Mr. And Mrs. Alderson And Myself Left This Gay Scene, And The Constant
Toll Of Romish Bells, For St. Roch.
They had lived peacefully in a rural
part of Devonshire, and more recently in one of the prettiest and
Most
thriving of the American cities; and when they first breathed the polluted
air, they were desirous to return from what promised to be so peculiarly
unpleasant, but kindly yielded to my desire to see something of the shady
as well as the sunny side of Quebec.
No Sabbath-day with its hallowed accompaniments seemed to have dawned upon
the inhabitants of St. Roch. We saw women with tangled hair standing in
the streets, and men with pallid countenances and bloodshot eyes were
reeling about, or sitting with their heads resting on their hands, looking
out from windows stuffed with rags. There were children too, children in
nothing but the name and stature - infancy without innocence, learning to
take God's name in vain with its first lisping accents, preparing for a
maturity of suffering and shame. I looked at these hideous houses, and
hideous men and women too, and at their still more repulsive progeny, with
sallow faces, dwarfed forms, and countenances precocious in the
intelligence of villany; and contrasted them with the blue-eyed, rosy-
cheeked infants of my English home, who chase butterflies and weave May
garlands, and gather cowslips and buttercups; or the sallow children of a
Highland shantie, who devour instruction in mud-floored huts, and con
their tasks on the heathery sides of hills.
Enter page number
PreviousNext
Page 278 of 478
Words from 75560 to 75817
of 129941
