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CHAPTER XVII — OUR LOGGING-BEE
There was a man in our town,
In our town, in our town—
There was a man in our town,
He made a logging-bee;

And he bought lots of whiskey,
To make the loggers frisky—
To make the loggers frisky
At his logging-bee.

The Devil sat on a log heap,
A log heap, a log heap—
A red hot burning log heap—
A-grinning at the bee;

And there was lots of swearing,
Of boasting and of daring,
Of fighting and of tearing,
At that logging bee.
J.W.D.M.
A logging-bee followed the burning of the fallow, as a matter of course. In the bush, where hands are few, and labour commands an enormous rate of wages, these gatherings are considered indispensable, and much has been written in their praise; but to me, they present the most disgusting picture of a bush life. They are noisy, riotous, drunken meetings, often terminating in violent quarrels, sometimes even in bloodshed. Accidents of the most serious nature often occur, and very little work is done when we consider the number of hands employed, and the great consumption of food and liquor.

I am certain, in our case, had we hired with the money expended in providing for the bee, two or three industrious, hard-working men, we should have got through twice as much work, and have had it done well, and have been the gainers in the end.

People in the woods have a craze for giving and going to bees, and run to them with as much eagerness as a peasant runs to a race-course or a fair; plenty of strong drink and excitement making the chief attraction of a bee.

In raising a house or barn, a bee may be looked upon as a necessary evil, but these gatherings are generally conducted in a more orderly manner than those for logging. Fewer hands are required; and they are generally under the control of the carpenter who puts up the frame, and if they get drunk during the raising they are liable to meet with very serious accidents.

Thirty-two men, gentle and simple, were invited to our bee, and the maid and I were engaged for two days preceding the important one, in baking and cooking for the entertainment of our guests. When I looked at the quantity of food we had prepared, I thought it could never be all eaten, even by thirty-two men. It was a burning hot day towards the end of July, when our loggers began to come in, and the “gee!” and “ha!” to encourage the oxen resounded on every side.

There was my brother S——, with his frank English face, a host in himself; Lieutenant —— in his blouse, wide white trousers, and red sash, his broad straw hat shading a dark manly face that would have been a splendid property for a bandit chief; the four gay, reckless, idle sons of ——, famous at any spree, but incapable of the least mental or physical exertion, who considered hunting and fishing as the sole aim and object of life. These young men rendered very little assistance themselves, and their example deterred others who were inclined to work.

There were the two R——s, who came to work and to make others work; my good brother-in-law, who had volunteered to be the Grog Boss, and a host of other settlers, among whom I recognised Moodie's old acquaintance, Dan Simpson, with his lank red hair and freckled face; the Youngs, the hunters, with their round, black, curly heads and rich Irish brogue; poor C—— with his long, spare, consumptive figure, and thin sickly face. Poor fellow, he has long since been gathered to his rest!

There was the ruffian squatter P——, from Clear Lake,—the dread of all honest men; the brutal M——, who treated oxen as if they had been logs, by beating them with handspikes; and there was Old Wittals, with his low forehead and long nose, a living witness of the truth of phrenology, if his large organ of acquisitiveness and his want of consciousness could be taken in evidence. Yet in spite of his derelictions from honesty, he was a hard-working, good-natured man, who, if he cheated you in a bargain, or took away some useful article in mistake from your homestead, never wronged his employer in his day's work.

He was a curious sample of cunning and simplicity—quite a character in his way—and the largest eater I ever chanced to know. From this ravenous propensity, for he eat his food like a famished wolf, he had obtained his singular name of “Wittals.”

During the first year of his settlement in the bush, with a very large family to provide for, he had been often in want of food. One day he came to my brother, with a very long face.

“Mr. S—— I'm no beggar, but I'd be obliged to you for a loaf of bread. I declare to you on my honour that I have not had a bit of wittals to dewour for two whole days.”

He came to the right person with his petition. Mr. S—— with a liberal hand relieved his wants, but he entailed upon him the name of “Old Wittals,” as part payment.

His daughter, who was a very pretty girl, had stolen a march upon him into the wood, with a lad whom he by no means regarded with a favourable eye. When she returned, the old man confronted her and her lover with this threat, which I suppose he considered “the most awful” punishment that he could devise.

“March into the house, Madam 'Ria (Maria); and if ever I catch you with that scamp again, I'll tie you up to a stump all day, and give you no wittals.”

I was greatly amused by overhearing a dialogue between Old Wittals and one of his youngest sons, a sharp, Yankeefied-looking boy, who had lost one of his eyes, but the remaining orb looked as if it could see all ways at once.

“I say, Sol, how came you to tell that tarnation tearing lie to Mr. S—— yesterday? Didn't you expect that you'd catch a good wallopping for the like of that? Lying may be excusable in a man, but 'tis a terrible bad habit for a boy.”

“Lor', father, that worn't a lie. I told Mr. S—— our cow worn't in his peas. Nor more she wor; she was in his wheat.”

“But she was in the peas all night, boy.”

“That wor nothing to me; she worn't in just then. Sure I won't get a licking for that?”

“No, no, you are a good boy; but mind what I tell you, and don't bring me into a scrape with any of your real lies.”

Prevarication, the worst of falsehoods, was a virtue in his eyes. So much for the old man's morality.

Monaghan was in his glory, prepared to work or fight, whichever should come uppermost; and there was old Thomas and his sons, the contractors for the clearing, to expedite whose movements the bee was called. Old Thomas was a very ambitious man in his way. Though he did not know A from B, he took into his head that he had received a call from Heaven to convert the heathen in the wilderness; and every Sunday he held a meeting in our loggers' shanty, for the purpose of awakening sinners, and bringing over “Injun pagans” to the true faith. His method of accomplishing this object was very ingenious. He got his wife, Peggy—or “my Paggy,” as he called her—to read aloud to him a text from the Bible, until he knew it by heart; and he had, as he said truly, “a good remembrancer,” and never heard a striking sermon but he retained the most important passages, and retailed them secondhand to his bush audience.

I must say that I was not a little surprised at the old man's eloquence when I went one Sunday over to the shanty to hear him preach. Several wild young fellows had come on purpose to make fun of him; but his discourse, which was upon the text “We shall all meet before the judgment-seat of Christ,” was rather too serious a subject to turn into a jest, with even old Thomas for the preacher. All went on very well until the old man gave out a hymn, and led off in such a loud, discordant voice, that my little Katie, who was standing between her father's knees, looked suddenly up, and said, “Mamma, what a noise old Thomas makes.” This remark led to a much greater noise, and the young men, unable to restrain their long-suppressed laughter, ran tumultuously from the shanty.

I could have whipped the little elf; but small blame could be attached to a child of two years old, who had never heard a preacher, especially such a preacher as the old backwoodsman, in her life. Poor man! He was perfectly unconscious of the cause of the disturbance, and remarked to us, after the service was over,

“Well, ma'am, did we not get on famously? Now, worn't that a bootiful discourse?”

“It was, indeed; much better than I expected.”

“Yes, yes; I knew it would please you. It had quite an effect on those wild fellows. A few more such sermons will teach them good behaviour. Ah, the bush is a bad place for young men. The farther in the bush, say I, the farther from God, and the nearer to hell. I told that wicked Captain L—— of Dummer so the other Sunday; 'an',' says he, 'if you don't hold your confounded jaw, you old fool, I'll kick you there.' Now ma'am—now, sir, was not that bad manners in a gentleman, to use such appropriate epitaphs to a humble servant of God, like I?”

And thus the old man ran on for an hour, dilating upon his own merits and the sins of his neighbors.

There was John R——, from Smith-town, the most notorious swearer in the district; a man who esteemed himself clever, nor did he want for natural talent, but he had converted his mouth into such a sink of iniquity that it corrupted the whole man, and all the weak and thoughtless of his own sex who admitted him into their company. I had tried to convince John R—— (for he often frequented the house under the pretence of borrowing books) of the great crime that he was constantly committing, and of the injurious effect it must produce upon his own family, but the mental disease had taken too deep a root to be so easily cured. Like a person labouring under some foul disease, he contaminated all he touched. Such men seem to make an ambitious display of their bad habits in such scenes, and if they afford a little help, they are sure to get intoxicated and make a row. There was my friend, old Ned Dunn, who had been so anxious to get us out of the burning fallow. There was a whole group of Dummer Pines: Levi, the little wiry, witty poacher; Cornish Bill, the honest-hearted old peasant, with his stalwart figure and uncouth dialect; and David, and Nedall good men and true; and Malachi Chroak, a queer, withered-up, monkey-man, that seemed like some mischievous elf, flitting from heap to heap to make work and fun for the rest; and many others were at that bee who have since found a rest in the wilderness: Adam T——, H——, J. M——, H. N——.

These, at different times, lost their lives in those bright waters in which, on such occasions as these, they used to sport and frolic to refresh themselves during the noonday heat. Alas! how many, who were then young and in their prime, that river and its lakes have swept away!

Our men worked well until dinner-time, when, after washing in the lake, they all sat down to the rude board which I had prepared for them, loaded with the best fare that could be procured in the bush. Pea-soup, legs of pork, venison, eel, and raspberry pies, garnished with plenty of potatoes, and whiskey to wash them down, besides a large iron kettle of tea. To pour out the latter, and dispense it round, devolved upon me. My brother and his friends, who were all temperance men, and consequently the best workers in the field, kept me and the maid actively employed in replenishing their cups.

The dinner passed off tolerably well; some of the lower order of the Irish settlers were pretty far gone, but they committed no outrage upon our feelings by either swearing or bad language, a few harmless jokes alone circulating among them.

