Life in the Clearings Versus the Bush

by Susanna Moodie

  TO THE MEMORY OF DR. HUSKINS.

  “Neglected son of genius! thou hast pass’d

  In broken-hearted loneliness away;

  And one who prized thy talents, fain would cast

  The cypress-wreath above thy nameless clay.

  Ah, could she yet thy spirit’s flight delay,

  ’Till the cold world, relenting from its scorn,

  The fadeless laurel round thy brows should twine,

  Crowning the innate majesty of mind,

  By crushing poverty and sorrow torn.

  Peace to thy mould’ring ashes, till revive

  Bright memories of thee in deathless song!

  True to the dead, Time shall relenting give

  The meed of fame deserved – delayed too long,

  And in immortal verse the Bard again shall live!”

  Alas! this frightful vice of drinking prevails throughout the colony to an alarming extent. Professional gentlemen are not ashamed of being seen issuing from the bar-room of a tavern early in the morning, or of being caught reeling home from the same sink of iniquity late at night. No sense of shame seems to deter them from the pursuit of their darling sin. I have heard that some of these regular topers place brandy beside their beds that, should they awake during the night, they may have within their reach the fiery potion for which they are bartering body and soul. Some of these persons, after having been warned of their danger by repeated fits of delirium tremens, have joined the tee-totallers; but their abstinence only lasted until the re-establishment of their health enabled them to return to their old haunts, and become more hardened in their vile habits than before. It is to be questioned whether the signing of any pledge is likely to prove a permanent remedy for this great moral evil. If an appeal to the heart and conscience, and the fear of incurring the displeasure of an offended God, are not sufficient to deter a man from becoming an active instrument in the ruin of himself and family, no forcible restraint upon his animal desires will be likely to effect a real reformation. It appears to me that the temperance people begin at the wrong end of the matter, by restraining the animal propensities before they have convinced the mind. If a man abstain from drink only as long as the accursed thing is placed beyond his reach, it is after all but a negative virtue, to be overcome by the first strong temptation. Were incurable drunkards treated as lunatics, and a proper asylum provided for them in every large town, and the management of their affairs committed to their wives or adult children, the bare idea of being confined under such a plea would operate more forcibly upon them than by signing a pledge, which they can break or resume according to the caprice of the moment.

  A drunkard, while under the influence of liquor, is a madman in every sense of the word, and his mental aberration is often of the most dangerous kind. Place him and the confirmed maniac side by side, and it would be difficult for a stranger to determine which was the most irrational of the two.

  A friend related to me the following anecdote of a physician in his native town: – This man, who was eminent in his profession, and highly respected by all who knew him, secretly indulged in the pernicious habit of dram-drinking, and after a while bade fair to sink into a hopeless drunkard. At the earnest solicitations of his weeping wife and daughter he consented to sign the pledge, and not only ardent spirits but every sort of intoxicating beverage was banished from the house.

  The use of alcohol is allowed in cases of sickness to the most rigid disciplinarians, and our doctor began to find that keeping his pledge was a more difficult matter than he had at first imagined. Still, for example’s sake, of course, a man of his standing in society had only joined for example’s sake; he did not like openly to break it. He therefore feigned violent toothache, and sent the servant girl over to a friend’s house to borrow a small phial of brandy.

  The brandy was sent, with many kind wishes for the doctor’s speedy recovery. The phial now came every night to be refilled; and the doctor’s toothache seemed likely to become a case of incurable tic douloureux. His friend took the alarm. He found it both expensive and inconvenient, providing the doctor with his nightly dose; and wishing to see how matters really stood, he followed the maid and the brandy one evening to the doctor’s house.

  He entered unannounced. It was as he suspected. The doctor was lounging in his easy chair before the fire, indulging in a hearty fit of laughter over some paragraph in a newspaper, which he held in his hand.

  “Ah, my dear J—, I am so glad to find you so well. I thought by your sending for the brandy, that you were dying with the toothache.”

  The doctor, rather confounded –“Why, yes; I have been sadly troubled with it of late. It does not come on, however, before eight o’clock, and if I cannot get a mouthful of brandy, I never can get a wink of sleep all night.”

  “Did you ever have it before you took the pledge?”

  “Never,” said the doctor emphatically.

  “Perhaps the cold water does not agree with you?”

  The doctor began to smell a rat, and fell vigorously to minding the fire.

  “I tell you what it is, J—,” said the other; “the toothache is a nervous affection. It is the brandy that is the disease. It may cure you of an imaginary toothache; but I assure you, that it gives your wife and daughter an incurable heartache.”

  The doctor felt at that moment a strange palpitation at his own. The scales fell suddenly from his eyes, and for the first time his conduct appeared in its true light. Returning the bottle to his friend, he said, very humbly –“Take it out of my sight; I feel my error now. I will cure their heartache by curing myself of this beastly vice.”

