Fort Victoria April 14/55

​

Dear Mother

​

A few weeks ago I got a letter from you and ought to have written I suppose before this but I have become a negligent correspondent I think and many a letter remains a long time unanswered.

My business engages all my time and nights and Sundays I cannot sit down to write letters. Indeed were it not for the anxieties of my friends I know not as I should write at all. I’m yet remaining on Vancouver’s and working at my trade (house building). My wages are none the best, yet I think I’m as well here as elsewhere and perhaps better. If I labor by the day I can get three dollars. On contract work I generally earn four or five but living is expensive and the money goes it is difficult to tell where. In all your letters you wish me to arrange my affairs and return to the states. Had I known what I now know I’m sure I should never have come so far west but I’m here now. It cost me all I was worth and more to reach the shores of the Pacific. I’ve inhaled the fresh invigorating breezes from old ocean and since I left my home among the hills of Delaware a free and roving life I’ve led. Here I can live an independent life, or so at least I think and can most likely lay up something against the winter of age. Should I return home it could only be for a visit and then I must seek a new home among strangers - must again begin anew, must seek new employers and again become a slave and what difference can it make my friends whether I’m one hundred miles away, or one fourth the circumference of the earth's surface. Here I’m like Ishmael in the desert contending with every man and it is my ambition to succeed in being able to take my own part. You tell me I might accomplish more good elsewhere. The only good I can expect to do is to let my industry show to the best advantage and where is the difference whether I build houses on the Isles of the Pacific or upon the shores beaten by the billows of the Atlantic. 

I once had more ambitious thoughts but I’m sure not one of that happy kind whose eloquence of tongue and pen can speak and give light and knowledge to the million. Would to God that I were of that sort! but such as I am I must be content. The sands of life are too far spent to think of a much different vocation. Mother I’m almost done with ambitious thoughts. I think yet ere long to turn farmer and there my ambition must end. Be content that I remain here longer and cease from anxious thoughts on my account. Let it suffice that we converse by means of the pen and thank God that we are so far removed from the savages as to have that means of transmitting thought. Let it suffice that we see each other in imagination as when we last parted with a few additional lines of care on my brow. Don’t imagine me lonely or unhappy beyond measure - I never enjoyed society much and should be lonely in a city full. I had an attack of homesickness but am cured and possibly enjoy myself as well or better than I should at home. I enjoy good health and the climate is much more agreeable than with you.

My way of living it is true is pretty rough but I hope to improve on that bye and bye - and in fact a carpenter can nowhere have a fixed residence, a stated home but must ever be moving, ever changing as fortune directs. Now My dear Mother I beg of you never to have the least anxious thought on my account - let your mind be at ease for me.

If I was able to contend against an adverse fate and overcome it when I was sick and without a farthing to my name I surely ought not to be disheartened with a better fortune and health to boot and a few dollars always at my command. It is true with a few choice friends around me and with books and papers within my reach I might be more happy but one can never have all he may wish for. You see I’ve become something of a philosopher and have made up my mind to take life as it comes and make the best of it and upon the whole inconsiderably comfortable.

I shall write as often as I can conveniently and if there is long interval s between the receipt of letters banish all fears concerning me. It is not always that I’m conveniently situated for writing nor is it always that I can set myself about it neither have I anything to communicate worth the pains of writing.

Your affectionate son

Whit Chase