Some one was funning Old Wittalls for having eaten seven large cabbages at Mr. T——'s bee, a few days previous. His son, Sol, thought himself, as in duty bound, to take up the cudgel for his father.

“Now, I guess that's a lie, anyhow. Fayther was sick that day, and I tell you he only ate five.”

This announcement was followed by such an explosion of mirth that the boy looked fiercely round him, as if he could scarcely believe the fact that the whole party were laughing at him.

Malachi Chroak, who was good-naturedly drunk, had discovered an old pair of cracked bellows in a corner, which he placed under his arm, and applying his mouth to the pipe, and working his elbows to and fro, pretended that he was playing upon the bagpipes, every now and then letting the wind escape in a shrill squeak from this novel instrument.

“Arrah, ladies and jintlemen, do jist turn your swate little eyes upon me whilst I play for your iddifications the last illigant tune which my owld grandmother taught me. Och hone! 'tis a thousand pities that such musical owld crathers should be suffered to die, at all at all, to be poked away into a dirthy, dark hole, when their canthles shud be burnin' a-top of a bushel, givin' light to the house. An' then it is she that was the illigant dancer, stepping out so lively and frisky, just so.”

And here he minced to and fro, affecting the airs of a fine lady. The suppositious bagpipe gave an uncertain, ominous howl, and he flung it down, and started back with a ludicrous expression of alarm.

“Alive, is it ye are? Ye croaking owld divil, is that the tune you taught your son?

“Och! my old granny taught me, but now she is dead,
That a dhrop of nate whiskey is good for the head;
It would make a man spake when jist ready to dhie,
If you doubt it—my boys!—I'd advise you to thry.

“Och! my owld granny sleeps with her head on a stone,—
'Now, Malach, don't throuble the galls when I'm gone!'
I thried to obey her; but, och, I am shure,
There's no sorrow on earth that the angels can't cure.

“Och! I took her advice—I'm a bachelor still;
And I dance, and I play, with such excellent skill,
(Taking up the bellows, and beginning to dance.)
That the dear little crathurs are striving in vain
Which furst shall my hand or my fortin' obtain.”

“Malach!” shouted a laughing group. “How was it that the old lady taught you to go a-courting?”

“Arrah, that's a sacret! I don't let out owld granny's sacrets,” said Malachi, gracefully waving his head to and fro to the squeaking of the bellows; then, suddenly tossing back the long, dangling black elf-locks that curled down the sides of his lank, yellow cheeks, and winking knowingly with his comical little deep-seated black eyes, he burst out again—

“Wid the blarney I'd win the most dainty proud dame,
No gall can resist the soft sound of that same;
Wid the blarney, my boys—if you doubt it, go thry—
But hand here the bottle, my whistle is dhry.”

The men went back to the field, leaving Malachi to amuse those who remained in the house; and we certainly did laugh our fill at his odd capers and conceits.

Then he would insist upon marrying our maid. There could be no refusal—have her he would. The girl, to keep him quiet, laughingly promised that she would take him for her husband. This did not satisfy him. She must take her oath upon the Bible to that effect. Mary pretended that there was no bible in the house, but he found an old spelling-book upon a shelf in the kitchen, and upon it he made her swear, and called upon me to bear witness to her oath, and that she was now his betrothed, and he would go next day with her to the “praist.” Poor Mary had reason to repent her frolic, for he stuck close to her the whole evening, tormenting her to fulfill her contract.

After the sun went down, the logging-band came in to supper, which was all ready for them. Those who remained sober ate the meal in peace, and quietly returned to their own homes; while the vicious and the drunken stayed to brawl and fight.

After having placed the supper on the table, I was so tired with the noise, and heat, and fatigue of the day, that I went to bed, leaving to Mary and my husband the care of the guests.

The little bed-chamber was only separated from the kitchen by a few thin boards; and unfortunately for me and the girl, who was soon forced to retreat thither, we could hear all the wickedness and profanity going on in the next room. My husband, disgusted with the scene, soon left it, and retired into the parlour, with the few of the loggers who at that hour remained sober. The house rang with the sound of unhallowed revelry, profane songs and blasphemous swearing. It would have been no hard task to have imagined these miserable, degraded beings fiends instead of men. How glad I was when they at last broke up; and we were once more left in peace to collect the broken glasses and cups, and the scattered fragments of that hateful feast.

We were obliged to endure a second and a third repetition of this odious scene, before sixteen acres of land were rendered fit for the reception of our fall crop of wheat.

My hatred to these tumultuous, disorderly meetings was not in the least decreased by my husband being twice seriously hurt while attending them. After the second injury he received, he seldom went to them himself, but sent his oxen and servant in his place. In these odious gatherings, the sober, moral, and industrious man is more likely to suffer than the drunken and profane, as during the delirium of drink these men expose others to danger as well as themselves.

The conduct of many of the settlers, who considered themselves gentlemen, and would have been very much affronted to have been called otherwise, was often more reprehensible than that of the poor Irish emigrants, to whom they should have set an example of order and sobriety. The behaviour of these young men drew upon them the severe but just censures of the poorer class, whom they regarded in every way as their inferiors.

“That blackguard calls himself a gentleman. In what respect is he better than us?” was an observation too frequently made use of at these gatherings. To see a bad man in the very worst point of view, follow him to a bee: be he profane, licentious, quarrelsome, or a rogue, all his native wickedness will be fully developed there.

Just after the last of these logging-bees, we had to part with our good servant Mary, and just at a time when it was the heaviest loss to me. Her father, who had been a dairyman in the north of Ireland, an honest, industrious man, had brought out upwards of one hundred pounds to this country. With more wisdom than is generally exercised by Irish emigrants, instead of sinking all his means in buying a bush farm, he hired a very good farm in Cavan, with cattle, and returned to his old avocation. The services of his daughter, who was an excellent dairymaid, were required to take the management of the cows; and her brother brought a wagon and horses all the way from the front to take her home.

This event was perfectly unexpected, and left me without a moment's notice to provide myself with another servant, at a time when servants were not to be had, and I was perfectly unable to do the least thing. My little Addie was sick almost to death with the summer complaint, and the eldest still too young to take care of herself.

This was but the beginning of trouble.

Ague and lake fever had attacked our new settlement. The men in the shanty were all down with it; and my husband was confined to his bed on each alternate day, unable to raise hand or foot, and raving in the delirium of the fever.

In my sister and brother's families, scarcely a healthy person remained to attend upon the sick; and at Herriot's Falls, nine persons were stretched upon the floor of one log cabin, unable to help themselves or one another. After much difficulty, and only by offering enormous wages, I succeeded in procuring a nurse to attend upon me during my confinement. The woman had not been a day in the house before she was attacked by the same fever. In the midst of this confusion, and with my precious little Addie lying insensible on a pillow at the foot of my bed—expected at every moment to breathe her last—on the night of the 26th of August the boy I had so ardently coveted was born. The next day, old Pine carried his wife (my nurse) away upon his back, and I was left to struggle through, in the best manner I could, with a sick husband, a sick child, and a newborn babe.

It was a melancholy season, one of severe mental and bodily suffering. Those who have drawn such agreeable pictures of a residence in the backwoods never dwell upon the periods of sickness, when, far from medical advice, and often, as in my case, deprived of the assistance of friends by adverse circumstances, you are left to languish, unattended, upon the couch of pain.

The day that my husband was free of the fit, he did what he could for me and his poor sick babes, but, ill as he was, he was obliged to sow the wheat to enable the man to proceed with the drag, and was therefore necessarily absent in the field the greater part of the day.

I was very ill, yet for hours at a time I had no friendly voice to cheer me, to proffer me a drink of cold water, or to attend to the poor babe; and worse, still worse, there was no one to help that pale, marble child, who lay so cold and still, with “half-closed violet eyes,” as if death had already chilled her young heart in his iron grasp.

There was not a breath of air in our close, burning bed-closet; and the weather was sultry beyond all that I have since experienced. How I wished that I could be transported to a hospital at home, to enjoy the common care that in such places is bestowed upon the sick. Bitter tears flowed continually from my eyes over those young children. I had asked of Heaven a son, and there he lay helpless by the side of his almost equally helpless mother, who could not lift him up in her arms, or still his cries; while the pale, fair angel, with her golden curls, who had lately been the admiration of all who saw her, no longer recognized my voice, or was conscious of my presence. I felt that I could almost resign the long and eagerly hoped-for son, to win one more smile from that sweet suffering creature. Often did I weep myself to sleep, and wake to weep again with renewed anguish.

And my poor little Katie, herself under three years of age, how patiently she bore the loss of my care, and every comfort. How earnestly the dear thing strove to help me. She would sit on my sick-bed, and hold my hand, and ask me to look at her and speak to her; would inquire why Addie slept so long, and when she would awake again. Those innocent questions went like arrows to my heart.

Lieutenant ——, the husband of my dear Emilia, at length heard of my situation. His inestimable wife was from home, nursing her sick mother; but he sent his maid-servant up every day for a couple of hours, and the kind girl despatched a messenger nine miles through the woods to Dummer, to fetch her younger sister, a child of twelve years old.

Oh, how grateful I felt for these signal mercies; for my situation for nearly a week was one of the most pitiable that could be imagined. The sickness was so prevalent that help was not to be obtained for money; and without the assistance of that little girl, young as she was, it is more than probable that neither myself nor my children would ever have risen from that bed of sickness.

The conduct of our man Jacob, during this trying period, was marked with the greatest kindness and consideration. On the days that his master was confined to his bed with the fever, he used to place a vessel of cold water and a cup by his bedside, and put his honest English face in at my door to know if he could make a cup of tea, or toast a bit of bread for the mistress, before he went into the field.