  The doctor, from that hour, became a temperate man. He soon regained his failing practice, and the esteem of his friends. The appeal of his better feelings effected a permanent change in his habits, which signing the pledge had not been able to do. To keep up an appearance of consistency he had had recourse to a mean subterfuge, while touching his heart produced a lasting reform.

  Drinking is the curse of Canada, and the very low price of whisky places the temptation constantly in everyone’s reach. But it is not by adopting by main force the Maine Liquor law, that our legislators will be able to remedy the evil. Men naturally resist any oppressive measures that infringe upon their private rights, even though such measures are adopted solely for their benefit. It is not wise to thrust temperance down a man’s throat; and the surest way to make him a drunkard is to insist upon his being sober. The zealous advocates of this measure (and there are many in Canada) know little of their own, or the nature of others. It would be the fruitful parent of hypocrisy, and lay the foundation of crimes still greater than the one it is expected to cure.

  To wean a fellow-creature from the indulgence of a gross sensual propensity, as I said before, we must first convince the mind: the reform must commence there. Merely withdrawing the means of gratification, and treating a rational being like a child, will never achieve a great moral conquest.

  In pagan countries, the missionaries can only rely upon the sincerity of the converts, who are educated when children in their schools; and if we wish to see drunkenness banished from our towns and cities, we must prepare our children from their earliest infancy to resist the growing evil.

  Show your boy a drunkard wallowing in the streets, like some unclean animal in the mire. Every side walk, on a market-day, will furnish you with examples. Point out to him the immorality of such a degrading position; make him fully sensible of all its disgusting horrors. Tell him that God has threatened in words of unmistakable import, that he will exclude such from his heavenly kingdom. Convince him that such loathsome impurity must totally unfit the soul for communion with its God – that such a state may truly be looked upon as the second death – the foul corruption and decay of both body and soul. Teach the child to pray against drunkenness, as he would against murder, lying, and theft; shew him that all these crimes are often comprised in this one, which in too many cases has been the fruitful parent of them a
ll.

  When the boy grows to be a man, and mingles in the world of men, he will not easily forget the lesson impressed on his young heart. He will remember his early prayers against this terrible vice – will recall that disgusting spectacle – and will naturally shrink from the same contamination. Should he be overcome by temptation, the voice of conscience will plead with him in such decided tones that she will be heard, and he will be ashamed of becoming the idiot thing he once feared and loathed.

  THE DRUNKARD’S RETURN.

  “Oh! ask not of my morn of life,

  How dark and dull it gloom’d o’er me;

  Sharp words and fierce domestic strife,

  Robb’d my young heart of all its glee,

  The sobs of one heart-broken wife.

  Low, stifled moans of agony,

  That fell upon my shrinking ear,

  In hollow tones of woe and fear;

  As crouching, weeping, at her side,

  I felt my soul with sorrow swell,

  In pity begg’d her not to hide

  The cause of grief I knew too well;

  Then wept afresh to hear her pray

  That death might take us both away!

  “Away from whom? – Alas! what ill

  Press’d the warm life-hopes from her heart?

  Was she not young and lovely still?

  What made the frequent tear-drops start

  From eyes, whose light of love could fill

  My inmost soul, and bade me part

  From noisy comrades in the street,

  To kiss her cheek, so cold and pale,

  To clasp her neck, and hold her hand,

  And list the oft-repeated tale

  Of woes I could not understand;

  Yet felt their force, as, day by day,

  I watch’d her fade from life away.

  “And he, the cause of all this woe,

  Her mate – the father of her child,

  In dread I saw him come and go,

  With many an awful oath reviled;

  And from harsh word, and harsher blow,

  (In answer to her pleadings mild,

  I shrank in terror, till I caught

  From her meek eyes th’ unwhisper’d thought –

  ’Bear it, my Edward, for thy mother’s sake!

  He cares not, in his sullen mood,

  If this poor heart with anguish break.’

  That look was felt, and understood

  By her young son, thus school’d to bear

  His wrongs, to soothe her deep despair.

  “Oh, how I loath’d him! – how I scorn’d

  His idiot laugh, or demon frown, –

  His features bloated and deform’d;

  The jests with which he sought to drown

  The consciousness of sin, or storm’d,

  To put reproof or anger down.

  Oh, ’tis a fearful thing to feel

  Stern, sullen hate, the bosom steel

  ’Gainst one whom nature bids us prize

  The first link in her mystic chain;

  Which binds in strong and tender ties

  The heart, while reason rules the brain,

  And mingling love with holy fear,

  Renders the parent doubly dear.

  “I cannot bear to think how deep

  The hatred was I bore him then;

  But he has slept his last long sleep,

  And I have trod the haunts of men;

  Have felt the tide of passion sweep

  Through manhood’s fiery heart, and when

  By strong temptation toss’d and tried,

  I thought how that lost father died;

  Unwept, unpitied, in his sin;

  Then tears of burning shame would rise,

  And stern remorse awake within

  A host of mental agonies.

