I was glad to get back; Bonfire and Bonneau greeted me very enthusiastically.
I had a long long story from the dog, delivered with uplifted muzzle.
They tell me he sat gravely on the roads a great deal during my absence,
and all his accustomed haunts missed him. He is back on rounds faithfully.




VII

The Old Land and the New



If one were engaged upon a formal work of biography rather than
a mere essay in character, it would be just and proper to investigate
the family sources from which the individual member is sprung;
but I must content myself within the bounds which I have set,
and leave the larger task to a more laborious hand. The essence of history
lies in the character of the persons concerned, rather than in the feats
which they performed. A man neither lives to himself nor in himself.
He is indissolubly bound up with his stock, and can only explain himself
in terms common to his family; but in doing so he transcends
the limits of history, and passes into the realms of philosophy and religion.

The life of a Canadian is bound up with the history of his parish,
of his town, of his province, of his country, and even with the history
of that country in which his family had its birth. The life of John McCrae
takes us back to Scotland. In Canada there has been much writing of history