After several pleasant and interesting visits to the neighbouring
settlers, I took leave of my hospitable friends at Blandford with deep
and real regret; and, in the best and only vehicle which could be
procured--videlicet, a baker's cart--set out for London, the chief town
of the district; the distance being about thirty miles--a long day's
journey; the cost seven dollars.
The man who drove me proved a very intelligent and civilised person. He
had come out to Canada in the capacity of a gentleman's servant; he now
owned some land--I forget how many acres--and was besides baker-general
for a large neighbourhood, rarely receiving money in pay, but wheat, and
other farm produce. He had served as constable of the district for two
years, and gave me some interesting accounts of his thief-taking
expeditions through the wild forests in the deep winter nights. He
considered himself, on the whole, a prosperous man. He said he should be
quite happy here, were it not for his wife, who fretted and pined
continually after her "home."
The case of this poor fellow with his discontented wife is of no
unfrequent occurrence in Canada; and among the better class of settlers
the matter is worse still, the suffering more acute, and of graver
consequences.
I have not often in my life met with contented and cheerful-minded
women, but I never met with so many repining and discontented women as
in Canada. I never met with _one_ woman recently settled here, who
considered herself happy in her new home and country: I _heard_ of one,
and doubtless there are others, but they are exceptions to the general
rule. Those born here, or brought here early by their parents and
relations, seemed to me very happy, and many of them had adopted a sort
of pride in their new country, which I liked much. There was always a
great desire to visit England, and some little airs of self-complacency
and superiority in those who had been there, though for a few months
only; but all, without a single exception, returned with pleasure,
unable to forego the early habitual influences of their native land.
I like patriotism and nationality in women. Among the German women both
these feelings give a strong tincture to the character; and, seldom
disunited, they blend with peculiar grace in our sex: but with a great
statesman they should stand well distinguished. Nationality is not
always patriotism, and patriotism is not, necessarily, nationality. The
English are more patriotic than national; the Americans generally more
national than patriotic; the Germans both national and patriotic.
I have observed that really accomplished women, accustomed to what is
called the best society, have more resources here, and manage better,
than some women who have no pretensions of any kind, and whose claims
to social distinction could not have been great anywhere, but whom I
found lamenting over themselves as if they had been so many exiled
princesses.
Imagine the position of a fretful, frivolous woman, strong neither in
mind nor frame, abandoned to her own resources in the wilds of Upper
Canada! No--nothing can be imagined so pitiable, so ridiculous, and, to
borrow the Canadian word, "so shiftless."
My new friend and kind hostess was a being of quite a different stamp;
and though I believe she was far from thinking that she had found in
Canada a terrestrial paradise, and the want of servants and the
difficulty of educating her family as she wished, were subjects of great
annoyance to her; yet these and other evils she had met with a cheerful
spirit. Here, amid these forest wilds, she had recently given birth to a
lovely baby, the tenth, or indeed I believe the twelfth, of a flock of
manly boys and blooming girls. Her eldest daughter mean time, a fair and
elegant girl, was acquiring, at the age of fifteen, qualities and habits
which might well make ample amends for the possession of mere
accomplishments. She acted as manager in chief, and glided about in her
household avocations with a serene and quiet grace which was quite
charming.