MY DEAR MOTHER,
I had the pleasure of receiving a letter from you a fortnight since. I was at Moora Moora then, as you will see by a letter I wrote just before I came down here, in the hope of joining a party that is spoken of as about to explore the interior of the country, which you appear to have such a dread of. It seems uncertain whether they will go at all. As to what you say about people being starved to death in the bush, no doubt it would be rather disagreeable. But when you talk of being killed in battle, I am almost ashamed to read it. If every one had such ideas we should have no one going to sea for fear of being drowned; no travellers by railway for fear the engine should burst; and all would live in the open air for fear of the houses falling in. I wish you would read Coombe's Constitution of Man. As regards some remarks of yours on people's religious opinions, it is a subject on which so many differ, that I am inclined to Pope's conclusion who says:--
For modes of faith let graceless zealots fight; His can't be wrong whose life is in the right;
and I think we cannot have a better guide to our actions than
'to do unto others as we would be done by.'
Ever your affectionate son,
W.J. WILLS.
P.S. If I go, I will write again before starting.
The expedition he here speaks of turned out a mere venture to obtain cash, and nothing came of it. He remained but a short time at Ballaarat, and never idle. In a month he completed a wooden addition to my residence, building the sides, and shingling the roof in a most workmanlike manner. It was perfectly weatherproof, and stood good for some years, being only taken down when an alteration in the line of the street rendered its removal necessary. He now wished to study surveying. My acquaintance with Mr. Taylor, district surveyor at Ballaarat, obtained for him an admission as an amateur into his office. He there set to work with his characteristic industry to perfect himself in trigonometry and Euclid; drawing and mapping in the office by day, and working hard in his own room by night. On rising from bed in the morning, I have found him sitting as I had left him, working out his point, for he never deserted anything he had once taken up until he mastered it. At the expiration of a few months, Mr. Taylor promised me to introduce him to a gentleman in the survey department named Byerly, with a view to reciprocal services. On the 20th of August, 1856, he speaks for himself in a letter to his mother from Glendaruel: