The Parish of St Patrick of Ottawa And What Led to It, an Historical Sketch Classic Reprint

Excerpt from The Parish of St. Patrick of Ottawa: And What Led to It, an Historical Sketch

It is not improbable that many people have, at different times, found a strong suggestion of the prophetic in the notable fact that almost from the earliest date of which our Canadian written annals preserve a record, the site upon which now stands that buzzing hive of industry and famous centre of political activity, the youthful cap ital of our beloved Dominion, our good City of Ottawa, has been instinct with that heightened imaginary notion of events so well calculated to engender the vivid imagery which is, however, found too frequently accompanied by somewhat irregular logic, and which has been called Romance. Let prosaic people say what they please, romance is the real spirit of history; the warm, pulsing heart with out which history would be cold and arid; the fairy princess before whose smiles the mists of earth disperse and flee away, and this dull, commonplace world becomes a glorious paradise.

No man whose mind is not as the withered fig-tree, will quarrel with Macauley when he, with probably an eye on his own leading characteristic as a writer, affirms that history in its ideal perfection should be the charming com pound of poetry and philosophy which impresses general truths by a vivid representation of particular characters, scenery and incidents. But it is unfortunate that almost all our Canadian historians have used one of these ingredients to the almost total exclusion of the other.

About the Publisher

Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com

This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.