Volume 1 - Electric Scotland

464 WILLIAM BLACKWOOD.
ment in this country ; but the topics of the other came suddenly
upon me, and have interested my leisure. The navigation
being shut, I will send the MS., when I have got a fair copy
completed, by the way of New York. In the meantime, you
may announce it as forthcoming early in the spring.
I have now taken up my abode in this " city," in one of the
finest rough log cottages probably ever raised. The portico is
perfectly beautiful, being formed entirely of trunks of trees,
which in effect afford really a pretty specimen of the Ionic
order, thereby very clearly showing that that order is quite as
truly an original one as the Doric, which is generally regarded
as the only original. The house was not built at first for a
private dwelling, but by a little alteration I have made it a
good one; and considering its rough exterior and internal
simplicity, it might almost lay claim to some pretension to
elegance.
I am not sure that when I last wrote I mentioned the found-
ing of another city—a seaport, Goderich—on the lovely shores
of the Lake Huron. In the course of the summer, under the
directions of the doctor, we began the settlement, and I opened
a road through the forest, upwards of seventy miles in length,
thus rendering it practicable to pass from Lake Ontario to
Goderich, which is at the Eed Eiver mouth, in two days.
My business is becoming very extensive and complicated,
and promises to answer the best expectation of those who
founded the Company. But my own situation, though the
allowance is liberal, is far from being comfortable ; indeed, so
little so that last year about this time I was within an ace of
throwing it up, and but for an unforeseen occurrence I should
by this time have been on my way to England — not, however,
with the intention of resigning, but to see if I could have
persuaded the Directors that to attempt to manage a concern,
in which men's feelings and characters are as much objects of
consideration as their bargainings, from the distance of St
Helen's Place, would be found impracticable. It vexes me to
see how easily my work may be done, and yet how many
difficulties are created and time lost in correspondence and
controversy.