Down North and Up Along 
We too dream as we read. We see her not 
only in her home but abroad on Sunday, wend- 
ing her way to the chapel, clad in her blue 
kirtle and wearing her Norman cap and ances- 
tral ornaments. We see her townspeople in 
bright colours about her, but she is not of them ; 
she stands alone, something rare in this world, 
precious to us in a deep and primal sense. 
Whether the poet meant it or not, in 
Evangeline he has given us not an individual, 
but a type. She does not belong to any time 
or to any place; she is the great, patient, suffer- 
ing type of womanhood which shall outlive 
nations and races. We follow her with rever- 
ence, not because she is a village maiden, fair 
and gentle, but because of her awful mission, 
because of her triumph over circumstance and 
failure, and because in Evangeline's hand-to- 
hand struggle with the adverse forces of this 
world, we each discern our own battle. 
We linger in imagination with Evangeline 
in her youth. We lovingly watch her as she 
moves about and is greeted by the villagers 
with the same reverence we ourselves feel for 
her. They do not know why they feel thus 
to this young girl ; but we know, for they too 
72 
