This edition has been fully restored with modern typesetting, custom cover design. Stray Leaves, or Traces of Travel is a warm, observant Catholic travel memoir in which Bishop Alex. MacDonald turns a long journey into an act of devotion, memory, and discovery. From Montreal and Quebec down the St. Lawrence to the Atlantic crossing, he records daily Mass, hymns, Rosary, blessings, seasickness, fog, and the comic life of shipboard travel, while his reverent, humorous eye catches birds, weather, and the changing coast. The voyage widens into England, France, Scotland, and the western isles, where sacred history and local legend shape every stop. In London, he meditates on Westminster Abbey, Catholic revival, Newman, and the living faith of the city. In Paris, he contrasts public irreligion with hidden piety and the splendor of Notre Dame, then moves on to the Exposition and the pilgrimage center of Paray le Monial. The Scottish chapters range from Edinburgh and Glasgow to Oban, Skye, Loch Maree, and Inverness, blending lyrical landscape, Gaelic speech, ruined monasteries, healing wells, and stirring memories of castles, saints, and exiles.

À propos de l'auteur

MacDonald, Alexander

Alexander MacDonald was a Scottish-born writer whose life and work were shaped by the world he knew best: the rhythms of rural labor, the speech of ordinary people, and the moral complexities of a changing society. Rising from humble beginnings, he became known as a keen observer of everyday life, bringing warmth, realism, and quiet humor to his writing. His reputation rests on finely drawn sketches, poems, and prose pieces that capture the texture of working-class experience with sympathy and precision, and on a literary voice that feels both intimate and historically vivid. MacDonald’s writing often returns to themes of memory, hardship, resilience, community, and the dignity of common lives, making his work especially resonant today in an era still attentive to questions of class, identity, and belonging. He stands as an important figure in the tradition of Scottish regional writing, valued for preserving local speech and for showing that ordinary experience can be a source of lasting art. Readers today will find in him a humane, accessible, and quietly powerful author whose work rewards anyone interested in Scotland, social history, or literature that gives voice to the overlooked.