Page:The Present State and Prospects of the Port Phillip District of New South Wales.djvu/144

at a great sacrifice, and either go without them, or have to buy them at Melbourne. The means of transport through the country are to be had at a very trifling expense, and freight from England is very low. There is now no necessity for roughing it; and the days are gone when, according to Hood, the pianoforte was gutted to make a press. "Quand on est mort, c'est pour long temps," says the French proverb; and so it is when a man emigrates; and he should remember that he is settling himself for the rest of his days, and that that man makes the best settler, and the best man, and probably the most prosperous one too, who has a cheerful home to return to, and happy faces to welcome him when the occupations of the day are over. It is only fair, too, that women who sacrifice so much in leaving their native country, should have their tastes consulted and their comforts attended to, and be put to no greater privations than circumstances absolutely demand. It was the custom amongst the ancient Greeks and Romans to carry with them, when they migrated, their household gods, their Lares and Penates, not more as the objects of religious observance, than as memorials of their former homes, and symbols of their national identity; and thus, in the spirit of this beautiful emblem, the old world customs and the polished usages of English civilization should be cherished round the hearth of the Australian settler, as mementos of the home of his fathers, and to identify his children with the race from which they are sprung. While I say all this, I am by no means an advocate for extravagance, or for a man's running any risk of being pinched for