QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS.

FIFTY QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS ON “EVANGELINE: A TALE OF ACADIE.”

By ALBERT M. MARTIN, General Secretary C. L. S. C.

1. Q. Who is the author of Evangeline? A. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow.

2. Q. When and where was Longfellow born, and when did he die? A. He was born in Portland, Maine, February 27, 1807, and died March 24, 1882.

3. Q. To what did he devote the greater part of his life? A. To literature, and to teaching in connection with literature.

4. Q. What was the first volume he published? A. An essay on the moral and devotional poetry of Spain.

5. Q. What are two of his best known prose works. A. “Outre-mer” and “Hyperion.”

6. Q. What is perhaps the best known of Longfellow’s short poems? A. “The Psalm of Life.”

7. Q. What celebrated work did Longfellow translate out of the Italian? A. Dante’s “Divina Commedia.”

8. Q. Name three of the longer well known poems that Longfellow wrote. A. “The Song of Hiawatha,” “The Courtship of Miles Standish,” and “Evangeline.”

9. Q. On what historical incident is the story of “Evangeline” founded? A. The forcible removal of the French from Acadia by the English in 1755.

10. Q. By what name is Acadia now known? A. Nova Scotia.

11. Q. How many of the Acadians were sent out of the country at this time? A. About three thousand.

12. Q. To what parts of the United States were they taken? A. To North Carolina, Virginia, Maryland, Pennsylvania, New York, Connecticut, and Massachusetts.

13. Q. In the haste and confusion of sending them off, what occurred as to many families? A. They were separated, and some at least never came together again.

14. Q. What is the story of Evangeline? A. It is the story of such a separation.

15. Q. What is the measure in which the story of Evangeline is written? A. It is what is commonly known as English dactylic hexameter.

16. Q. What is a dactyl? A. It is a poetical foot of three syllables, of which the first is long and the other two short.

17. Q. In dactylic hexameter how many of these feet are there in a line? A. Six.

18. Q. Name some noted classical poems written in dactylic hexameter. A. Homer’s Iliad and Odyssey, and Virgil’s Æneid.

19. Q. With what description does part the first of Evangeline open? A. With a description of Grand Pré in 1755.

20. Q. What person is introduced as the wealthiest farmer of Grand Pré? A. Benedict Bellefontaine, the father of Evangeline.

21. Q. What was the age of Evangeline at the time the story opens? A. Seventeen.

22. Q. Who was the accepted suitor of Evangeline? A. Gabriel Lajeunesse, the son of Basil the blacksmith.

23. Q. Who attested the contract for the marriage of Evangeline and Gabriel? A. René Leblanc, the notary.

24. Q. On the 5th of September, 1755, the day following the execution of the marriage contract, what had the male inhabitants of Grand Pré and the surrounding country been summoned to do by proclamation of Col. Winslow, the commander of the New England troops? A. To attend him in the church at Grand Pré to hear a communication which the governor had sent.

25. Q. How many assembled in the church on this occasion? A. Four hundred and eighteen men and boys.

26. Q. After they had assembled, what did Winslow do? A. He surrounded the church with a guard and made all the inmates prisoners.

27. Q. What did he state was the decision of the king in reference to them? A. That all their lands, dwellings, and cattle were forfeited to the crown, and they themselves were to be transported to other provinces.

28. Q. How long were they kept prisoners in the church? A. Until the 10th of September.

29. Q. While the people were being taken on board the fleet for transportation from their homes, what occurred to the village of Grand Pré? A. It was set on fire and burned.

30. Q. What became of the father of Evangeline? A. During the delay on the shore he died, and his body was buried by the seaside.

31. Q. How were Gabriel and Evangeline separated? A. They were taken to different ships.

32. Q. In what does the story of Evangeline thereafter chiefly center? A. In her long and fruitless search for Gabriel.

33. Q. To what city in the South did a large number of the Acadians go? A. New Orleans.

34. Q. Where did they form settlements? A. On both sides of the lower Mississippi.

35. Q. In what part of her wanderings is Evangeline first specially introduced to the reader? A. With a band of Acadians on a raft descending the Mississippi toward these settlements.

36. Q. While their raft was moored at the Atchafalaya who passed them during the night in a boat going north? A. Gabriel.

37. Q. At a settlement on the banks of the Têche what Acadian did they find? A. Basil the blacksmith, now a herdsman.

38. Q. What did Basil report as to Gabriel? A. That he had that day started for “the town of Adayes to trade for mules with the Spaniards,” and thence he would follow “the Indian trails to the Ozark Mountains,” hunting and trapping.

39. Q. The next morning who started to attempt to overtake Gabriel? A. Basil and Evangeline.

40. Q. When they arrived at the little inn of the Spanish town of Adayes what were they told by the landlord? A. “That on the day before, with horses and guides and companions, Gabriel left the village and took the road of the prairies.”

41. Q. At a Jesuit mission in the region of the Ozark Mountains, what did the priest inform them of Gabriel? A. That “not six suns” had “risen and set since Gabriel” had told him the same story, and then had continued his journey to the far north.

42. Q. What did Basil and Evangeline now do? A. Basil returned to his home, and Evangeline remained at the mission.

43. Q. While at the mission, where did Evangeline next hear that Gabriel was? A. In the Michigan forests by the banks of the Saginaw River.

44. Q. When she reached this place of his lodge, what did she find? A. “The hunter’s lodge deserted and fallen to ruin.”

45. Q. Where had Evangeline landed when she came from Acadia? A. At Philadelphia.

46. Q. Who among those mentioned in the story had died there? A. René Leblanc, the notary.

47. Q. After Evangeline had given up finding Gabriel, to what place did she go? A. To Philadelphia.

48. Q. In what way did she employ her time? A. In administering to the sick and distressed as a Sister of Mercy.

49. Q. In the year 1793 what terrible pestilence was in Philadelphia? A. The yellow fever.

50. Q. Where did Evangeline at length find Gabriel? A. In the Friends’ alms-house as he was dying from the fever.