The War with Nature. 83 
save himself, and must for ever and always keep all 
his faculties keen and brightly polished. With 
regard to man, who has the power of self-analysis 
and of seeing in his own mind all minds, the case is 
very different, and it does concern us to know the 
truth. A great deal—very many pages, chapters 
and even books—might be written on this subject, 
but to write them is happily unnecessary, since 
every one can easily find out the truth from his own 
experience. This will tell him which satisfied him 
most in the end—the rough days or the smooth in 
his life; and which was most highly valued—the 
good he struggled for or that which came to him in 
some other way. Even as a child, or as a small 
boy, assuming that his early years were passed in 
fairly natural conditions, the knocks and_ bruises 
and scratches and stings of infuriated humble bees 
he suffered served only to excite a spirit that had 
something of conscious power and gladness in it; 
and in this the child was father to the man. But 
the subject which specially concerns me just now is 
the settler’s life in some new and rough district ; 
and as it appears that the greatest, the most real, 
and in many cases the only pleasures of such an 
existence are habitually spoken of as pains, the 
subject is one on which I may be pardoned for 
dwelling at some length. 
If Mill’s doctrine be true, that all our happiness 
results from delusion, that to one capable of seeing 
things as they are life must be an intolerable burden, 
then it may seem only a cruel kindness to whisper 
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