When we contrast forest life in Canada forty years ago with the present state of the country, my book will not be without interest and significance.  We may truly say, old things have passed away, all things have become new.

What an advance in the arts and sciences and in the literature of the country has been made during the last few years.  Canada can boast of many good and even distinguished authors, and the love of books and booklore is daily increasing.

Institues and literary associations for the encouragement of learning are now to be found in all the cities and large towns in the Dominion.  We are no longer dependent upon the States for the reproduction of the works of celebrated authors; our own publishers, both in Toronto and Montreal, are furnishing our handsome bookstores with volumes that rival, in cheapness and typographical excellence, the best issues from the large printing establishments in America.  We have no lack of native talent or books, or of intelligent readers to appreciate them.

Our print shops are full of the well-educated designs of native artists.  And the grand scenery of our lakes and forests, transferred to canvas, adorns the homes of our wealthy citizens.

We must not omit in this slight sketch to refer to the number of fine public buildings which meet us at every turn, most of which have been designed and executed by native architects.  Montreal can point to her Victoria Bridge, and challenge the world to produce its equal.  This prodigy of mechanical skill should be a sufficient inducement to strangers from other lands to visit our shores, and though designed by the son of the immortal George Stephenson, it was Canadian hands that helped him to execute his great project—­to raise that glorious monument to his fame, which we hope, will outlast a thousand years.

Our new Houses of Parliment, our churches, banks, public halls, asylums for the insane, the blind, and the deaf and dumb are buildings which must attract the attention of every intelligent traveller; and when we consider the few brief years that have elapsed since the Upper Province was reclaimed from the wilderness, our progress in mechanical arts, and all the comforts which pertain to modern civilization, is unprecedented in the history of older nations.

If the Canadian people will honestly unite in carrying out measures proposed by the Government for the good of the country, irrespective of self-interest and party prejudices, they must, before the close of the present century, become a great and prosperous nationality.  May the blessing of God rest upon Canada and the Canadian people!

Susanna Moodie

Belleville, 1871

APPENDIX C

JEANIE BURNS

[This chapter was originally intended by Mrs. Moodie for inclusion in the first edition of Roughing it in the Bush but was instead published in the periodical Bentley’s Miscellany, in August 1852.  It was later revised and included in the book Life in the Clearings versus the Bush by the same author.]