e of the French Canadians, in which field I had made my
first firm impression upon the public. In any case, The Money Master was
favourably received by the press and public both in England and America,
and my friends were justified in thinking, and in saying, that I was at
home in French Canada and gave the impression of mastery of my material.
If mastery of material means a knowledge of the life, and a sympathy
with it, then my friends are justified; for I have always had an intense
sympathy with, and admiration for, French Canadian life. I think the
French Canadian one of the most individual, original, and distinctive
beings of the modern world. He has kept his place, with his own
customs, his own Gallic views of life, and his religious habits, with an
assiduity and firmness none too common. He is essentially a man of
the home, of the soil, and of the stream; he has by nature instinctive
philosophy and temperamental logic. As a lover of the soil of Canada he
is not surpassed by any of the other citizens of the country, English or
otherwise.

It would almost seem as though the pageantry of past French Canadian
history, and the beauty and vigour of the topographical surroundings
of French Canadian life, had produced an hereditary pride and
exaltation--perhaps an excessive pride and a strenuous exaltation, but,
in any case, there it was, and is. The French Canadian lives a more
secluded life on the whole than any other citizen of Canada, though the
native, adventurous spirit has sent him to the Eastern States of
the American Union for work in the mills and factories, or up to the
farthest reaches of the St. Lawrence, Ottawa, and their tributaries in
the wood and timber trade.

Domestically he is perhaps the most productive son of the North American
continent. Families of twenty, or even twenty-five, are not unknown,
and, when a man has had more than one wife, it has even exceeded that.
Life itself is full of camaraderie and good spirit, marked by religious
traits and sacerdotal influence.

The French Canadian is on the whole sober and industrious; but when he
breaks away from sobriety and industry he becomes a vicious element
in the general organism. Yet his vices are of the surface, and do not
destroy the foundations of his social and domestic scheme. A French
Canadian pony used to be considered the most virile and lasting stock
on the continent, and it is fair to say that the French Canadians
themselves are genuinel