Katie was indebted to him for all meals. He baked, and cooked, and churned, milked the cows, and made up the butter, as well and as carefully as the best female servant could have done. As to poor John Monanghan, he was down with fever in the shanty, where four other men were all ill with the same terrible complaint.

I was obliged to leave my bed and endeavour to attend to the wants of my young family long before I was really able. When I made my first attempt to reach the parlour I was so weak, that, at every step, I felt as if I should pitch forward to the ground, which seemed to undulate beneath my feet like the floor of a cabin in a storm at sea. My husband continued to suffer for many weeks with the ague; and when he was convalescent, all the children, even the poor babe, were seized with it, nor did it leave us until late in the spring of 1835.

THE EMIGRANT'S FAREWELL
Rise, Mary! meet me on the shore,
And tell our tale of sorrow o'er;
There must we meet to part no more—
Rise, Mary, rise!

Come, dearest, come! tho' all in vain;
Once more beside yon summer main
We'll plight our hopeless vows again—
Unclose thine eyes.

My bark amidst the surge is toss'd,
I go, by evil fortunes cross'd,
My earthly hopes for ever lost—
Love's dearest prize.

But when thy hand is clasp'd in mine,
I'll laugh at fortune, nor repine;
In life, in death, for ever thine—
Then check these sighs.

They move a bosom steel'd to bear
Its own unwonted load of care,
That will not bend beneath despair—
Rise, dearest, rise.

Life's but a troubled dream at best;
There comes a time when grief shall rest,
Kind, faithful hearts shall yet be bless'd
'Neath brighter skies!

[Scooter]

CHAPTER XVIII — A TRIP TO STONY LAKE
Oh Nature! in thy ever-varying face,
By rocky shore, or 'neath the forest tree,
What love divine, what matchless skill, I trace!
My full warm heart responsive thrills to thee.
Yea, in my throbbing bosom's inmost core,
Thou reign'st supreme; and, in thy sternest mood,
Thy votary bends in rapture to adore
The Mighty Maker, who pronounced thee good.
Thy broad, majestic brow still bears His seal;
And when I cease to love, oh, may I cease to feel.
My husband had long promised me a trip to Stony Lake, and in the summer of 1835, before the harvest commenced, he gave Mr. Y——, who kept the mill at the rapids below Clear Lake, notice of our intention, and the worthy old man and his family made due preparation for our reception. The little girls were to accompany us.

We were to start at sunrise, to avoid the heat of the day, to go up as far as Mr. Y——'s in our canoe, re-embark with his sons above the rapids in birch-bark canoes, go as far up the lake as we could accomplish by daylight, and return at night; the weather being very warm, and the moon at full. Before six o'clock we were all seated in the little craft, which spread her white sail to a foaming breeze, and sped merrily over the blue waters. The lake on which our clearing stood was about a mile and a half in length, and about three quarters of a mile in breadth; a mere pond, when compared with the Bay of Quinte, Ontario, and the inland seas of Canada. But it was our lake, and, consequently, it had ten thousand beauties in our eyes, which would scarcely have attracted the observation of a stranger.

At the head of the Katchawanook, the lake is divided by a long neck of land, that forms a small bay on the right-hand side, and a very brisk rapid on the left. The banks are formed of large masses of limestone; and the cardinal-flower and the tiger-lily seem to have taken an especial fancy to this spot, and to vie with each other in the display of their gorgeous colours.

It is an excellent place for fishing; the water is very deep close to the rocky pavement that forms the bank, and it has a pebbly bottom. Many a magic hour, at rosy dawn, or evening grey, have I spent with my husband on this romantic spot; our canoe fastened to a bush, and ourselves intent upon ensnaring the black bass, a fish of excellent flavour that abounds in this place.

Our paddles soon carried us past the narrows, and through the rapid water, the children sitting quietly at the bottom of the boat, enchanted with all they heard and saw, begging papa to stop and gather water-lilies, or to catch one of the splendid butterflies that hovered over us; and often the little Addie darted her white hand into the water to grasp at the shadow of the gorgeous insects as they skimmed along the waves.

After passing the rapids, the river widened into another small lake, perfectly round in form, and having in its centre a tiny green island, in the midst of which stood, like a shattered monument of bygone storms, one blasted, black ash-tree.

The Indians call this lake Bessikakoon, but I do not know the exact meaning of the word. Some say that it means “the Indian's grave,” others “the lake of the one island.” It is certain that an Indian girl is buried beneath that blighted tree; but I never could learn the particulars of her story, and perhaps there was no tale connected with it. She might have fallen a victim to disease during the wanderings of her tribe, and been buried on that spot; or she might have been drowned, which would account for her having been buried away from the rest of her people.

This little lake lies in the heart of the wilderness. There is but one clearing upon its shores, and that had been made by lumberers many years before; the place abounded with red cedar. A second growth of young timber had grown up in this spot, which was covered also with raspberry-bushes—several hundred acres being entirely overgrown with this delicious berry.

It was here annually that we used to come in large picnic parties, to collect this valuable fruit for our winter preserves, in defiance of black-flies, mosquitoes, snakes, and even bears, all which have been encountered by berry-pickers upon this spot, as busy and as active as themselves, gathering an ample repast from Nature's bounteous lap.

And, oh! what beautiful wild shrubs and flowers grew up in that neglected spot! Some of the happiest hours I spent in the bush are connected with reminiscences of “Irving's shanty,” for so the raspberry-grounds were called. The clearing could not be seen from the shore. You had to scramble through a cedar-swamp to reach the sloping ground which produced the berries.

The mill at the Clear Lake rapids was about three miles distant from our own clearing; and after stemming another rapid, and passing between two beautiful wooded islands, the canoe rounded a point, and the rude structure was before us.

A wilder and more romantic spot than that which the old hunter had chosen for his homestead in the wilderness could scarcely be imagined. The waters of Clear Lake here empty themselves through a narrow, deep, rocky channel, not exceeding a quarter of a mile in length, and tumble over a limestone ridge of ten or twelve feet in height, which extends from one bank of the river to the other. The shores on either side are very steep, and the large oak-trees which have anchored their roots in every crevice of the rock, throw their fantastic arms far over the foaming waterfall, the deep green of their massy foliage forming a beautiful contrast with the white, flashing waters that foam over the shoot at least fifty feet below the brow of the limestone rock. By a flight of steps cut in the banks we ascended to the platform above the river on which Mr. Y——'s house stood.

It was a large, rough-looking, log building, surrounded by barns and sheds of the same primitive material. The porch before the door was covered with hops, and the room of general resort, into which it immediately opened, was of large dimensions, the huge fire-place forming the most striking feature. On the hearth-stone, hot as was the weather, blazed a great fire, encumbered with all sorts of culinary apparatus, which, I am inclined to think, had been called into requisition for our sole benefit and accommodation.

The good folks had breakfasted long before we started from home, but they would not hear of our proceeding to Stony Lake until after we had dined. It was only eight o'clock a.m., and we had still four hours to dinner, which gave us ample leisure to listen to the old man's stories, ramble round the premises, and observe all the striking features of the place.

Mr. Y—— was a Catholic, and the son of a respectable farmer from the south of Ireland. Some few years before, he had emigrated with a large family of seven sons and two daughters, and being fond of field sports, and greatly taken with the beauty of the locality in which he had pitched his tent in the wilderness, he determined to raise a mill upon the dam which Nature had provided to his hands, and wait patiently until the increasing immigration should settle the townships of Smith and Douro, render the property valuable, and bring plenty of grist to the mill.

He was not far wrong in his calculations; and though, for the first few years, he subsisted entirely by hunting, fishing, and raising what potatoes and wheat he required for his own family, on the most fertile spots he could find on his barren lot, very little corn passed through the mill.

At the time we visited his place, he was driving a thriving trade, and all the wheat that was grown in the neighbourhood was brought by water to be ground at Y——'s mill.

He had lost his wife a few years after coming to the country; but his two daughters, Betty and Norah, were excellent housewives, and amply supplied her loss. From these amiable women we received a most kind and hearty welcome, and every comfort and luxury within their reach.

They appeared a most happy and contented family. The sons—a fine, hardy, independent set of fellows—were regarded by the old man with pride and affection. Many were his anecdotes of their prowess in hunting and fishing.

His method of giving them an aversion to strong drink while very young amused me greatly, but it is not every child that could have stood the test of his experiment.

“When they were little chaps, from five to six years of age, I made them very drunk,” he said; “so drunk that it brought on severe headache and sickness, and this so disgusted them with liquor, that they never could abide the sight of it again. I have only one drunkard among the seven; and he was such a weak, puling crathur, that I dared not try the same game with him, lest it should kill him. 'Tis his nature, I suppose, and he can't help it; but the truth is, that to make up for the sobriety of all the rest, he is killing himself with drink.”

Norah gave us an account of her catching a deer that had got into the enclosure the day before.

“I went out,” she said, “early in the morning, to milk the cows, and I saw a fine young buck struggling to get through a pale of the fence, in which having entangled his head and horns, I knew, by the desperate efforts he was making to push aside the rails, that if I was not quick in getting hold of him, he would soon be gone.”

“And did you dare to touch him?”

“If I had had Mat's gun I would have shot him, but he would have made his escape long before I could run to the house for that, so I went boldly up to him and got him by the hind legs; and though he kicked and struggled dreadfully, I held on till Mat heard me call, and ran to my help, and cut his throat with his hunting-knife. So you see,” she continued, with a good-natured laugh, “I can beat our hunters hollow—they hunt the deer, but I can catch a buck with my hands.”

