Extrait :

"The heroine, Claire Laval, is a woman of the French

noblesse, who has come to Quebec with a hidden

passion for Dollard. Neither the hero nor the reader is

admitted to the secret of this act until, in the crisis of

the great sacrifice of the Saut, the confession can be

made without loss of maidenly dignity. The author has

chosen this point with unerring rightness, but no

5emphasis is laid on it, for it is only one of the many

significant features of this lovely romance. The reader

feels from the outset the sweet passion of the heroine’s

nature, but the revelation of her strength of will and

intensity of purpose is gradually made. At the risk of

raising an incredulous smile, we assert that there is

something Shakespearean in this figure of Claire Laval,

and when we have said this we have told the reader that

the portraiture is the work of a poet rather than of a

novelist. This exquisite creation, with the old-world art

and the new-world nature, has a delightful counterpoise

in the Indian maiden Massawippa, in whom the pride of

a savage is so refined by the love of a daughter that we

see the two figures stepping side by side without for a

moment confusing them, yet perceiving their profound

community. Each, too, complements the other, to the

heightening of the general effect. The scene in the

chapel, where the two women lie side by side at the foot

of the altar, has a stillness of power which creates for

the reader an entire circumstance. We mean that he is

drawn to look at this dark and at this fair woman so

steadily that the very objects about them gradually

become more visible to him in the quiet night. ".......................to be continued !