Part 6 (1/2)
While this curious colloquy was going on, my poor Irish friend sat on thorns, and tried, by throwing in a little judicious blarney, to soften the thrusts of the home truths to which he had unwittingly exposed me.
Between every pause in the conversation, he broke in with--”I am sure Mrs. M--- is a fine-looking woman--a very young-looking woman for her age. Any person might know at a glance that those teeth were her own.
They look too natural to be false.”
Now, I am certain that the poor little woman never meant to wound my feelings, nor give me offence. She literally spoke her thoughts, and I was too much amused with the whole scene to feel the least irritated by her honest bluntness. She expected to find in an author something quite out of the common way, and I did not come up at all to her expectations.
Her opinion of me was not more absurd than the remarks of two ladies who, after calling upon me for the first time, communicated the result of their observations to a mutual friend.
”We have seen Mrs. M---, and we were so surprised to find her just like other people!”
”What did you expect to see in her?”
”Oh, something very different. We were very much disappointed.”
”That she was not sitting upon her head,” said my friend, smiling; ”I like Mrs. M---, because she is in every respect like other people; and I should not have taken her for a blue-stocking at all.”
The sin of authors.h.i.+p meets with little toleration in a new country.
Several persons of this cla.s.s, finding few minds that could sympathise with them, and enter into their literary pursuits, have yielded to despondency, or fallen victims to that insidious enemy of souls, _Canadian whisky_. Such a spirit was the unfortunate Dr. Huskins, late of Frankfort on the river Trent. The fate of this gentleman, who was a learned and accomplished man of genius, left a very sad impression on my mind. Like too many of that highly-gifted, but unhappy fraternity, he struggled through his brief life, overwhelmed with the weight of undeserved calumny, and his peace of mind embittered with the most galling neglect and poverty.
The want of sympathy experienced by him from men of his own cla.s.s, pressed sorely upon the heart of the sensitive man of talent and refinement; he found very few who could appreciate or understand his mental superiority, which was p.r.o.nounced as folly and madness by the ignorant persons about him. A new country, where all are rus.h.i.+ng eagerly forward in order to secure the common necessaries of life, is not a favourable soil in which to nourish the bright fancies and delusive dreams of the poet. Dr. Huskins perceived his error too late, when he no longer retained the means to remove to a more favourable spot,--and his was not a mind which could meet and combat successfully with the ills of life. He endeavoured to bear proudly the evils of his situation, but he had neither the energy nor the courage to surmount them. He withdrew himself from society, and pa.s.sed the remainder of his days in a solitary, comfortless, log hut on the borders of the wilderness. Here he drooped and died, as too many like him have died, heartbroken and alone.
A sad mystery involves the last hours of his life: it is said that he and Dr. Sutor, another talented but very dissipated man, had entered into a compact to drink until they both died. Whether this statement is true cannot now be positively ascertained. It is certain, however, that Dr. Sutor was found dead upon the floor of the miserable shanty occupied by his friend, and that Dr. Huskins was lying on his bed in the agonies of death. Could the many fine poems composed by Dr. Huskins in his solitary exile, be collected and published, we feel a.s.sured that posterity would do him justice, and that his name would rank high among the bards of the green isle.
To The Memory of Dr. Huskins.
”Neglected son of genius! thou hast pa.s.s'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 crus.h.i.+ng 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 G.o.d, 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 _examples' sake_, of course, a man of his standing in society had only joined for _examples' 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 wis.h.i.+ng 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.