While we were chatting away, great were the preparations making by Miss Betty and a very handsome American woman, who had recently come thither as a help. One little barefooted garsoon was shelling peas in an Indian basket, another was stringing currants into a yellow pie-dish, and a third was sent to the rapids with his rod and line, to procure a dish of fresh fish to add to the long list of bush dainties that were preparing for our dinner.

It was in vain that I begged our kind entertainers not to put themselves to the least trouble on our account, telling them that we were now used to the woods, and contented with anything; they were determined to exhaust all their stores to furnish forth the entertainment. Nor can it be wondered at, that, with so many dishes to cook, and pies and custards to bake, instead of dining at twelve, it was past two o'clock before we were conducted to the dinner-table. I was vexed and disappointed at the delay, as I wanted to see all I could of the spot we were about to visit before night and darkness compelled us to return.

The feast was spread in a large outhouse, the table being formed of two broad deal boards laid together, and supported by rude carpenter's stools. A white linen cloth, a relic of better days, concealed these arrangements. The board was covered with an indescribable variety of roast and boiled, of fish, flesh, and fowl. My readers should see a table laid out in a wealthy Canadian farmer's house before they can have any idea of the profusion displayed in the entertainment of two visitors and their young children.

Besides venison, pork, chickens, ducks, and fish of several kinds, cooked in a variety of ways, there was a number of pumpkin, raspberry, cherry, and currant pies, with fresh butter and green cheese (as the new cream-cheese is called), molasses, preserves, and pickled cucumbers, besides tea and coffee—the latter, be it known, I had watched the American woman boiling in the frying-pan. It was a black-looking compound, and I did not attempt to discuss its merits. The vessel in which it had been prepared had prejudiced me, and rendered me very sceptical on that score.

We were all very hungry, having tasted nothing since five o'clock in the morning, and contrived, out of the variety of good things before us, to make an excellent dinner.

I was glad, however, when we rose to prosecute our intended trip up the lake. The old man, whose heart was now thoroughly warmed with whiskey, declared that he meant to make one of the party, and Betty, too, was to accompany us; her sister Norah kindly staying behind to take care of the children.

We followed a path along the top of the high ridge of limestone rock, until we had passed the falls and the rapids above, when we found Pat and Mat Y—— waiting for us on the shore below, in two beautiful new birch-bark canoes, which they had purchased the day before from the Indians.

Miss Betty, Mat, and myself, were safely stowed into one, while the old miller, and his son Pat, and my husband, embarked in the other, and our steersmen pushed off into the middle of the deep and silent stream; the shadow of the tall woods, towering so many feet above us, casting an inky hue upon the waters.

The scene was very imposing, and after paddling for a few minutes in shade and silence, we suddenly emerged into light and sunshine, and Clear Lake, which gets its name from the unrivalled brightness of its waters, spread out its azure mirror before us. The Indians regard this sheet of water with peculiar reverence. It abounds in the finest sorts of fish, the salmon-trout, the delicious white fish, maskinonge, and black and white bass. There is no island in this lake, no rice beds, nor stick nor stone to break its tranquil beauty, and, at the time we visited it, there was but one clearing upon its shores.

The log hut of the squatter P——, commanding a beautiful prospect up and down the lake, stood upon a bold slope fronting the water; all the rest was unbroken forest.

We had proceeded about a mile on our pleasant voyage, when our attention was attracted by a singular natural phenomenon, which Mat Y—— called the battery.

On the right-hand side of the shore rose a steep, perpendicular wall of limestone, that had the appearance of having been laid by the hand of man, so smooth and even was its surface. After attaining a height of about fifty feet, a natural platform of eight or ten yards broke the perpendicular line of the rock, when another wall, like the first, rose to a considerable height, terminating in a second and third platform of the same description.

Fire, at some distant period, had run over these singularly beautiful terraces, and a second growth of poplars and balm-of-gileads, relieved, by their tender green and light, airy foilage, the sombre indigo tint of the heavy pines that nodded like the plumes of a funeral-hearse over the fair young dwellers on the rock.

The water is forty feet deep at the base of this precipice, which is washed by the waves. After we had passed the battery, Mat Y—— turned to me and said, “That is a famous place for bears; many a bear have I shot among those rocks.”

This led to a long discussion on the wild beasts of the country.

“I do not think that there is much danger to be apprehended from them,” said he; “but I once had an ugly adventure with a wolf two winters ago, on this lake.”

I was all curiosity to hear the story, which sounded doubly interesting told on the very spot, and while gliding over those lovely waters.

“We were lumbering at the head of Stony Lake, about eight miles from here, my four brothers, myself, and several other hands. The winter was long and severe; although it was the first week in March, there was not the least appearance of a thaw, and the ice on these lakes was as firm as ever. I had been sent home to fetch a yoke of oxen to draw the saw-logs down to the water, our chopping being all completed, and the logs ready for rafting.

“I did not think it necessary to encumber myself with my rifle, and was, therefore, provided with no weapon of defence but the long gad I used to urge on the cattle. It was about four o'clock in the afternoon when I rounded Sandy Point, that long point which is about a mile a-head of us on the left shore, when I first discovered that I was followed, but at a great distance, by a large wolf. At first, I thought little of the circumstance, beyond a passing wish that I had brought my gun. I knew that he would not attack me before dark, and it was still two long hours to sundown; so I whistled, and urged on my oxen, and soon forgot the wolf—when, on stopping to repair a little damage to the peg of the yoke, I was surprised to find him close at my heels. I turned, and ran towards him, shouting as loud as I could, when he slunk back, but showed no inclination to make off. Knowing that he must have companions near, by his boldness, I shouted as loud as I could, hoping that my cries might be heard by my brothers, who would imagine that the oxen had got into the ice, and would come to my assistance. I was now winding my way through the islands in Stony Lake; the sun was setting red before me, and I had still three miles of my journey to accomplish. The wolf had become so impudent that I kept him off by pelting him with snowballs; and once he came so near that I struck him with the gad. I now began to be seriously alarmed, and from time to time, shouted with all my strength; and you may imagine my joy when these cries were answered by the report of a gun. My brothers had heard me, and the discharge of a gun, for a moment, seemed to daunt the wolf. He uttered a long howl, which was answered by the cries of a large pack of the dirty brutes from the wood. It was only just light enough to distinguish objects, and I had to stop and face my enemy, to keep him at bay.

“I saw the skeleton forms of half-a-dozen more of them slinking among the bushes that skirted a low island; and tired and cold, I gave myself and the oxen up for lost, when I felt the ice tremble on which I stood, and heard men running at a little distance. 'Fire your guns!' I cried out, as loud as I could. My order was obeyed, and such a yelling and howling immediately filled the whole forest as would have chilled your very heart. The thievish varmints instantly fled away into the bush.

“I never felt the least fear of wolves until that night; but when they meet in large bands, like cowardly dogs, they trust to their numbers, and grow fierce. If you meet with one wolf, you may be certain that the whole pack are at no great distance.”

We were fast approaching Sandy Point, a long white ridge of sand, running half across the lake, and though only covered with scattered groups of scrubby trees and brush, it effectually screened Stony Lake from our view. There were so many beautiful flowers peeping through the dwarf, green bushes, that, wishing to inspect them nearer, Mat kindly ran the canoe ashore, and told me that he would show me a pretty spot, where an Indian, who had been drowned during a storm off that point, was buried. I immediately recalled the story of Susan Moore's father, but Mat thought that he was interred upon one of the islands farther up.

“It is strange,” he said, “that they are such bad swimmers. The Indian, though unrivalled by us whites in the use of the paddle, is an animal that does not take readily to the water, and those among them who can swim seldom use it as a recreation.”

Pushing our way through the bushes, we came to a small opening in the underwood, so thickly grown over with wild Canadian roses in full blossom, that the air was impregnated with a delightful odour. In the centre of this bed of sweets rose the humble mound that protected the bones of the red man from the ravenous jaws of the wolf and the wild cat. It was completely covered with stones, and from among the crevices had sprung a tuft of blue harebells, waving as wild and free as if they grew among the bonny red heather on the glorious hills of the North, or shook their tiny bells to the breeze on the broom-encircled commons of England.

The harebell had always from a child been with me a favourite flower; and the first sight of it in Canada, growing upon that lonely grave, so flooded my soul with remembrances of the past, that, in spite of myself, the tears poured freely from my eyes. There are moments when it is impossible to repress those outgushings of the heart—

“Those flood-gates of the soul that sever,
In passion's tide to part for ever.”

If Mat and his sister wondered at my tears, they must have suspected the cause, for they walked to a little distance, and left me to the indulgence of my feelings. I gathered those flowers, and placed them in my bosom, and kept them for many a day; they had become holy, when connected with sacred home recollections, and the never-dying affections of the heart which the sight of them recalled.

A shout from our companions in the other canoe made us retrace our steps to the shore. They had already rounded the point, and were wondering at our absence.

Oh, what a magnificent scene of wild and lonely grandeur burst upon us as we swept round the little peninsula, and the whole majesty of Stony Lake broke upon us at once; another Lake of the Thousand Isles, in miniature, and in the heart of the wilderness! Imagine a large sheet of water, some fifteen miles in breadth and twenty-five in length, taken up by islands of every size and shape, from the lofty naked rock of red granite to the rounded hill, covered with oak-trees to its summit; while others were level with the waters, and of a rich emerald green, only fringed with a growth of aquatic shrubs and flowers. Never did my eyes rest on a more lovely or beautiful scene. Not a vestige of man, or of his works, was there. The setting sun that cast such a gorgeous flood of light upon this exquisite panorama, bringing out some of these lofty islands in strong relief, and casting others into intense shade, shed no cheery beam upon church spire or cottage pane. We beheld the landscape, savage and grand in its primeval beauty.

