Name/Title
Letter June 6, 1888 from Walter Bull AustraliaEntry/Object ID
001270Tags
Walter BullSubject
Sunday June 6th 1858
Beechworth
Dear Brother
On my return to Beechworth a few days ago I called at the Post Office
for expected Colonial letters when to my great pleasure discovered that you had deemed it a part of fraternal duty to answer one of my letters. I can now write with a better gusto. It is very odd that you should have received but two letters from me since my departure. Part of the contents of your letter I had anticipated. Five years from our very nature must necessarily effect a very great change. We come and go. Here today and gone tomorrow. There is
a radical change in me. I can look upon death and destruction without-
He will be fifteen months, perhaps longer before I return.
a murmur. As long habituation to anything produces apathy
and indifference. So the constant witnessing of death crime and
poverty makes not a thinking mind. At present I will not dwell on what I have
witnessed in this the last Country made by the Creator or supposed to have been made but in some future epistle will give you a graphic account of my early sojourn in this land of gold. In your letter you merely mention four relations are defunct but say nothing of the circumstances attending
their deaths. My maternal friend always believed that she would
outlive my Father, such a sentiment I am not aware she
ever gave utterance to but from her general deportment and
different questions from time to time she put to me it required but little penetration on my part to discover their hidden meaning. I have observed
closely and in my many observations have calculated the
chances and find that a loquacious turn of mind coupled with
a cynical disposition in a majority of cases abridges the period of ones existence. Who will have the hardihood to affirm that "Xanthippe Socratis uxor morosa admodum fuisse fertur" (Xanthippe the wife
of Socrates who is said to have been very peevish) did not
shorten her life. Shakespeare somewhere says "Frame your
mind to mirth and merriment it bars ten thousand harms
and lengthens life. Criticism has been allowed for the
last 150 years. The first half year I spent in the Colony I dug for
gold. I made next to nothing I think not more than $100 in pocket.
Walter Bull
Beechworth, Victoria, Australia
Nothing gives me greater pleasure than to
hear you and Harriet are profiting by experience.
I trust your marriage will be a happy one.
will send you more by and by.
The following two or three months I was ill with the Colonial fever.
Luckily through absence of all the Colonial quacks I recovered.
On my recovery I came to Beechworth and purchased a restaurant out of which I done very well. Getting tired of this game I turned carpenter and for
a long time made my seven and a half dollars per diem. Fancying carting to be a more lucrative speculation I turned to that and in five months
lost over one thousand dollars. After losing some and selling
others of my horses I again took to contracting which I have been following ever since. Last summer we had a great depression in trade and in some cases I was compelled to take three shillings on the pound. Every
part of business is very dull here at present.
Walter Bull
I will write by the next mail. since writing the above I have been
told the mail leaves the 15th of every month.
