Thomas Chandler Haliburton

“ I am a good deal concerned about Sam. I never liked this appointment he has received: neither his education, his habits, nor his manners have qualified him for it. He is fitted for a trader and for nothing else. He looks upon politics as he does upon his traffic in clocks, rather as profitable to himself than beneficial to others. Self is predominant with him. He overrates the importance of his office, as he will find when he arrives in London; but what is still worse, he overrates the importance of the opinions of others regarding the States. ”

“ By a very natural process, the scene of our affections soon becomes identified with them, and a portion of our regard is transferred from animate to inanimate objects. The streams on which we sported, the mountains on which we clambered, the fields in which we wandered, the school where we were instructed, the church where we worshipped, the very bell whose pensive melancholy music recalled our wandering steps in youth, awaken in after-years many a tender thought, many a pleasing recollection, and appeal to the heart with the force and eloquence of love. ”

“ The old colonies having ripened into maturity, formed a distinct and separate family, in the great community of mankind. You are now a nation of yourselves, and your attachment to England, is of course subordinate to that of your own country; you view it as the place that was in days of yore the home of your forefathers; we regard it as the paternal estate, continuing to call it ‘Home’ as you have just now observed. We owe it a debt of gratitude that not only cannot be repaid, but is too great for expression. Their armies protect us within, and their fleets defend us, and our commerce without. ”

“ I like the people, though not all in the same degree. They are not what they were. Dissent, reform and agitation have altered their character. It is necessary to distinguish. A real Englishman is generous, loyal and brave, manly in his conduct and gentlemanly in his feeling. When I meet such a man as this, I cannot but respect him; but when I find that in addition to these good qualities, he has the further recommendation of being a churchman in his religion and a tory in his politics, I know then that his heart is in the right place, and I love him. ”

“ If they choose to think so, they have a right to their opinion, and that opinion is fame. I value this reputation too highly not to take care of it.
As I do not intend then to write often, I shall not wire-draw my subjects, for the mere purpose of filling my pages. Still a book should be perfect within itself, and intelligible without reference to other books. Authors are vain people, and vanity as well as dignity is indigenous to a colony. ”

“ When I first came I was nation proud of that title, ‘the Attache;’ now I am happified it’s nothin’ but ‘only an Attache,’ and I’ll tell you why. The great guns, and big bugs, have to take in each other’s ladies, so these old ones have to herd together. Well, the nobodies go together too, and sit together, and I’ve observed these nobodies are the pleasantest people at table, and they have the pleasantest places, because they sit down with each other, and are jist like yourself, plaguy glad to get some one to talk to. ”

“ Well, when the whole flock is gathered in the goose pastur, the drawin’-room, other little flocks come troopin’ in, and stand, or walk, or down on chairs; and them that know each other talk, and them that don’t twirl their thumbs over their fingers; and when they are tired of that, twirl their fingers over their thumbs. I’m nobody, and so I goes and sets side-ways on an ottarman, like a gall on a side-saddle, and look at what’s afore me. ”

“ Hopewell, Samuel Slick, Esq., myself, and Jube Japan, a black servant of the Attache.
I love brevity—I am a man of few words, and, therefore, constitutionally economical of them; but brevity is apt to degenerate into obscurity. Writing a book, however, and book-making, are two very different things: “spinning a yarn” is mechanical, and book-making savours of trade, and is the employment of a manufacturer. ”

“ Slick?’ saw he.
“‘What’s our position to Europe?’ sais I, ‘jist now; is it letter A, No. 1?’
“‘Oh!’ sais he, and he walked up and down agin, cypherin’ like to himself; and then says he, ‘I’ll tell you; that word Socdolager, and the trade of preachin’, and clockmakin’, it would be as well to sink here; neither on ‘em convene with dignity. Don’t you think so?’
“‘Sartainly,’ sais I; ‘it’s only fit for talk over a cigar, alone. It don’t always answer a good, purpose to blart every thing out. ”

“ Slick, “yes, Squire, this is a pretty cottage of Marm Hodgins; but we have cottages quite as pretty as this, our side of the water, arter all. They are not all like Obi Rafuses, the immigrant. The natives have different guess places, where you might eat off the floor a’most, all’s so clean. P’raps we hante the hedges, and flowers, and vines and fixin’s, and what-nots.” ”