As we floated among the channels between these rocky picturesque isles, I asked Mat how many of them there were.

“I never could succeed,” he said, “in counting them all. One Sunday Pat and I spent a whole day in going from one to the other, to try and make out how many there were, but we could only count up to one hundred and forty before we gave up the task in despair. There are a great many of them; more than any one would think—and, what is very singular, the channel between them is very deep, sometimes above forty feet, which accounts for the few rapids to be found in this lake. It is a glorious place for hunting; and the waters, undisturbed by steam-boats, abound in all sorts of fish.

“Most of these islands are covered with huckleberries; while grapes, high and low-bush cranberries, blackberries, wild cherries, gooseberries, and several sorts of wild currants grow here in profusion. There is one island among these groups (but I never could light upon the identical one) where the Indians yearly gather their wampum-grass. They come here to collect the best birch-bark for their canoes, and to gather wild onions. In short, from the game, fish, and fruit which they collect among the islands of this lake, they chiefly depend for their subsistence. They are very jealous of the settlers in the country coming to hunt and fish here, and tell many stories of wild beasts and rattlesnakes that abound along its shores, but I, who have frequented the lake for years, was never disturbed by anything, beyond the adventure with the wolf, which I have already told you. The banks of this lake are all steep and rocky, and the land along the shore is barren, and totally unfit for cultivation.

“Had we time to run up a few miles further, I could have showed you some places well worth a journey to look at; but the sun is already down, and it will be dark before we get back to the mill.”

The other canoe now floated alongside, and Pat agreed with his brother that it was high time to return. With reluctance I turned from this strangely fascinating scene. As we passed under one bold rocky island, Mat said, laughingly, “That is Mount Rascal.”

“How did it obtain that name?”

“Oh, we were out here berrying, with our good priest, Mr. B——. This island promised so fair, that we landed upon it, and, after searching for an hour, we returned to the boat without a single berry, upon which Mr. B—— named it 'Mount Rascal.'”

The island was so beautiful, it did not deserve the name, and I christened it “Oak Hill,” from the abundance of oak-trees which clothed its steep sides. The wood of this oak is so heavy and hard that it will not float in the water, and it is in great request for the runners of lumber-sleighs, which have to pass over very bad roads.

The breeze, which had rendered our sail up the lakes so expeditious and refreshing, had stiffened into a pretty high wind, which was dead against us all the way down. Betty now knelt in the bow and assisted her brother, squaw fashion, in paddling the canoe; but, in spite of all their united exertions, it was past ten o'clock before we reached the mill. The good Norah was waiting tea for us. She had given the children their supper four hours ago, and the little creatures, tired with using their feet all day, were sound asleep upon her bed.

After supper, several Irish songs were sung, while Pat played upon the fiddle, and Betty and Mat enlivened the company with an Irish jig.

It was midnight when the children were placed on my cloak at the bottom of the canoe, and we bade adieu to this hospitable family. The wind being dead against us, we were obliged to dispense with the sail, and take to our paddles. The moonlight was as bright as day, the air warm and balmy; and the aromatic, resinous smell exuded by the heat from the balm-of-gilead and the pine-trees in the forest, added greatly to our sense of enjoyment as we floated past scenes so wild and lonely—isles that assumed a mysterious look and character in that witching hour. In moments like these, I ceased to regret my separation from my native land; and, filled with the love of Nature, my heart forgot for the time the love of home. The very spirit of peace seemed to brood over the waters, which were broken into a thousand ripples of light by every breeze that stirred the rice blossoms, or whispered through the shivering aspen-trees. The far-off roar of the rapids, softened by distance, and the long, mournful cry of the night-owl, alone broke the silence of the night. Amid these lonely wilds the soul draws nearer to God, and is filled to overflowing by the overwhelming sense of His presence.

It was two o'clock in the morning when we fastened the canoe to the landing, and Moodie carried up the children to the house. I found the girl still up with my boy, who had been very restless during our absence. My heart reproached me, as I caught him to my breast, for leaving him so long; in a few minutes he was consoled for past sorrows, and sleeping sweetly in my arms.

A CANADIAN SONG
Come, launch the light canoe;
The breeze is fresh and strong;
The summer skies are blue,
And 'tis joy to float along;
Away o'er the waters,
The bright-glancing waters,
The many-voiced waters,
As they dance in light and song.

When the great Creator spoke,
On the long unmeasured night
The living day-spring broke,
And the waters own'd His might;
The voice of many waters,
Of glad, rejoicing waters,
Of living, leaping waters,
First hailed the dawn of light.

Where foaming billows glide
To earth's remotest bound;
The rushing ocean tide
Rolls on the solemn sound;
God's voice is in the waters;
The deep, mysterious waters,
The sleepless, dashing waters,
Still breathe its tones around.

[Scooter]

CHAPTER XIX — THE “OULD DHRAGOON”
(I am indebted to my husband for this sketch.)

Behold that man, with lanky locks,
Which hang in strange confusion o'er his brow;
And nicely scan his garments, rent and patch'd,
In colours varied, like a pictured map;
And watch his restless glance—now grave, now gay—
As saddening thought, or merry humour's flash
Sweeps o'er the deep-mark'd lines which care hath left;
As when the world is steep'd in blackest night,
The forked lightning flashes through the sky,
And all around leaps into life and light,
To sink again in darkness blacker still.
Yes! look upon that face lugubrious, long,
As thoughtfully he stands with folded arms
Amid his realm of charr'd and spectral stumps,
Which once were trees, but now, with sprawling roots,
Cling to the rocks which peep above the soil.
Ay! look again,
And say if you discern the faintest trace
Of warrior bold;—the gait erect and proud,
The steady glance that speaks the fearless soul,
Watchful and prompt to do what man can do
When duty calls. All wreck'd and reckless now;—
But let the trumpet's soul-inspiring sound
Wake up the brattling echoes of the woods,
Then watch his kindling eye—his eagle glance—
While thoughts of glorious fields, and battles won,
And visions bright of joyous, hopeful youth
Sweep o'er his soul. A soldier now once more—
Touch'd by the magic sound, he rears his head,
Responsive to the well-known martial note,
And stands again a hero 'mid his rags.
It is delightful to observe a feeling of contentment under adverse circumstances. We may smile at the rude and clumsy attempts of the remote and isolated backwoodsman to attain something like comfort, but happy he who, with the buoyant spirits of the light-hearted Irishman, contrives to make himself happy even when all others would be miserable.

A certain degree of dissatisfaction with our present circumstances is necessary to stimulate us to exertion, and thus to enable us to secure future comfort; but where the delusive prospect of future happiness is too remote for any reasonable hope of ultimate attainment, then surely it is true wisdom to make the most of the present, and to cultivate a spirit of happy contentment with the lot assigned to us by Providence.

“Ould Simpson,” or the “Ould Dhragoon,” as he was generally called, was a good sample of this happy character; and I shall proceed to give the reader a sketch of his history, and a description of his establishment. He was one of that unfortunate class of discharged soldiers who are tempted to sell their pensions often far below their true value, for the sake of getting a lot of land in some remote settlement, where it is only rendered valuable by the labour of the settler, and where they will have the unenviable privilege of expending the last remains of their strength in clearing a patch of land for the benefit of some grasping storekeeper who has given them credit while engaged in the work.

The old dragoon had fixed his abode on the verge of an extensive beaver-meadow, which was considered a sort of natural curiosity in the neighbourhood; and where he managed, by cutting the rank grass in the summer time, to support several cows, which afforded the chief subsistence of his family. He had also managed, with the assistance of his devoted partner, Judy, to clear a few acres of poor rocky land on the sloping margin of the level meadow, which he planted year after year with potatoes. Scattered over this small clearing, here and there might be seen the but-end of some half-burnt hemlock tree, which had escaped the general combustion of the log heaps, and now formed a striking contrast to the white limestone rocks which showed their rounded surfaces above the meagre soil.

The “ould dhragoon” seemed, moreover, to have some taste for the picturesque, and by way of ornament, had left standing sundry tall pines and hemlocks neatly girdled to destroy their foliage, the shade of which would have been detrimental to the “blessed praties” which he designed to grow in his clearing, but which, in the meantime, like martyrs at the stake, stretched their naked branches imploringly towards the smiling heavens. As he was a kind of hermit, from choice, and far removed from other settlers, whose assistance is so necessary in new settlements, old Simpson was compelled to resort to the most extraordinary contrivances while clearing his land. Thus, after felling the trees, instead of chopping them into lengths, for the purpose of facilitating the operation of piling them preparatory to burning, which would have cost him too much labour, he resorted to the practice of “niggering,” as it is called; which is simply laying light pieces of round timber across the trunks of the trees, and setting fire to them at the point of contact, by which means the trees are slowly burned through.

It was while busily engaged in this interesting operation that I first became acquainted with the subject of this sketch.

Some twenty or thirty little fires were burning briskly in different parts of the blackened field, and the old fellow was watching the slow progress of his silent “niggers,” and replacing them from time to time as they smouldered away. After threading my way among the uncouth logs, blazing and smoking in all directions, I encountered the old man, attired in an old hood, or bonnet, of his wife Judy, with his patched canvas trousers rolled up to his knees; one foot bare, and the other furnished with an old boot, which from its appearance had once belonged to some more aristocratic foot. His person was long, straight, and sinewy, and there was a light springiness and elasticity in his step which would have suited a younger man, as he skipped along with a long handspike over his shoulder. He was singing a stave from the “Enniskillen Dragoon” when I came up with him.

