This book is in a place by itself among the novels I have written. Manycritics said that it was a welcome return to Canada, where I had made myfirst success in the field of fiction. This statement was only meagrelyaccurate, because since 'The Right of Way' was published in 1901 I hadwritten, and given to the public, 'Northern Lights', a book of shortstories, 'You Never Know Your Luck', a short novel, and 'The World forSale', though all of these dealt with life in Western Canada, and notwith the life of the French Canadians, in which field I had made myfirst firm impression upon the public. In any case, The Money Master wasfavourably received by the press and public both in England and America,and my friends were justified in thinking, and in saying, that I was athome in French Canada and gave the impression of mastery of my material.If mastery of material means a knowledge of the life, and a sympathywith it, then my friends are justified; for I have always had an intensesympathy with, and admiration for, French Canadian life. I think theFrench Canadian one of the most individual, original, and distinctivebeings of the modern world. He has kept his place, with his owncustoms, his own Gallic views of life, and his religious habits, with anassiduity and firmness none too common. He is essentially a man ofthe home, of the soil, and of the stream; he has by nature instinctivephilosophy and temperamental logic. As a lover of the soil of Canada heis not surpassed by any of the other citizens of the country, English orotherwise.It would almost seem as though the pageantry of past French Canadianhistory, and the beauty and vigour of the topographical surroundingsof French Canadian life, had produced an hereditary pride andexaltation--perhaps an excessive pride and a strenuous exaltation, but,in any case, there it was, and is. The French Canadian lives a moresecluded life on the whole than any other citizen of Canada, though thenative, adventurous spirit has sent him to the Eastern States ofthe American Union for work in the mills and factories, or up to thefarthest reaches of the St. Lawrence, Ottawa, and their tributaries inthe wood and timber trade.Domestically he is perhaps the most productive son of the North Americancontinent. Families of twenty, or even twenty-five, are not unknown,and, when a man has had more than one wife, it has even exceeded that.Life itself is full of camaraderie and good spirit, marked by religioustraits and sacerdotal influence.The French Canadian is on the whole sober and industrious; but when hebreaks away from sobriety and industry he becomes a vicious elementin the general organism. Yet his vices are of the surface, and do notdestroy the foundations of his social and domestic scheme. A FrenchCanadian pony used to be considered the most virile and lasting stockon the continent, and it is fair to say that the French Canadiansthemselves are genuinely hardy, long-lived, virile, and enduring.It was among such people that the hero of The Money Master, Jean JacquesBarbille, lived. He was the symbol or pattern of their virtues andof their weaknesses. By nature a poet, a philosopher, a farmer and anadventurer, his life was a sacrifice to prepossession and race instinct;to temperament more powerful than logic or common sense, though he wasalmost professionally the exponent of both.There is no man so simply sincere, or so extraordinarily prejudiced asthe French Canadian. He is at once modest and vain; he is even lyricalin his enthusiasms; he is a child in the intrigues and inventionsof life; but he has imagination, he has a heart, he has a love oftradition, and is the slave of legend. To him domestic life is thesummum bonum of being. His four walls are the best thing which the worldhas to offer, except the cheerful and sacred communion of the Mass, andhis dismissal from life itself under the blessing of his priest and withthe promise of a good immort --This text refers to the Kindle Edition edition.