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118 CHAPTER XL Colonial Society. The tone and character of society are regulated in Sydney, as elsewhere, by the predominant nature of the pursuits and avocations of the community. That leisure which favours the growth of refined or literary tastes has never been within the compass of an Australian settler. Nor, perhaps, is this to be regretted, since the enjoyment with which a colonist contemplates his waving crops, his increasing sheep, cattle, and horses, connected as it is with the pride of independence, and the brightening futurity before his children, is, on the whole, a source of noble gratification. Not that literature is without its dignity and its usefulness ; but enterprise and action, the mainsprings of colonial life, are more conducive to cheer fulness, health, and worldly prosperity, than that indolent pampering of the brain which too frequently converts man, the creature of action and business, into a learned drone. Literary reunions, soirees, &c., are seldom to be found in Sydney, yet no gentleman’s house is destitute of a library, a piano-forte, or other instrument of music; and in the education of young ladies, French, music, and Italian, are reckoned as indispensable as in England. For what purpose these languages are taught at the