Habit" which I can date with certainty is the one on page 52, which
runs as follows:-


"It is one against legion when a man tries to differ from his own
past selves. He must yield or die if he wants to differ widely, so
as to lack natural instincts, such as hunger or thirst, and not to
gratify them. It is more righteous in a man that he should 'eat
strange food,' and that his cheek should 'so much as lank not,' than
that he should starve if the strange food be at his command. His
past selves are living in him at this moment with the accumulated
life of centuries. 'Do this, this, this, which we too have done, and
found out profit in it,' cry the souls of his forefathers within him.
Faint are the far ones, coming and going as the sound of bells wafted
on to a high mountain; loud and clear are the near ones, urgent as an
alarm of fire."


This was written a few days after my arrival in Canada, June 1874. I
was on Montreal mountain for the first time, and was struck with its
extreme beauty. It was a magnificent Summer's evening; the noble St.
Lawrence flowed almost immediately beneath, and the vast expanse of
country beyond it was suffused with a colour which even Italy cannot
surpass. Sitting down for a while, I began making notes for "Life
and Habit," of which I was then continually thinking, and had written
the first few lines of the above, when the bells of Notre Dame in
Montreal began to ring, and their sound was carried to and fro in a
remarkably beautiful manner. I took advantage of the incident to
insert then and there the last lines of the piece just quoted. I
kept the whole passage with hardly any alteration, and am thus able