Why Young Men Leave

A Letter From a Canadian Scholar

BRIAN C. STOCK

DEAR MR. WEEKS:
Our conversation the other evening about John Conway, it seems to me, has wider implications than we had time to pursue. What has taken place in his career is typical of many gifted Canadians, but he is one of the very few whom I know who have been sensitive enough to perceive it and honest enough to approach it realistically. The little correspondence I have shared with Dr. Conway might have been a mirror for his own mind. It was a “dialogue” which he could very well have carried on himself. It is such a dialogue which every gifted Canadian must strive to settle for himself. In my correspondence with him I might have been a Faustus whispering at his ear that Canada would betray his dreams; but that same Faustus was present in his mind beforehand, as it is in mine.
John Conway, I suspect, did not think that his train ticket to Harvard seventeen years ago would be one-way. Nor did the millions of Canadians who have chosen to live at various places on the globe besides their native land.
This dialogue often takes the form of two different voices, each pleading a different case. On the one hand we hear the voice of Canada, the voice of our own past, which says to us that we have left part of our selves in Canada, and that we must someday return if we wish to be whole again. The other voice is often more powerful. It accuses Canada of betrayal. It says that she has betrayed the very inmost nature of our selves by denying us the spiritual resources of a homeland, a patria.
Which voice is the true voice? I am not sure. This is a question for the individual. Nevertheless, in my own case the transition has been directly opposite from Dr. Conway’s. When I first left Canada and came to Harvard, the voice of patria was very strong. I wanted to see the red October leaves on the shores of Lake Simcoe, and to stroll around Stoney Creek and smell the wild roses in the springtime. The longer I stayed away, however, the weaker this voice became. This was to be expected. The other voice began to point out to me the limitations of life in Canada: not the physical limitations (for I was no country bumpkin lately arrived in the big town) but the spiritual limitations, or what I have called spiritual limitations for want of a better term. These are not synonymous with culture, because Canada has culture. Besides, culture, for the most part, speaks to the outer man, and what I mean concerns only the inner man. It is an odd paradox that the standard of physical living in Canada is almost the highest in the world, but that the standard of spiritual living is the lowest on earth. Canadians are spiritually poorer than Indians, Cambodians, Siamese, Chinese, or even the Hottentots. The Hottentot at least shakes his spear at the passerby, and he knows damn well who he is; the Canadian sips another rye and ginger ale and tries to pretend that there is no problem.
To be more specific, the voice of accusation constantly reminds me of Canada’s failure. I do not mean the failure that Canadians have brought about, but the failure that she is because of what she is. Canadians, admittedly, have been failures. One could accuse them of many things. First of all, one could cite the barbarity of the upper classes: at best they are a parody of English country life, at worst a more provincial America. Another example is the refusal to recognize the United States as a spiritual neighbor. One could also speak of the quiet pursuit of bigotries, not only English against French, but Christian against Jew, and Protestant against Catholic, which has destroyed any dreams of real union. The difference between Canadians and Americans on the racial questions is profound; for the American generally accepts the platitudes even when he does not practice them, but the Canadian rejects them even while paying them lip service.
Any person sensitive to the arts could accuse Canada of these failures, and more. But these are the failures of people; and I am not sure that it is just to accuse people of Canada’s failure. It is true that men like Bickersteth and Massey have perpetuated the imaginary bond with England, that a large company can perpetuate racial prejudice through its anti-Semitism, and that the present system of absentee landlords is ruining the economic possibilities of the country. All these could very well be true, and yet I would be loyal to Canada if only she possessed the one basic quality necessary for every country: a sense of patria. If one gathers the best natural scenery from Switzerland, France, Scotland, Russia, and Romania and lumps them together, one does not have a country. It is ridiculous, therefore, to speak of “people” having failed Canada. There has been no such struggle. No one could have ruined Canada, and no one could have saved her. Since she never was a country, there has never been anything to save or to ruin.
Canada is a land which possesses only raw earth, and therefore she can only nourish the body; she has no Zeitgeist, and therefore she cannot nourish the soul. There is no point in speaking of poetry or art in Canada unless it is derivative; for although she has been graced from time to time with gifted men, the country is incapable of poetry. A great writer can only let the spirit of his age speak through his sensitive pen; and Canada is incapable of producing a Mann or a Chekhov, for she lacks the spiritual nourishment which might produce such an artist. The Canadian heritage is therefore schizophrenic: Canadians must read two literatures, American and English, without ever participating in either. The existential power of literature is always lacking, and so Canada has produced a long series of brilliant critics (for example, Douglas Bush and Northrop Frye) but no great authors who are wholly Canadian.
At times when I was at home I felt a vague “Canadianness.” It was thin and wispy, but it said quite clearly to me, Canada. It did not evaporate when I went for long walks in the pine forests near Hamilton to think it over. It said Canada to me when I was in America, and told me what I was not. Yet the voice was too weak. It never clutched my inmost nature. The longer I stayed away, the more the idea of Canada bored me. I discovered by chance that my split personality had an advantage, for it allowed me to get inside other cultures more easily than most other people. Such a benefaction, however, can never make up for not being something. It can never replace the malaise of isolation and the feeling of betrayal. Canada nourished and raised me, educated me, and threw me out into the world. She gave me everything — health, money, erudition — but she failed to give me the one thing essential: a sense of identity, without which everything else is useless.
Furthermore, I feel that had I remained in Canada, something frightening would have taken place, Canada would have destroyed me. I felt that I could not have carried on the battle for culture and art in Canada, because the country does not have the spiritual resources to support them; and so, like the rest of “cultured” Canada, I should have become artificial and affected in my approach to the arts in general. No Canadian is honest about the arts in a Canadian way, and therefore the fate of living in Canada is frightening for someone who wants to be honest with himself.
The tension never resolves itself. The dialogue goes on. The sense of betrayal is always matched by an equally poignant desire to go home again. I have no solution to offer for the problem, except the personal one, which is to go on living for what matters most to me. At present I cannot do this in Canada. If things were to change, I might change my attitude toward the country which has given me so much, for I am not ungrateful. If I returned now, however, I would eventually yield. The slow, ineffable poison is too much. One cannot resist climate, people, and countryside forever. One cannot go on believing in a patria which does not exist.
Yours sincerely,
BRIAN STOCK Trinity College, Cambridge, England