Nature seems, in
creating that people, to have given them constitutions resembling the
summers of the northern portion of the New World, where she makes
things grow ten times as fast as elsewhere. A grain of wheat takes a
decent time to ripen in England, and requires the sweat of the brow and
the labour of the hands to bring it to perfection; but in North America
it becomes flour and food almost before it is in ear in the old country.
Nature marches quick in America, but is soon exhausted; so her people
there think and act ten times as fast as elsewhere, and die before they
are aged. The women are old at thirty, and boys of fifteen are men; and
so they ripe and ripe, and so they rot and rot.

Everything in the States goes at a railroad pace; every carter or
teamster is a Solon, in his own idea; and every citizen is a king _de
facto_, for he rules the powers that be. They think in America too fast
for genius to expand to purpose; and as their digestion is impaired by a
Napoleonic style of eating, so very powerful and very highly cultivated
minds are comparatively rare in the Union. There is no time for study,
and they take a democratic road to learning.

And yet, _ceteris paribus_, the Union produces great men and great
minds; and if any thing but dollars was paid attention to, the
literature of America would soon be upon a par with that of the Old
World; as it is, it pays better to reprint French and English authors
than to tax the brains of the natives.

For this reason, the agricultural population of the States are more
reasonable, more amiable, and more original than those engaged in
incessant trade. I have seen an American farmer in my travels this year,
who was the perfect image of the English franklin, before his daughters
wore parasols and thrummed the piano. Oh, railways, ye have much to
answer for! for, although the prosperity of the mass may be increased by
you, the happiness and contentment of the million is deteriorating every
day.

I am not about to write a history of Canada at present, for that is
already done, as far as its military annals are concerned, during the
three years since I last addressed the public; but it shall yet slumber
awhile in its box of pine wood, until the time is ripe for development:
I merely intend here to put together some reminiscences which strike me
as to the part the French Canadian has played, and to show that we
should neither forget nor neglect him.

Canada, as it is