Canada

A country of dry frost in winter, and of fruitful heat in summer, with numerous delightful climates in between—this is the rising nation, Canada. And of a similar strange mixture are its people, at once the most hard-working and yet most hopeful of any people upon earth, in the mind of him who deeply ponders upon their unique conditions. The destiny of a young and vigorous people animated by high ambitions must be either lofty or sordid. It is between these two extremes that national tragedy lies. Canada promises either to be the theatre of one of the greatest commonwealths the world has seen, or else, failing this, to be the land where race has died out in a crude, vulgar cosmopolitanism; where patriotism has been destroyed by a foolish party system, and all idealism crushed out in a hard materalism. There is no blinking the situation. We are the youngest people in the world, and yet we have some of the gravest problems to solve; and it is all because we are strong and proud, and have taken the bit in our teeth with a brave spirit and an ambition to rule ourselves, and be all or nothing.