What Toronto may be in summer, I cannot tell; they say it is a pretty place. At present its appearance to me, a stranger, is most strangely mean and melancholy. A little ill-built town, on low land, at the bottom of a frozen bay, with one very ugly church, without tower or steeple; some government offices, built of staring red brick, in the most tasteless, vulgar style imaginable; three feet of snow all around; and the grey, sullen, wintry lake, and the dark gloom of the pine forest bounding the prospect: such seems Toronto to me now. I did not expect much; but for this I was not prepared. I know no better way of coming at the truth than by observing and recording faithfully the impressions made by objects and characters on my own mind--or, rather, the impress they _receive_ from my own mind--shadowed by the clouds which pass over its horizon, taking each tincture of its varying mood--until they emerge into light, to be corrected, or at least modified, by observation and comparison. Neither do I know any better way than this of conveying to the mind of another the truth, and nothing but the truth, if not the whole truth. So I shall write on. There is much in first impressions, and as yet I have not recovered from the pain and annoyance of my outset here. My friends at New York expended much eloquence--eloquence wasted in vain!--in endeavouring to dissuade me from a winter journey to Canada. I listened, and was grateful for their solicitude, but must own I did not credit the picture they drew of the difficulties and _désagrémens_ I was destined to meet by the way. I had chosen, they said, the very worst season for a journey through the state of New York; the usual facilities for travelling were now suspended; a few weeks sooner the rivers and canals had been open; a few weeks later the roads, smoothed up with snow, had been in sleighing order;--now, the navigation was frozen, and the roads so broken up as to be nearly impassable. Then there was only a night boat on the Hudson, "to proceed," as the printed paper set forth, "to Albany, _or as far as the ice permitted_." All this, and more, were represented to me--and with so much apparent reason and real feeling, and in words and tones so difficult to resist! But though I could appreciate the kindness of those persuasive words, they brought no definite idea to my mind; I could form no notion of difficulties which by fair words, presence of mind, and money in my pocket, could not be obviated. I had travelled half over the continent of Europe, often alone, and had never yet been in circumstances where these availed not. In my ignorance I could conceive none; but, with the experience I have gained, I would not lightly counsel a similar journey to any one, certainly not to a woman.