“With his silver-mounted pistols, and his long carbine,
Long life to the brave Inniskillen dragoon.”

His face would have been one of the most lugubrious imaginable, with his long, tangled hair hanging confusedly over it, in a manner which has been happily compared to a “bewitched haystack,” had it not been for a certain humorous twitch or convulsive movement, which affected one side of his countenance, whenever any droll idea passed through his mind. It was with a twitch of this kind, and a certain indescribable twinkle of his somewhat melancholy eye, as he seemed intuitively to form a hasty conception of the oddity of his appearance to a stranger unused to the bush, that he welcomed me to his clearing. He instantly threw down his handspike, and leaving his “niggers” to finish their work at their leisure, insisted on our going to his house to get something to drink.

On the way, I explained to him the object of my visit, which was to mark out, or “blaze,” the sidelines of a lot of land I had received as part of a military grant, immediately adjoining the beaver-meadow, and I asked him to accompany me, as he was well acquainted with the different lots.

“Och! by all manner of manes, and welcome; the dhevil a foot of the way but I know as well as my own clearing; but come into the house, and get a dhrink of milk, an' a bite of bread an' butther, for sorrow a dhrop of the whiskey has crossed my teeth for the last month; an' it's but poor intertainment for man or baste I can offer you, but shure you're heartily welcome.”

The precincts of the homestead were divided and subdivided into an infinity of enclosures, of all shapes and sizes. The outer enclosure was a bush fence, formed of trees felled on each other in a row, and the gaps filled up with brushwood. There was a large gate, swung with wooden hinges, and a wooden latch to fasten it; the smaller enclosures were made with round poles, tied together with bark. The house was of the rudest description of “shanty,” with hollowed basswood logs, fitting into each other somewhat in the manner of tiles for a roof, instead of shingles. No iron was to be seen, in the absence of which there was plenty of leathern hinges, wooden latches for locks, and bark-strings instead of nails. There was a large fireplace at one end of the shanty, with a chimney, constructed of split laths, plastered with a mixture of clay and cowdung. As for windows, these were luxuries which could well be dispensed with; the open door was an excellent substitute for them in the daytime, and at night none were required. When I ventured to object to this arrangement, that he would have to keep the door shut in the winter time, the old man replied, in the style so characteristic of his country, “Shure it will be time enough to think of that when the could weather sets in.” Everything about the house wore a Robinson Crusoe aspect, and though there was not any appearance of original plan or foresight, there was no lack of ingenious contrivance to meet every want as it arose.

Judy dropped us a low curtsey as we entered, which was followed by a similar compliment from a stout girl of twelve, and two or three more of the children, who all seemed to share the pleasure of their parents in receiving strangers in their unpretending tenement. Many were the apologies that poor Judy offered for the homely cheer she furnished us, and great was her delight at the notice we took of the “childher.” She set little Biddy, who was the pride of her heart, to reading the Bible; and she took down a curious machine from a shelf, which she had “conthrived out of her own head,” as she said, for teaching the children to read. This was a flat box, or frame, filled with sand, which saved paper, pens, and ink. Poor Judy had evidently seen better days, but, with a humble and contented spirit, she blessed God for the food and scanty raiment their labour afforded them. Her only sorrow was the want of “idication” for the children.

She would have told us a long story about her trials and sufferings, before they had attained their present comparative comfort and independence, but, as we had a tedious scramble before us, through cedar-swamps, beaver-meadows, and piny ridges, the “ould dhragoon” cut her short, and we straightway started on our toilsome journey.

Simpson, in spite of a certain dash of melancholy in his composition, was one of those happy fellows of the “light heart and thin pair of breeches” school, who, when they meet with difficulty or misfortune, never stop to measure its dimensions, but hold in their breath, and run lightly over, as in crossing a bog, where to stand still is to sink.

Off, then, we went, with the “ould dhragoon” skipping and bounding on before us, over fallen trees and mossy rocks; now ducking under the low, tangled branches of the white cedar, then carefully piloting us along rotten logs, covered with green moss, to save us from the discomfort of wet feet. All this time he still kept one of his feet safely ensconced in the boot, while the other seemed to luxuriate in the water, as if there was something amphibious in his nature.

We soon reached the beaver-meadow, which extended two or three miles; sometimes contracting into a narrow gorge, between the wooded heights, then spreading out again into an ample field of verdure, and presenting everywhere the same unvarying level surface, surrounded with rising grounds, covered with the dense unbroken forest, as if its surface had formerly been covered by the waters of a lake; which in all probability has been the case at some not very remote period. In many places the meadow was so wet that it required a very large share of faith to support us in passing over its surface; but our friend, the dragoon, soon brought us safe through all dangers to a deep ditch, which he had dug to carry off the superfluous water from the part of the meadow which he owned. When we had obtained firm footing on the opposite side, we sat down to rest ourselves before commencing the operation of “blazing,” or marking the trees with our axes, along the side-line of my lot. Here the mystery of the boot was explained. Simpson very coolly took it off from the hitherto favoured foot, and drew it on the other.

He was not a bit ashamed of his poverty, and candidly owned that this was the only boot he possessed, and he was desirous of giving each of his feet fair play.

Nearly the whole day was occupied in completing our job, in which the “dhragoon” assisted us, with the most hearty good-will, enlivening us with his inexhaustible fund of good-humour and drollery. It was nearly dark when we got back to his “shanty,” where the kind-hearted Judy was preparing a huge pot of potatoes and other “combustibles,” as Simpson called the other eatables, for our entertainment.

Previous to starting on our surveying expedition, we had observed Judy very earnestly giving some important instructions to one of her little boys, on whom she seemed to be most seriously impressing the necessity of using the utmost diligence. The happy contentment which now beamed in poor Judy's still comely countenance bespoke the success of the messenger. She could not “call up spirits from the vasty deep” of the cellar, but she had procured some whiskey from her next-door neighbour—some five or six miles off, and there it stood somewhat ostentatiously on the table in a “greybeard,” with a “corn cob,” or ear of Indian corn, stripped of its grain, for a cork, smiling most benevolently on the family circle, and looking a hundred welcomes to the strangers.

An indescribably enlivening influence seemed to exude from every pore of that homely earthen vessel, diffusing mirth and good-humour in all directions. The old man jumped and danced about on the rough floor of the “shanty”; and the children sat giggling and nudging each other in a corner, casting a timid look, from time to time, at their mother, for fear she might check them for being “over bould.”

“Is it crazy ye are intirely, ye ould omadhawn!” said Judy, whose notions of propriety were somewhat shocked with the undignified levity of her partner; “the likes of you I never seed; ye are too foolidge intirely. Have done now wid your diviltries, and set the stools for the gintlemens, while I get the supper for yes.”

Our plentiful though homely meal was soon discussed, for hunger, like a good conscience, can laugh at luxury; and the “greybeard” made its appearance, with the usual accompaniments of hot water and maple sugar, which Judy had scraped from the cake, and placed in a saucer on the table before us.

The “ould dhragoon,” despising his wife's admonitions, gave way freely to his feelings, and knew no bounds to his hilarity. He laughed and joked, and sang snatches of old songs picked up in the course of his service at home and abroad. At length Judy, who looked on him as a “raal janius,” begged him to “sing the gintlemens the song he made when he first came to the counthry.” Of course we ardently seconded the motion, and nothing loth, the old man, throwing himself back on his stool, and stretching out his long neck, poured forth the following ditty, with which I shall conclude my hasty sketch of the “ould dhragoon”:—

Och! it's here I'm intirely continted,
In the wild woods of swate 'Mericay;
God's blessing on him that invinted
Big ships for our crossing the say!

Here praties grow bigger nor turnips;
And though cruel hard is our work,
In ould Ireland we'd nothing but praties,
But here we have praties and pork.

I live on the banks of a meadow,
Now see that my maning you take;
It bates all the bogs of ould Ireland—
Six months in the year it's a lake.

Bad luck to the beavers that dammed it!
I wish them all kilt for their pains;
For shure though the craters are clever,
Tis sartin they've drown'd my domains.

I've built a log hut of the timber
That grows on my charmin' estate;
And an illigant root-house erected,
Just facing the front of my gate.

And I've made me an illigant pig-sty,
Well litter'd wid straw and wid hay;
And it's there, free from noise of the chilther,
I sleep in the heat of the day.

It's there I'm intirely at aise, sir,
And enjoy all the comforts of home;
I stretch out my legs as I plase, sir,
And dhrame of the pleasures to come.

Shure, it's pleasant to hear the frogs croakin',
When the sun's going down in the sky,
And my Judy sits quietly smokin'
While the praties are boil'd till they're dhry.

Och! thin, if you love indepindence,
And have money your passage to pay,
You must quit the ould counthry intirely,
And start in the middle of May.
J.W.D.M.

[Scooter]

CHAPTER XX — DISAPPOINTED HOPES
Stern Disappointment, in thy iron grasp
The soul lies stricken. So the timid deer,
Who feels the foul fangs of the felon wolf
Clench'd in his throat, grown desperate for life,
Turns on his foes, and battles with the fate
That hems him in—and only yields in death.
The summer of '35 was very wet; a circumstance so unusual in Canada that I have seen no season like it during my sojourn in the country. Our wheat crop promised to be both excellent and abundant; and the clearing and seeding sixteen acres, one way or another, had cost us more than fifty pounds, still, we hoped to realise something handsome by the sale of the produce; and, as far as appearances went, all looked fair. The rain commenced about a week before the crop was fit for the sickle, and from that time until nearly the end of September was a mere succession of thunder showers; days of intense heat, succeeded by floods of rain. Our fine crop shared the fate of all other fine crops in the country; it was totally spoiled; the wheat grew in the sheaf, and we could scarcely save enough to supply us with bad, sticky bread; the rest was exchanged at the distillery for whiskey, which was the only produce which could be obtained for it. The storekeepers would not look at it, or give either money or goods for such a damaged article.