“ The climate of England is healthy, and, as it admits of much out-door exercise, and is not subject to any very sudden variation, or violent extremes of heat and cold, it may be said to be good, though not agreeable; but its great humidity is very sensibly felt by Americans and other foreigners accustomed to a dry atmosphere and clear sky. That Mr. Slick should find a rainy day in the country dull, is not to be wondered at; it is probable it would be so any where, to a man who had so few resources, within himself, as the Attache. ”

“ Hopewell, on the contrary, has studied the human heart as a philanthropist, as a man whose business it was to minister to it, to cultivate and improve it. His views are more sound and more comprehensive than those of the other’s, and his objects are more noble. ”

“ It is not my intention to record any of the ordinary incidents of a sea voyage: the subject is too hackneyed and too trite; and besides, when the topic is seasickness, it is infectious and the description nauseates. Hominem pagina nostra sapit. The proper study of mankind is man; human nature is what I delight in contemplating; I love to trace out and delineate the springs of human action.
Mr. Slick and Mr. Hopewell are both studies. ”

“ I love its constitution, because it combines the stability of a monarchy, with the most valuable peculiarities of a republic, and without violating nature by attempting to make men equal, wisely follow its dictates, by securing freedom to all. ”

“ The blessings of true religion are diffused among us, by the pious liberality of England, and a collegiate establishment at Windsor, supported by British friends, has for years supplied the Church, the Bar and the Legislature with scholars and gentlemen. Where the national funds have failed, private contribution has volunteered its aid, and means are never wanting for any useful or beneficial object.
“Our condition is a most enviable one. The history of the world has no example to offer of such noble disinterestedness and such liberal rule, as that exhibited by Great Britain to her colonies. ”

“ I didn’t think of that; but then if it was, it was god-mother granny Eells, that promised I should renounce the devil and all his works, that took that shape, and come to keep me to my bargain. She died fifty years ago, poor old soul, and never kept company with Indgians, or niggers, or any such trash. Heavens and airth! I don’t wonder the Falls wakes the dead, it makes such an everlastin’ almighty noise, does Niagara. ”

“ America is my birth-place and my home. Home has two significations, a restricted one and an enlarged one; in its restricted sense, it is the place of our abode, it includes our social circle, our parents, children, and friends, and contains the living and the dead ”

“ Whenever property, talent, and virtue are all on one side, and only ignorant numbers, with a mere sprinkling of property and talent to agitate ‘em and make use of ‘em, or misinformed or mistaken virtue to sanction ‘em on the other side, no honest man can take long to deliberate which side he will choose.
“As to those conservatives, I don’t know what to say, Sam; I should like to put you right if I could. But I’ll tell you what puzzles me. I ask myself what is a Tory? ”

“ I do believe, on my soul, if religion was altogether left to the voluntary in this world, it would die a nateral death; not that men wouldn’t support it, but because it would be supported under false pretences. Truth can’t be long upheld by falsehood. ”

“ Slick is a Yankee, a designation the origin of which is now not very obvious, but it has been assumed by, and conceded by common consent to, the inhabitants of New England. It is a name, though sometimes satirically used, of which they have great reason to be proud, as it is descriptive of a most cultivated, intelligent, enterprising, frugal, and industrious population, who may well challenge a comparison with the inhabitants of any other country in the world ”

“ Distressing images rise up in my mind in such rapid succession, I can’t master them, but they master me. They come slower to you, and the moment you see their shadows before you, you turn round to the light, and throw these dark figures behind you. ”

“ I too dwell ‘among my own people:’ my affections are there, and there also is the sphere of my duties; and if I am depressed by the thoughts of parting from ‘my people,’ I will do you the justice to believe, that you would rather bear with its effects, than witness the absence of such natural affection. ”