  He fell – by one dark vice defiled;

  Was I more pure – his erring child?

  “Yes – erring child; – but to my tale.

  My mother loved that lost one still,

  From the deep fount which could not fail

  (Through changes dark, from good to ill,)

  Her woman’s heart – and sad and pale,

  She yielded to his stubborn will;

  Perchance she felt remonstrance vain, –

  The effort to resist gave pain.

  But carefully she hid her grief

  From him, the idol of her youth;

  And fondly hoped, against belief,

  That her deep love and stedfast truth

  Would touch his heart, and win him back

  From Folly’s dark and devious track.

  “Vain hope! the drunkard’s heart is hard as stone,

  No grief disturbs his selfish, sensual joy;

  His wife may weep, his starving children groan,

  And Poverty with cruel gripe annoy:

  He neither hears, nor heeds their famish’d moan,

  The glorious wine-cup owns no base alloy.

  Surrounded by a low, degraded train,

  His fiendish laugh defiance bids to pain;

  He hugs the cup – more dear than friends to him –

  Nor sees stern ruin from the goblet rise,

  Nor flames of hell careering o’er the brim,

  The lava flood that glads his bloodshot eyes

  Poisons alike his body and his soul,

  Till reason lies self-murder’d in the bowl.

  “It was a dark and fearful winter night,

  Loud roar’d the tempest round our hovel home;

  Cold, hungry, wet, and weary was our plight,

  And still we listen’d for his step to come.

  My poor sick mother! –’twas a piteous sight

  To see her shrink and shiver, as our dome

  Shook to the rattling blast; and to the door

  She crept, to look along the bleak, black moor.

  He comes – he comes! – and, quivering all with dread,

  She spoke kind welcome to that sinful man.

  His sole reply, –’Get supper – give me bread!’

  Then, with a sneer, he tauntingly began

  To mock the want that stared him in the face,

  Her bitter sorrow, and his own disgrace.

  “‘I have no money to procure you food,

  No wood, no coal, to raise a cheerful fire;

  The madd’ning cup may warm your frozen blood –

  We die, for lack of that which you desire!’

  She ceased, – erect one moment there he stood,

  The foam upon his lip; with fiendish ire

  He seized a knife which glitter’d in his way,

  And rush’d with fury on his helpless prey.

  Then from a dusky nook I fiercely sprung,

  The strength of manhood in that single bound:

  Around his bloated form I tightly clung,

  And headlong brought the murderer to the ground.

  We fell – his temples struck the cold hearth-stone,

  The blood gush’d forth – he died without a moan!

  “Yes – by my hand he died! one frantic cry

  Of mortal anguish thrill’d my madden’d brain,

  Recalling sense and mem’ry. Desperately

  I strove to raise my fallen sire again,

  And call’d upon my mother; but her eye

  Was closed alike to sorrow, want, and pain.

  Oh, what a night was that! – when all alone

  I watch’d my dead beside the cold hearth-stone.

  I thought myself a monster, – that the deed

  To save my mother was too promptly done.

  I could not see her gentle bosom bleed,

  And quite forgot the father, in the son;

  For her I mourn’d – for her, through bitter years,

  Pour’d forth my soul in unavailing tears.

  “The world approved the act; but on my soul

  There lay a gnawing consciousness of guilt,

  A biting sense of
crime, beyond control:

  By my rash hand a father’s blood was spilt,

  And I abjured for aye the death-drugg’d bowl.

  This is my tale of woe; and if thou wilt

  Be warn’d by me, the sparkling cup resign;

  A serpent lurks within the ruby wine,

  Guileful and strong as him who erst betray’d

  The world’s first parents in their bowers of joy.

  Let not the tempting draught your soul pervade;

  It shines to kill, and sparkles to destroy.

  The drunkard’s sentence has been seal’d above, –

  Exiled for ever from the heaven of love!”

  FREE SCHOOLS – THOUGHTS ON EDUCATION

  “Truth, Wisdom, Virtue – the eternal three,

  Great moral agents of the universe –

  Shall yet reform and beautify the world,

  And render it fit residence for Him

  In whom these glorious attributes combined,

  To render perfect manhood one with God!”

  S.M.

  There is no calculating the immense benefit which the colony will derive from the present liberal provision made for the education of the rising generation.

  A few years ago schools were so far apart, and the tuition of children so expensive, that none but the very better class could scrape money enough together to send their children to be instructed. Under the present system, every idle ragged child in the streets, by washing his face and hands, and presenting himself to the free school of his ward, can receive the same benefit as the rest.

  What an inestimable blessing is this, and how greatly will this education of her population tend to increase the wealth and prosperity of the province! It is a certain means of a calling out and making available all the talent in the colony; and as, thanks be to God, genius never was confined to any class, the poor will be more benefited by this wise and munificent arrangement than the rich.