The Master; a Novel

Written by British author Israel Zangwill (1864 –1926), The Master is an intriguing and insightful novel that deals with issues such as class and the creation of art. A contributor and the subject of the book is George Wylie Hutchinson, a painter and leading illustrator in Britain from Canada, with whom Zangwill was also a close friend. Israel Zangwill's other notable works include: "Dreamers of the Ghetto" (1898) and "Ghetto Tragedies" (1899) An excerpt from The Master Despite its long stretch of winter, in which May might wed December in no incompatible union, 'twas a happy soil, this Acadia, a country of good air and great spaces; two-thirds of the size of Scotland, with a population that could be packed away in a corner of Glasgow; a land of green forests and rosy cheeks; a land of milk and molasses; a land of little hills and great harbors, of rich valleys and lovely lakes, of overflowing rivers and oversurging tides that, with all their menace, did but fertilize the meadows with red silt and alluvial mud; a land over which France and England might well bicker when first they met oversea; a land which, if it never reached the restless energy of the States, never retained the Old World atmosphere that long lingered over New England villages; save here and there in some rare Acadian settlement that dreamed out its life in peace and prayer among its willow-trees and in the shadows of its orchards.