But the blow at the moment of the stroke is very galling. Iconfess that I have occasionally all but broken down beneath it.
But when it is thought of afterward it admits of full excuse. No effort that a man can make is better than a true effort at independence. But this insolence is a false effort, it will be said. It should rather be called a false accompaniment to a life-long true effort. The man probably is not dishonest, does not desire to shirk any service which is due from him, is not even inclined to insolence. Accept his first declaration of equality for that which it is intended to represent, and the man afterward will be found obliging and communicative. If occasion offer he will sit down in the room with you, and will talk with you on any subject that he may choose; but having once ascertained that you show no resentment for this assertion of equality, he will do pretty nearly all that is asked. He will at any rate do as much in that way as an Englishman. I say thus much on this subject now especially, because I was quite as much struck by the feeling in Canada as I was within the States.
From Prescott we went on by the Grand Trunk Railway to Toronto, and stayed there for a few days. Toronto is the capital of the province of Upper Canada, and I presume will in some degree remain so, in spite of Ottawa and its pretensions. That is, the law courts will still be held there. I do not know that it will enjoy any other supremacy unless it be that of trade and population.
Some few years ago Toronto was advancing with rapid strides, and was bidding fair to rival Quebec, or even perhaps Montreal.
Hamilton also, another town of Upper Canada, was going ahead in the true American style; but then reverses came in trade, and the towns were checked for awhile. Toronto, with a neighboring suburb which is a part of it, as Southwark is of London, contains now over 50,000 inhabitants. The streets are all parallelogramical, and there is not a single curvature to rest the eye. It is built down close upon Lake Ontario; and as it is also on the Grand Trunk Railway, it has all the aid which facility of traffic can give it.
The two sights of Toronto are the Osgoode Hall and the University.
The Osgoode Hall is to Upper Canada what the Four Courts are to Ireland. The law courts are all held there. Exteriorly, little can be said for Osgoode Hall, whereas the exterior of the Four Courts in Dublin is very fine; but as an interior, the temple of Themis at Toronto beats hollow that which the goddess owns in Dublin. In Dublin the courts themselves are shabby, and the space under the dome is not so fine as the exterior seems to promise that it should be. In Toronto the courts themselves are, I think, the most commodious that I ever saw, and the passages, vestibules, and hall are very handsome. In Upper Canada the common-law judges and those in chancery are divided as they are in England; but it is, as I was told, the opinion of Canadian lawyers that the work may be thrown together. Appeal is allowed in criminal cases; but as far as I could learn such power of appeal is held to be both troublesome and useless. In Lower Canada the old French laws are still administered.
But the University is the glory of Toronto. This is a Gothic building, and will take rank after, but next to, the buildings at Ottawa. It will be the second piece of noble architecture in Canada, and as far as I know on the American continent. It is, Ibelieve, intended to be purely Norman, though I doubt whether the received types of Norman architecture have not been departed from in many of the windows. Be this as it may, the college is a manly, noble structure, free from false decoration, and infinitely creditable to those who projected it. I was informed by the head of the college that it has been open only two years; and here also I fancy that the colony has been much indebted to the taste of the late Governor, Sir Edmund Head.
Toronto as a city is not generally attractive to a traveler. The country around it is flat; and, though it stands on a lake, that lake has no attributes of beauty. Large inland seas, such as are these great Northern lakes of America, never have such attributes.
Picturesque mountains rise from narrow valleys, such as form the beds of lakes in Switzerland, Scotland, and Northern Italy; but from such broad waters as those of Lake Ontario, Lake Erie, and Lake Michigan, the shores shelve very gradually, and have none of the materials of lovely scenery.
The streets in Toronto are framed with wood, or rather planked, as are those of Montreal and Quebec; but they are kept in better order. I should say that the planks are first used at Toronto, then sent down by the lake to Montreal, and when all but rotted out there, are again floated off by the St. Lawrence to be used in the thoroughfares of the old French capital. But if the streets of Toronto are better than those of the other towns, the roads around it are worse. I had the honor of meeting two distinguished members of the Provincial Parliament at dinner some few miles out of town, and, returning back a short while after they had left our host's house, was glad to be of use in picking them up from a ditch into which their carriage had been upset. To me it appeared all but miraculous that any carriage should make its way over that road without such misadventure. I may perhaps be allowed to hope that the discomfiture of these worthy legislators may lead to some improvement in the thoroughfare.
I had on a previous occasion gone down the St. Lawrence, through the Thousand Isles and over the Rapids, in one of those large summer steamboats which ply upon the lake and river. I cannot say that I was much struck by the scenery, and therefore did not encroach upon my time by making the journey again. Such an opinion will be regarded as heresy by many who think much of the Thousand Islands. I do not believe that they would be expressly noted by any traveler who was not expressly bidden to admire them.
From Toronto we went across to Niagara, re-entering the States at Lewiston, in New York.
