Canadian God

From Tempest-Tost by Robertson Davies...Members of a amateur theatre company are stressing, worrying, and whining the night before a big performance and the director who has been living in New York for the past 10 years is confused at what that are doing, the response is... "They are sacrificing to our Canadian God. We all believe that if we fret and abuse ourselves sufficiently, Providence will take pity and smile upon anything we attempt. A light heart, or a consciousness of desert, attracts ill luck. You have been away from your native land too long. You have forgotten our folkways. Listen to that gang over there; they are scanning the heavens and hoping aloud that it won't rain tomorrow. That is to placate at the Mean Old Man in the Sky, and persuade him to be kind to us. We are devil-worshippers, we Canadians, half in love with easeful Death. We flog ourselves endlessly, as a kind of spiritual purification."