This, too, after the passing of the Anti-Slavery bill! But, even if slaves had been allowed in the colony, the horror of colour is as great among the native-born Canadians as it is in the United States. So much did this otherwise clever man know of the colony to which he sent his unmanageable son!
Flora had been led to imagine that settlers in the Backwoods lived twenty or thirty miles apart, and subsisted upon game and the wild fruits of the country until their own lands were brought into a state of cultivation. Common sense and reflection would have pointed this out as impossible; but common sense is very rare, and the majority of persons seldom take the trouble to think. We have known many persons just as wise as Flora in this respect. It is a fact, however, that Flora believed these reports, and fancied that her lot would be cast in one of those remote settlements, where no sounds of human life were to meet her ears, and the ringing of her husband’s axe alone awake the echoes of the forest.
She had yet to learn, that the proximity of fellow-labourers in the great work of clearing is indispensable; that man cannot work alone in the wilderness, where his best efforts require the aid of his fellow-men.
The oft-repeated assertion, that anything would do for Canada, was the cause of more blunders in the choice of an outfit, than the most exaggerated statements in its praise.
Of the fine towns and villages, and the well-dressed population of the improved districts of the Upper Province, she had not formed the slightest conception. To her fancy, it was a vast region of cheerless forests, inhabited by unreclaimed savages, or rude settlers doomed to perpetual toil,—a climate of stern vicissitudes, alternating between intense heat and freezing cold, and which presented at all seasons a gloomy picture. No land of Goshen, no paradise of fruits and flowers, rose in the distance to console her for the sacrifice she was about to make. The ideal was far worse than the reality.
Guided by these false impressions, she made choice of articles of dress too good for domestic drudgery, and not fine enough to suit the rank to which she belonged. In this case, extremes would have suited her better than a middle course.
Though fine clothes in the Backwoods may be regarded as useless lumber, and warm stuffs for winter, and good washing calicoes for summer, are more to be prized than silks and satins, which a few days’ exposure to the rough flooring of a log-cabin would effectually destroy; yet it is absolutely necessary to be well dressed when visiting the large towns, where the wealthier classes not only dress well, but expensively.
In a country destitute of an hereditary aristocracy, and where the poorest emigrant, by industry and prudence, may rise to wealth and political importance, the appearance which individuals make, and the style in which they live, determine their claims to superiority with the public, chiefly composed of the same elements with themselves. The aristocracy of England may be divided into three distinct classes,—that of family, of wealth, and of talent,—all powerful in their order. The one which ranks the last should hold its place with the first, for it originally produced it; and the second, which is far inferior to the last, is likewise able to buy the first. The heads of old families are more tolerant to the great men of genius than they are to the accumulators of riches; and a wide distinction is made by them between the purse-proud millionaire and the poor man of genius, whose refined tastes and feelings are more in unison with their own.
In Canada, the man of wealth has it all his own way; his dollars are irresistible, and the money makes the man. Fine clothes are there supposed to express the wealth of the possessor; and a lady’s gown determines her right to the title, which, after all, presents the lowest claims to gentility. A runaway thief may wear a fashionably cut coat, and a well-paid domestic flaunt in silks and satins.
Now, Flora knew nothing of all this; and she committed a great error in choosing neat and respectable every-day clothing. The handsome, and the very ordinary, would have answered her purpose much better.