Native Canadians, Like Yankees, Will Make Money Where People From
The Old Country Would Almost Starve.
Their intimate knowledge of
the country, and of the circumstances of the inhabitants, enables
them to turn their money
To great advantage; and I must add, that
few people from the old country, however avaricious, can bring
themselves to stoop to the unscrupulous means of acquiring property
which are too commonly resorted to in this country. These
reflections are a rather serious commencement of a sketch which was
intended to be of a more lively description; one of my chief objects
in writing this chapter being to afford a connecting link between
my wife's sketches, and to account for some circumstances connected
with our situation, which otherwise would be unintelligible to
the reader. Before emigrating to Canada, I had been settled as a
bachelor in South Africa for about twelve years. I use the word
settled, for want of a better term - for a bachelor can never,
properly, be said to be settled. He has no object in life - no aim.
He is like a knife without a blade, or a gun without a barrel. He
is always in the way, and nobody cares for him. If he work on a
farm, as I did, for I never could look on while others were
working without lending a hand, he works merely for the sake of
work. He benefits nobody by his exertions, not even himself; for
he is restless and anxious, has a hundred indescribable ailments,
which no one but himself can understand; and for want of the
legitimate cares and anxieties connected with a family, he is full
of cares and anxieties of his own creating. In short, he is in a
false position, as every man must be who presumes to live alone
when he can do better.
This was my case in South Africa. I had plenty of land, and of
all the common necessaries of life; but I lived for years without
companionship, for my nearest English neighbour was twenty-five
miles off. I hunted the wild animals of the country, and had plenty
of books to read; but, from talking broken Dutch for months
together, I almost forgot how to speak my own language correctly.
My very ideas (for I had not entirely lost the reflecting faculty)
became confused and limited, for want of intellectual companions to
strike out new lights, and form new combinations in the regions of
thought; clearly showing that man was not intended to live alone.
Getting, at length, tired of this solitary and unproductive life,
I started for England, with the resolution of placing my domestic
matters on a more comfortable footing. By a happy accident, at the
house of a literary friend in London, I became acquainted with one
to whose cultivated mind, devoted affections, and untiring energy of
character, I have been chiefly indebted for many happy hours, under
the most adverse circumstances, as well as for much of that hope
and firm reliance upon Providence which have enabled me to bear up
against overwhelming misfortunes.
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