BLANDFORD.
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.