ive effects of gunpowder, commencing with a
percussion-pistol, and ending with a mine; buying land, taking
altitudes of the sun and of the moon, examining a Gunter's chain or a
theodolite, sitting as member of a court-martial, or of a board of
respective officers, or counting the gold and silver in the military
chest; superintending a fortification of the most intricate Vaubanism;
regulating the dip of the needle, or the density of the earth; putting
an awkward squad through the most approved manoeuvres; studying the
integral calculus, or the catenarian curve; bothered by Newton or La
Place; reading German or Spanish; exploring Oregon, or any other terra
incognita; building docks, supervising railways, surveying Ireland,
governing a colony, conducting a siege, leading a forlorn hope; an
Indian chief, or commanding an army (both the latter rather rare);
well may his motto be, as that of his corps is, _Ubique_. So, gentle
reader, if there is wandering in the matter of these pages, put it
down, not to the want of method or manners, but to the want of time;
for, even in a dull Canadian winter, it is only by fits and snatches
that the mysteries of book-making can be practised. The intervals are
uncertain, the opportunities few. At one hour, one is drawing one's
sword; at the next, in one of the two drawing-rooms, namely, that
where ladies congregate, and that in which steel-pens chiefly shine.

But it is necessary, nevertheless, to go on with any thing one
seriously begins; and, although the "art and practique part" of
book-making is, considering the requisite labour of bad penmanship,
rather disgusting, yet the giving "a local habitation and a name" to
the ideas floating on the sensorium is pleasant enough. It would be
better if one had a steam-pen, for I always find my ideas much more
rapid than consists with a goose quill. The unbending of the mind in a
trifle like the present is also agreeable; and if the reader only
likes it, as much as it amuses me and it whiles away graver cares, and
the every-day monotony of a matter-of-fact existence, so much the
better. An engineer-officer has no time to become a _blase_, but every
body else is not in his position, and thus this "little boke" may be
taken up with the morning paper, and your man of the world may be
induced to go so far as to say, "Wild horses in Canada! I never heard
of them before; I will positively read a page or two more some rainy
morning."

_Blase_, dear _bla