“ Well, smokin’ makes, a feller feel kinder good-natured, and I began to think it warn’t quite so bad arter all, when whop went my cigar right out of my mouth into my bosom, atween the shirt and the skin, and burnt me like a gally nipper. Both my eyes was fill’d at the same time, and I got a crack on the pate from some critter or another that clawed and scratched my head like any thing, and then seemed to empty a bushel of sut on me, and I looked like a chimbly sweep, and felt like old Scratch himself. ”

“ Well now, Sam, you know we are a calculatin’ people, a commercial people, a practical people. Europe laughs at us for it. Perhaps if they attended better to their own financial affairs, they would be in a better situation to laugh. ”

“ If there is no difference, it is a mere juggle to change the name: if there is a difference, the word is worse than a juggle, for it don’t import any.”
“Tell you what,” said Mr. Slick, “I heerd an old critter to Halifax once describe ‘em beautiful. He said he could tell a man’s politicks by his shirt. ‘A Tory, Sir,’ said he, for he was a pompious old boy was old Blue-Nose; ‘a Tory, Sir,’ said he, ‘is a gentleman every inch of him, stock, lock, and barrel; and he puts a clean frill shirt on every day. ”

“ As we were pacing the deck speculating upon the probable termination of our voyage, Cape Clear was descried by the look-out on the mast-head.
“Hallo! what’s that? why if it ain’t land ahead, as I’m alive!” said Mr. Slick. “Well, come this is pleasant too, we have made amost an everlastin’ short voyage of it, hante we; and I must say I like land quite as well as sea, in a giniral way, arter all; but, Squire, here is the first Britisher. That critter that’s a clawin’ up the side of the vessel like a cat, is the pilot: now do for goodness gracious sake, jist look at him, and hear him.” ”

“ This love of country is both natural and laudable: so natural, that to exclude a man from his country, is the greatest punishment that country can inflict upon him; and so laudable, that when it becomes a principle of action, it forms the hero and the patriot. ”

“ If a feller was so lame he had to be carried up himself, I don’t believe on my soul, the whole gang of them, from the Butler that dresses in the same clothes as his master, to Boots that ain’t dressed at all, could make out to bowse him up stairs, upon my soul I don’t. ”

“ The country again contains all these things, the sphere is widened, new objects are included, and this extension of the circle is love of country. It is thus that the nation is said in an enlarged sense, to be our home also. ”

“ Hopewell, “is solitude. It is in a place like this, that you feel yourself to be an isolated being, when you are surrounded by multitudes who have no sympathy with you, to whom you are not only wholly unknown, but not one of whom you have ever seen before.
“The solitude of the vast American forest is not equal to this. Encompassed by the great objects of nature, you recognise nature’s God every where; you feel his presence, and rely on his protection. Every thing in a city is artificial, the predominant idea is man ”

“ What an emblem of eternity!—Its dominion is alone reserved to Him, who made it. Changing yet changeless—ever varying, yet always the same. How weak and powerless is man! how short his span of life, when he is viewed in connexion with the sea! ”

“ The United States cover an immense extent of territory, and the inhabitants of different parts of the Union differ as widely in character, feelings, and even in appearance, as the people of different countries usually do. ”

“ A Whig, Sir,’ says he, ‘is a gentleman every other inch of him, and he puts an onfrilled one on every other day. A Radical, Sir, ain’t no gentleman at all, and he only puts one on of a Sunday. But a Chartist, Sir, is a loafer; he never puts one on till the old one won’t hold together no longer, and drops off in, pieces.’”
“Pooh!” said Mr. Hopewell, “now don’t talk nonsense; but as I was a-goin’ to say, I am a plain man, and a straightforward man, Sam; what I say, I mean; and what I mean, I say. Private and public life are subject to the same rules ”

“ What a sight of new clothes I’ve spilte here, for the rain has a sort of dye in it. It stains so, it alters the colour of the cloth, for the smoke is filled with gas and all sorts of chemicals. Well, back I goes to my room agin’ to the rooks, chimbly swallers, and all, leavin’ a great endurin’ streak of wet arter me all the way, like a cracked pitcher that leaks; onriggs, and puts on dry clothes from head to foot.
“By this time breakfast is ready; but the English don’t do nothin’ like other folks; I don’t know whether it’s affectation, or bein’ wrong in the head—a little of both I guess. ”