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 nevei 

 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 1 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 rocks 

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



