THE WOUNDS OF THE HEART.
When I took leave of the family I returned to the room where I had
left Peter and the doctor, but they had both retired. And as my
chamber adjoined it, I sat by the fire, lighted a cigar, and fell into
one of my rambling meditations.
Here, said I to myself, is another phase of life. Peter is at once a
Highlander, a Canadian, a trapper, a backwoodsman, and a coaster. His
daughters are half Scotch and half Indian, and have many of the
peculiarities of both races. There is even between these sisters a
wide difference in intellect, appearance, and innate refinement. The
doctor has apparently abandoned his profession for the study of
nature, and quit the busy haunts of men for the solitude of the
forest. He seems to think and act differently from any one else in the
country. Here too we have had Cutler, who is a scholar and a skilful
navigator, filling the berth of a master of a fishing craft. He began
life with nothing but good principles and good spirits, and is now
about entering on a career, which in a few years will lead to a great
fortune. He is as much out of place where he is, as a salmon would be
in a horse pond. And here am I, Squire, your humble servant, Sam Slick
the Clockmaker, not an eccentric man, I hope, for I detest them, they
are either mad, or wish to be thought so, because madness they suppose
to be an evidence of genius; but a specimen of a class not uncommon in
the States, though no other country in the world but Yankeedoodledum
produces it.
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