My husband and I had worked hard in the field; it was the first time I had ever tried my hand at field-labour, but our ready money was exhausted, and the steam-boat stock had not paid us one farthing; we could not hire, and there was no help for it. I had a hard struggle with my pride before I would consent to render the least assistance on the farm, but reflection convinced me that I was wrong—that Providence had placed me in a situation where I was called upon to work—that it was not only my duty to obey that call, but to exert myself to the utmost to assist my husband, and help to maintain my family.

Ah, glorious poverty! thou art a hard taskmaster, but in thy soul-ennobling school, I have received more godlike lessons, have learned more sublime truths, than ever I acquired in the smooth highways of the world!

The independent in soul can rise above the seeming disgrace of poverty, and hold fast their integrity, in defiance of the world and its selfish and unwise maxims. To them, no labour is too great, no trial too severe; they will unflinchingly exert every faculty of mind and body, before they will submit to become a burden to others.

The misfortunes that now crowded upon us were the result of no misconduct or extravagance on our part, but arose out of circumstances which we could not avert nor control. Finding too late the error into which we had fallen, in suffering ourselves to be cajoled and plundered out of our property by interested speculators, we braced our minds to bear the worst, and determined to meet our difficulties calmly and firmly, nor suffer our spirits to sink under calamities which energy and industry might eventually repair. Having once come to this resolution, we cheerfully shared together the labours of the field. One in heart and purpose, we dared remain true to ourselves, true to our high destiny as immortal creatures, in our conflict with temporal and physical wants.

We found that manual toil, however distasteful to those unaccustomed to it, was not after all such a dreadful hardship; that the wilderness was not without its rose, the hard face of poverty without its smile. If we occasionally suffered severe pain, we as often experienced great pleasure, and I have contemplated a well-hoed ridge of potatoes on that bush farm, with as much delight as in years long past I had experienced in examining a fine painting in some well-appointed drawing-room.

I can now look back with calm thankfulness on that long period of trial and exertion—with thankfulness that the dark clouds that hung over us, threatening to blot us from existence, when they did burst upon us, were full of blessings. When our situation appeared perfectly desperate, then were we on the threshold of a new state of things, which was born out of that very distress.

In order to more fully illustrate the necessity of a perfect and child-like reliance upon the mercies of God—who, I most firmly believe, never deserts those who have placed their trust in Him—I will give a brief sketch of our lives during the years 1836 and 1837.

Still confidently expecting to realise an income, however small, from the steam-boat stock, we had involved ourselves considerably in debt, in order to pay our servants and obtain the common necessaries of life; and we owed a large sum to two Englishmen in Dummer, for clearing ten more acres upon the farm. Our utter inability to meet these demands weighed very heavily upon my husband's mind. All superfluities in the way of groceries were now given up, and we were compelled to rest satisfied upon the produce of the farm. Milk, bread, and potatoes during the summer became our chief, and often for months, our only fare. As to tea and sugar, they were luxuries we could not think of, although I missed the tea very much; we rang the changes upon peppermint and sage, taking the one herb at our breakfast, the other at our tea, until I found an excellent substitute for both in the root of the dandelion.

The first year we came to this country, I met with an account of dandelion coffee, published in the New York Albion, given by a Dr. Harrison, of Edinburgh, who earnestly recommended it as an article of general use.

“It possesses,” he says, “all the fine flavour and exhilarating properties of coffee, without any of its deleterious effects. The plant being of a soporific nature, the coffee made from it when drunk at night produces a tendency to sleep, instead of exciting wakefulness, and may be safely used as a cheap and wholesome substitute for the Arabian berry, being equal in substance and flavour to the best Mocha coffee.”

I was much struck with this paragraph at the time, and for several years felt a great inclination to try the Doctor's coffee; but something or other always came in the way, and it was put off till another opportunity. During the fall of '35, I was assisting my husband in taking up a crop of potatoes in the field, and observing a vast number of fine dandelion roots among the potatoes, it brought the dandelion coffee back to my memory, and I determined to try some for our supper. Without saying anything to my husband, I threw aside some of the roots, and when we left work, collecting a sufficient quantity for the experiment, I carefully washed the roots quite clean, without depriving them of the fine brown skin which covers them, and which contains the aromatic flavour, which so nearly resembles coffee that it is difficult to distinguish it from it while roasting.

I cut my roots into small pieces, the size of a kidney-bean, and roasted them on an iron baking-pan in the stove-oven, until they were as brown and crisp as coffee. I then ground and transferred a small cupful of the powder to the coffee-pot, pouring upon it scalding water, and boiling it for a few minutes briskly over the fire. The result was beyond my expectations. The coffee proved excellent—far superior to the common coffee we procured at the stores.

To persons residing in the bush, and to whom tea and coffee are very expensive articles of luxury, the knowledge of this valuable property of a plant scattered so abundantly through their fields, would prove highly beneficial. For years we used no other article; and my Indian friends who frequented the house gladly adopted the root, and made me show them the whole process of manufacturing it into coffee.

Experience taught me that the root of the dandelion is not so good when applied to this purpose in the spring as it is in the fall. I tried it in the spring, but the juice of the plant, having contributed to the production of leaves and flowers, was weak, and destitute of the fine bitter flavour so peculiar to coffee. The time of gathering the potato crop is the best suited for collecting and drying the roots of the dandelion; and as they always abound in the same hills, both may be accomplished at the same time. Those who want to keep a quantity for winter use may wash and cut up the roots, and dry them on boards in the sun. They will keep for years, and can be roasted when required.

Few of our colonists are acquainted with the many uses to which this neglected but most valuable plant may be applied. I will point out a few which have come under my own observation, convinced as I am that the time will come when this hardy weed, with its golden flowers and curious seed-vessels, which form a constant plaything to the little children rolling about and luxuriating among the grass, in the sunny month of May, will be transplanted into our gardens, and tended with due care.

The dandelion planted in trenches, and blanched to a beautiful cream-colour with straw, makes an excellent salad, quite equal to endive, and is more hardy and requires less care.

In many parts of the United States, particularly in new districts where vegetables are scarce, it is used early in the spring, and boiled with pork as a substitute for cabbage. During our residence in the bush we found it, in the early part of May, a great addition to the dinner-table. In the township of Dummer, the settlers boil the tops, and add hops to the liquor, which they ferment, and from which they obtain excellent beer. I have never tasted this simple beverage, but I have been told by those who use it that it is equal to the table-beer used at home.

Necessity has truly been termed the mother of invention, for I contrived to manufacture a variety of dishes almost out of nothing, while living in her school. When entirely destitute of animal food, the different variety of squirrels supplied us with pies, stews, and roasts. Our barn stood at the top of the hill near the bush, and in a trap set for such “small deer,” we often caught from ten to twelve a day.

The flesh of the black squirrel is equal to that of the rabbit, and the red, and even the little chipmunk, is palatable when nicely cooked. But from the lake, during the summer, we derived the larger portion of our food. The children called this piece of water “Mamma's pantry”; and many a good meal has the munificent Father given to his poor dependent children from its well-stored depths. Moodie and I used to rise at daybreak, and fish for an hour after sunrise, when we returned, he to the field, and I to dress the little ones, clean up the house, assist with the milk, and prepare the breakfast.

Oh, how I enjoyed these excursions on the lake; the very idea of our dinner depending upon our success added double zest to our sport!

One morning we started as usual before sunrise; a thick mist still hung like a fine veil upon the water when we pushed off, and anchored at our accustomed place. Just as the sun rose, and the haze parted and drew up like a golden sheet of transparent gauze, through which the dark woods loomed out like giants, a noble buck dashed into the water, followed by four Indian hounds.

We then discovered a canoe, full of Indians, just below the rapids, and another not many yards from us, that had been concealed by the fog. It was a noble sight, that gallant deer exerting all his energy, and stemming the water with such matchless grace, his branching horns held proudly aloft, his broad nostrils distended, and his fine eye fixed intently upon the opposite shore. Several rifle-balls whizzed past him, the dogs followed hard upon his track, but my very heart leaped for joy when, in spite of all his foes, his glossy hoofs spurned the opposite bank and he plunged headlong into the forest.

My beloved partner was most skilful in trolling for bass and muskinonge. His line he generally fastened to the paddle, and the motion of the oar gave a life-like vibration to the queer-looking mice and dragon-flies I used to manufacture from squirrel fur, or scarlet and white cloth, to tempt the finny wanderers of the wave.

When too busy himself to fish for our meals, little Katie and I ventured out alone in the canoe, which we anchored in any promising fishing spot, by fastening a harrow tooth to a piece of rope, and letting it drop from the side of little vessel. By the time she was five years old, my little mermaid could both steer and paddle the light vessel, and catch small fish, which were useful for soup.

During the winter of '36, we experienced many privations. The ruffian squatter P——, from Clear Lake, drove from the barn a fine young bull we were rearing, and for several weeks all trace of the animal was lost. We had almost forgotten the existence of poor Whiskey, when a neighbor called and told Moodie that his yearling was at P——'s, and that he would advise him to get it back as soon as possible.

