Their Visits Were Not Visits Of Love,
But Of Mere Idle Curiosity, Not Unmingled With Malicious Pleasure
At My Awkward Attempts At Canadian House-Wifieries.
The simplicity, the fond, confiding faith of childhood is unknown
in Canada.
There are no children here. The boy is a miniature
man - knowing, keen, and wide awake; as able to drive a bargain
and take an advantage of his juvenile companion as the grown-up,
world-hardened man. The girl, a gossipping flirt, full of vanity
and affectation, with a premature love of finery, and an acute
perception of the advantages to be derived from wealth, and from
keeping up a certain appearance in the world.
The flowers, the green grass, the glorious sunshine, the birds of
the air, and the young lambs gambolling down the verdant slopes,
which fill the heart of a British child with a fond ecstacy, bathing
the young spirit in Elysium, would float unnoticed before the vision
of a Canadian child; while the sight of a dollar, or a new dress, or
a gay bonnet, would swell its proud bosom with self-importance and
delight. The glorious blush of modest diffidence, the tear of gentle
sympathy, are so rare on the cheek, or in the eye of the young, that
their appearance creates a feeling of surprise. Such perfect
self-reliance in beings so new to the world is painful to a thinking
mind. It betrays a great want of sensibility and mental culture, and
a melancholy knowledge of the arts of life.
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