There was, however, a spirit in my family that rose superior to the crushing influences of adversity.  Poverty, which so often degrades the weak mind, became their best teacher, the stern but fruitful parent of high resolve and ennobling thought.  The very misfortunes that overwhelmed, became the source from whence they derived both energy and strength, as the inundation of some mighty river fertilises the shores over which it first spreads ruin and desolation.  Without losing aught of their former position in society, they dared to be poor; to place mind above matter, and make the talents with which the great Father had liberally endowed them, work out their appointed end.  The world sneered, and summer friends forsook them; they turned their backs upon the world, and upon the ephemeral tribes that live but in its smiles.

From out of the solitude in which they dwelt, their names went forth through the crowded cities of that cold, sneering world, and their names were mentioned with respect by the wise and good; and what they lost in wealth, they more than regained in well-earned reputation.

Brought up in this school of self-denial, it would have been strange indeed if all its wise and holy precepts had brought forth no corresponding fruit.  I endeavoured to reconcile myself to the change that awaited me, to accommodate my mind and pursuits to the new position in which I found myself placed.

Many a hard battle had we to fight with old prejudices, and many proud swellings of the heart to subdue, before we could feel the least interest in the land of our adoption, or look upon it as our home.

All was new, strange, and distasteful to us; we shrank from the rude, coarse familiarity of the uneducated people among whom we were thrown; and they in return viewed us as innovators, who wished to curtail their independence, by expecting from them the kindly civilities and gentle courtesies of a more refined community.  They considered us proud and shy, when we were only anxious not to give offense.  The semi-barbarous Yankee squatters, who had “left their country for their country’s good,” and by whom we were surrounded in our first settlement, detested us, and with them we could have no feeling in common.  We could neither lie nor cheat in our dealings with them; and they despised us for our ignorance in trading and our want of smartness.

The utter want of that common courtesy with which a well-brought-up European addresses the poorest of his brethren, is severely felt at first by settlers in Canada.  At the period of which I am now speaking, the titles of “sir” or “madam” were very rarely applied by inferiors.  They entered your house without knocking; and while boasting of their freedom, violated one of its dearest laws, which considers even the cottage of the poorest labourer his castle, and his privacy sacred.

“Is your man to hum?”—­“Is the woman within?” were the general inquiries made to me by such guests, while my bare-legged, ragged Irish servants were always spoken to, as “sir” and “mem,” as if to make the distinction more pointed.