140 FRUIT RAN'CHIXG. 



deeply, or, at all events, permanently, in any one 

 place. Far fitter would it be to describe him as a 

 bird of passage, or, if the transition be not too abrupt, 

 as a rolling stone. In this case, however, it is a rolling 

 stone that does gather the moss. Occasionally the 

 moss drops off altogether, leaving the stone as bare 

 as it was before it began its peregrinations; but as 

 soon as it begins to roll again the moss begins to 

 cling anew. 



As might presumably be expected of a young 

 people subduing a new country, there is in the 

 Canadian temperament an admirable spirit of wonder. 

 Their admiration is readily excited and ever prompt 

 to respond to true solicitation. '* My, but it's 

 dandy! " " Ain't it cute? " " Why, sure, that's the 

 elegantest thing I have seen!" are phrases which 

 easily spring to their lips. I have even heard the 

 paradoxical exclamation, " Ain't it a terror? " applied 

 to signify the acme of admiration. Such impetuosity 

 and sincerity of feeling are refreshing after the curbed 

 and chilled lip-praising of the older civilisations. 



Last, but not least, a trait which strikes the immi- 

 grant Englishman as being predominant in the 

 character of the Canadian is the genuine leaven of his 

 democratic feeling. There is a marked absence of 

 official uniforms, a negation of outward ceremony, an 

 indifference to mere authority, coupled with a deep- 

 rooted, wide-reaching, sense of equality, man with 

 man, which imparts a quickened feeling of freedom, 

 and makes real and vital the consciousness of liberty, 

 that liberty which is beginning to burn feebly under 

 the legislative restrictions and fetters imposed in ever- 

 increasing complexity and multiplicity by the States 

 of Europe. 



