I adhered to my system,--I continued my work. Here, in the barbarous
desert, was a link between me and the Cities of Europe. All else might
break down under me. The love I had dreamed of was blotted out from the
world, and might never be restored; my heart might be lonely, my life be
an exile's. My reason might, at last, give way before the spectres which
awed my senses, or the sorrow which stormed my heart. But here at least
was a monument of my rational thoughtful Me,--of my individualized
identity in multiform creation. And my mind, in the noon of its force,
would shed its light on the earth when my form was resolved to its
elements. Alas! in this very yearning for the Hereafter, though but the
Hereafter of a Name, could I see only the craving of Mind, and hear not
the whisper of Soul!

The avocation of a colonist, usually so active, had little interest for
me. This vast territorial lordship, in which, could I have endeared its
possession by the hopes that animate a Founder, I should have felt all the
zest and the pride of ownership, was but the run of a common to the
passing emigrant, who would leave no son to inherit the tardy products of
his labour. I was not goaded to industry by the stimulus of need. I
could only be ruined if I risked all my capital in the attempt to improve.
I lived, therefore, amongst my fertile pastures, as careless of culture as
the English occupant of the Highland moor, which he rents for the range of
its solitudes.

I knew, indeed, that if ever I became avaricious, I might swell my modest
affluence into absolute wealth. I had revisited the spot in which I had
discovered the nugget of gold, and had found the precious metal in rich
abundance just under the first coverings of the alluvial soil. I
concealed my discovery from all. I knew that, did I proclaim it, the
charm of my bush-life would be gone. My fields would be infested by all