In a measure we are Puritan; not altogether in a religious sense, but in a moral and social one, certainly. We regard our horny hands with pride, and talk about "honest labour" with something more than a virtuous glow. We are apt to be rather down on city foplings and soft-handed respectabilities. All such people we despise with positively brutal heartiness. When we read of what is doing in London and Paris we swell with indignation and contempt. We look upon the civilization we have come out of as no fine thing. Life is a serious matter-of-fact business to us, and we hold in stern derision the amenities of more sophisticated communities.
I think that we must look upon things at home much in the same light as the Norsemen of old did upon the frivolities of Rome or Byzantium. The spirit of O'Gaygun's philosophy pervades the colonial mind a good deal, and, possibly, we may be prone to cultivate it as a means of stifling any regrets we may have after the old life. We are very natural men, you see, very simple and childlike, unused to the artificialities of larger and organized society. Our characters have been reformed back to primary essentials; and the raree-show of civilization dazzles and frightens our primitive nervous systems. We may have our little failings, but we ask no pity for them from people whom we so utterly scorn, as we do the denizens of the elder world. Art! Culture! Æstheticism! Bah! Pouf! Away with all such degrading, debasing, dehumanizing trumpery! We are men of a harder, sterner, simpler mould than the emasculate degeneracies of modern England! We are the pioneers and founders of a new Britain, of a stronger and purer life!
When describing our farm I gave some hint as to the causes which have kept us from building a better house hitherto. Some day we shall have one, of course; or, possibly, we shall have more than one, for some of our chums have been showing a tendency towards matrimony of late; and if any of us marry they must have houses of their own, I suppose. We should need a barrack else, you understand, for families do run large out here.
Some of our neighbours live in very comfortable houses; and by visiting them we are kept from becoming reformed into the uttermost savagery altogether. Other people had more capital than we, or spent what they possessed in a different manner. There are those who have laid themselves out to render their homes more in accordance with the taste that prevails among—I had nearly written decent people, but will say worldly instead. They have got nicer domiciles than our shanty; but, then, it takes a woman to look after things. There must be a mistress in a house that is to be a house, and not a—well, shanty, let us say. Even Old Colonial is sensible of that.
A frame-house here is built upon exactly the same plan as ours, so far as regard the piles, framework, outside wall and roof; but the plan of it varies much. Every man is his own architect, or at least that business lies between him and the carpenter who builds for him. One sees some very singular examples sometimes. Rows of isolated rooms connected by a verandah; houses all gable-ends and wings; all sorts in fact.
A good house will have the outside walls boarded up and down, with battens covering the chinks, instead of weather-boarding like our shanty. The inside walls and ceilings will be lined with grooved and jointed planking, so as to make the house what is styled bug-proof. There is a broad verandah round the whole or part of the house. There are brick chimneys inside the house, though, as they are usually an item of considerable expense, this is not invariable, and chimney out-puts like ours will be seen not infrequently. There are various rooms, and possibly an upper storey, which may or may not have a balcony above the verandah. It is a common practice to have French windows, opening upon the verandah, instead of doors.
Such houses can be made very elegant as well as comfortable. They are painted and decorated with carvings outside, and the inside walls may be painted, papered, or varnished. Furniture and upholstery of all kinds is, of course, procurable in Auckland; so that one can have all the comfort of an English home, if one is able to pay for it.
Necessarily, the cost of house-building will vary considerably, according to the style and size of residence. A cottage with two to four rooms will cost £100, or less. The average price paid for houses in our district—large roomy houses for prosperous family-men, contracted for with a carpenter, to build, paint, and thoroughly finish off—runs from £250 to £500, or something like it. Kauri timber is used almost exclusively in the North, so that we may say we live under the shadow of the Kauri pine.
We keep up the usages of society so far as to pay visits occasionally, especially to houses where there are ladies. You have got to live in a country where petticoats are few and far between, where there is not one woman to twenty or thirty men, as is the case here, in order to thoroughly appreciate the delights of feminine society. People at home don't know how to treat a lady; they are too much used to them. Why, there are actually more women than men in England!
We treasure our ladies, because they are so rare among us in the bush. Good creatures they are, these settler's wives. How kind and benevolent they are to us, to be sure! And how they do delight to "boss" us about! But we like it, we enjoy it, we revel in it. We would lay ourselves down for them to trample on us, and be truly grateful for the attention. That is our loyal feeling towards the married ladies resident in the district. Conceive, if you can, how much more extravagant is our gallantry when certain other persons are in question—young ladies whom the irreverent covertly term "husband-hunters!"