "Give me neither poverty nor riches, but feed me with food convenient for me." And it is of the habitant of Quebec, before all men else, I should say, "Born with the golden spoon in his mouth."
To you, sir, I come with this book, which contains the first thing I ever wrote out of the life of the province so dear to you, and the last things also that I shall ever write about it. I beg you to receive it as the loving recreation of one who sympathises with the people of who you come, and honours their virtues, and who has no fear for the unity, and no doubt as to the splendid future, of the nation, whose fibre is got of the two great civilising races of Europe.
Lastly, you will know with what admiration and regard I place your name on the fore page of my book, and greet in you the statesman, the littérateur, and the personal friend.
Believe me,
Dear Sir Wilfrid Laurier,
Yours very sincerely,
Gilbert Parker.
London, S. W.,
14th August, 1900.
