AN OCTOBER ABROAD 201 



worthian feeling for Nature, because French liter- 

 ature does not show this sense or this kind of 

 perception. I am inclined to think the forest is 

 congenial to their love of form and their sharp per- 

 ceptions, but more especially to that kind of fear and 

 wildness which they at times exhibit ; for civilization 

 has not quenched the primitive ardor and fierceness 

 of the Frenchman yet, and it is to be hoped it never 

 may. He is still more than half a wild man, and, 

 if turned loose in the woods, I think would develop, 

 in tooth and nail, and in all the savage, brute in- 

 stincts, more rapidly than the men of any other 

 race, except possibly the Slavic. Have not his de- 

 scendants in this country — the Canadian French — 

 turned and lived with the Indians, and taken to 

 wild, savage customs with more relish and genius 

 than have any other people ? How hairy and vehe- 

 ment and pantomimic he is ! How his eyes glance 

 from under his heavy brows ! His type among the 

 animals is the wolf, and one readily recalls how 

 largely the wolf figures in the traditions and legends 

 and folk-lore of Continental Europe, and how closely 

 his remains are associated with those of man in the 

 bone-caves of the geologists. He has not stalked 

 through their forests and fascinated their imagina- 

 tions so long for nothing. The she-wolf suckled 

 other founders beside those of Rome. Especially 

 when I read of the adventures of Russian and Polish 

 exiles in Siberia — men of aristocratic lineage wan- 

 dering amid snow and arctic cold, sleeping in rock? 

 or in hollow trees, and holding their own, empty- 