Moodie had to take some wheat to Y——'s mill, and as the squatter lived only a mile further, he called at his house; and there, sure enough, he found the lost animal. With the greatest difficulty he succeeded in regaining his property, but not without many threats of vengeance from the parties who had stolen it. To these he paid no regard; but a few days after, six fat hogs, on which we depended for all our winter store of animal food, were driven into the lake, and destroyed.

The death of these animals deprived us of three barrels of pork, and half-starved us through the winter. That winter of '36, how heavily it wore away! The grown flour, frosted potatoes, and scant quantity of animal food rendered us all weak, and the children suffered much from the ague.

One day, just before the snow fell, Moodie had gone to Peterborough for letters; our servant was sick in bed with the ague, and I was nursing my little boy, Dunbar, who was shaking with the cold fit of his miserable fever, when Jacob put his honest, round, rosy face in at the door.

“Give me the master's gun, ma'am; there's a big buck feeding on the rice-bed near the island.”

I took down the gun, saying, “Jacob, you have no chance; there is but one charge of buck-shot in the house.”

“One chance is better nor none,” said Jacob, as he commenced loading the gun. “Who knows what may happen to oie? Mayhap oie may chance to kill 'un; and you and the measter and the wee bairns may have zummut zavory for zupper yet.”

Away walked Jacob with Moodie's “Manton” over his shoulder. A few minutes after, I heard the report of the gun, but never expected to see anything of the game; when Jacob suddenly bounced into the room, half-wild with delight.

“Thae beast iz dead az a door-nail. Zure, how the measter will laugh when he zees the fine buck that oie a'zhot.”

“And have you really shot him?”

“Come and zee! 'Tis worth your while to walk down to the landing to look at 'un.”

Jacob got a rope, and I followed him to the landing, where, sure enough, lay a fine buck, fastened in tow of the canoe. Jacob soon secured him by the hind legs to the rope he had brought; and, with our united efforts, we at last succeeded in dragging our prize home. All the time he was engaged in taking off the skin, Jacob was anticipating the feast that we were to have; and the good fellow chuckled with delight when he hung the carcass quite close to the kitchen door, that his “measter” might run against it when he came home at night. This event actually took place. When Moodie opened the door, he struck his head against the dead deer.

“What have you got here?”

“A fine buck, zur,” said Jacob, bringing forward the light, and holding it up in such a manner that all the merits of the prize could be seen at a glance.

“A fine one, indeed! How did we come by it?”

“It was zhot by oie,” said Jacob, rubbing his hands in a sort of ecstacy. “Thae beast iz the first oie ever zhot in my life. He! he! he!”

“You shot that fine deer, Jacob?—and there was only one charge in the gun! Well done; you must have taken good aim.”

“Why, zur, oie took no aim at all. Oie just pointed the gun at the deer, and zhut my oeys an let fly at 'un. 'Twas Providence kill'd 'un, not oie.”

“I believe you,” said Moodie; “Providence has hitherto watched over us and kept us from actual starvation.”

The flesh of the deer, and the good broth that I was able to obtain from it, greatly assisted in restoring our sick to health; but long before that severe winter terminated we were again out of food. Mrs. —— had given to Katie, in the fall, a very pretty little pig, which she had named Spot. The animal was a great favorite with Jacob and the children, and he always received his food from their hands at the door, and followed them all over the place like a dog. We had a noble hound called Hector, between whom and the pet pig there existed the most tender friendship. Spot always shared with Hector the hollow log which served him for a kennel, and we often laughed to see Hector lead Spot round the clearing by his ear. After bearing the want of animal food until our souls sickened at the bad potatoes and grown flour bread, we began—that is the elders of the family—to cast very hungry eyes upon Spot; but no one liked to propose having him killed. At last Jacob spoke his mind upon the subject.

“Oi've heard, zur, that the Jews never eat pork; but we Christians dooz, and are right glad ov the chance. Now, zur, oi've been thinking that 'tis no manner ov use our keeping that beast Spot. If he wor a zow, now, there might be zome zenze in the thing; and we all feel weak for a morzel of meat. S'poze I kill him? He won't make a bad piece of pork.”

Moodie seconded the move; and, in spite of the tears and prayers of Katie, her uncouth pet was sacrificed to the general wants of the family; but there were two members of the house who disdained to eat a morsel of the victim; poor Katie and the dog Hector. At the self-denial of the first I did not at all wonder, for she was a child full of sensibility and warm affections, but the attachment of the brute creature to his old playmate filled us all with surprise. Jacob first drew our attention to the strange fact.

“That dog,” he said, as we were passing through the kitchen while he was at dinner, “do teach uz Christians a lesson how to treat our friends. Why, zur, he'll not eat a morzel of Spot. Oie have tried and tempted him in all manner ov ways, and he only do zneer and turn up his nose when oie hould him a bit to taste.” He offered the animal a rib of the fresh pork as he finished speaking, and the dog turned away with an expression of aversion, and on a repetition of the act, walked from the table.

Human affection could scarcely have surpassed the love felt by this poor animal for his playfellow. His attachment to Spot, that could overcome the pangs of hunger—for, like the rest of us, he was half-starved—must have been strong indeed.

Jacob's attachment to us, in its simplicity and fidelity, greatly resembled that of the dog; and sometimes, like the dog, he would push himself in where he was not wanted, and gratuitously give his advice, and make remarks which were not required.

Mr. K——, from Cork, was asking Moodie many questions about the partidges of the country; and, among other things, he wanted to know by what token you were able to discover their favourite haunts. Before Moodie could answer this last query a voice responded, through a large crack in the boarded wall which separated us from the kitchen, “They always bides where they's drum.” This announcement was received with a burst of laughter that greatly disconcerted the natural philosopher in the kitchen.

On the 21st of May of this year, my second son, Donald, was born. The poor fellow came in hard times. The cows had not calved, and our bill of fare, now minus the deer and Spot, only consisted of bad potatoes and still worse bread. I was rendered so weak by want of proper nourishment that my dear husband, for my sake, overcame his aversion to borrowing, and procured a quarter of mutton from a friend. This, with kindly presents from neighbours—often as badly off as ourselves—a loin of a young bear, and a basket, containing a loaf of bread, some tea, some fresh butter, and oatmeal, went far to save my life.

Shortly after my recovery, Jacob—the faithful, good Jacob—was obliged to leave us, for we could no longer afford to pay wages. What was owing to him had to be settled by sacrificing our best cow, and a great many valuable articles of clothing from my husband's wardrobe. Nothing is more distressing than being obliged to part with articles of dress which you know that you cannot replace. Almost all my clothes had been appropriated to the payment of wages, or to obtain garments for the children, excepting my wedding dress, and the beautiful baby-linen which had been made by the hands of dear and affectionate friends for my first-born. These were now exchanged for coarse, warm flannels, to shield her from the cold.

Moodie and Jacob had chopped eight acres during the winter, but these had to be burnt off and logged-up before we could put in a crop of wheat for the ensuing fall. Had we been able to retain this industrious, kindly English lad, this would have been soon accomplished; but his wages, at the rate of thirty pounds per annum, were now utterly beyond our means.

Jacob had formed an attachment to my pretty maid, Mary Pine, and before going to the Southern States, to join an uncle who resided in Louisville, an opulent tradesman, who had promised to teach him his business, Jacob thought it as well to declare himself. The declaration took place on a log of wood near the back-door, and from my chamber window I could both hear and see the parties, without being myself observed. Mary was seated very demurely at one end of the log, twisting the strings of her checked apron, and the loving Jacob was busily whittling the other extremity of their rustic seat. There was a long silence. Mary stole a look at Jacob, and he heaved a tremendous sigh, something between a yawn and a groan. “Meary,” he said, “I must go.”

“I knew that afore,” returned the girl.

“I had zummat to zay to you, Meary. Do you think you will miss oie?” (looking very affectionately, and twitching nearer.)

“What put that into your head, Jacob?” This was said very demurely.

“Oie thowt, may be, Meary, that your feelings might be zummat loike my own. I feel zore about the heart, Meary, and it's all com' of parting with you. Don't you feel queerish, too?”

“Can't say that I do, Jacob. I shall soon see you again.” (pulling violently at her apron-string.)

“Meary, oi'm afear'd you don't feel like oie.”

“P'r'aps not—women can't feel like men. I'm sorry that you are going, Jacob, for you have been very kind and obliging, and I wish you well.”

“Meary,” cried Jacob, growing desperate at her coyness, and getting quite close up to her, “will you marry oie? Say yeez or noa?”

This was coming close to the point. Mary drew farther from him, and turned her head away.

“Meary,” said Jacob, seizing upon the hand that held the apron-string. “Do you think you can better yoursel'? If not—why, oie'm your man. Now, do just turn about your head and answer oie.”

The girl turned round, and gave him a quick, shy glance, then burst out into a simpering laugh.

“Meary, will you take oie?” (jogging her elbow.)

“I will,” cried the girl, jumping up from the log, and running into the house.

“Well, that bargain's made,” said the lover, rubbing his hands; “and now oie'll go and bid measter and missus good-buoy.”

The poor fellow's eyes were full of tears, for the children, who loved him very much, clung, crying, about his knees. “God bless yees all,” sobbed the kind-hearted creature. “Doan't forget Jacob, for he'll neaver forget you. Good-buoy!”

Then turning to Mary, he threw his arms round her neck, and bestowed upon her fair cheek the most audible kiss I ever heard.

“And doan't you forget me, Meary. In two years oie will be back to marry you; and may be oie may come back a rich man.”

Mary, who was an exceedingly pretty girl, shed some tears at the parting; but in a few days she was as gay as ever, and listening with great attention to the praises bestowed upon her beauty by an old bachelor, who was her senior by five-and-twenty years. But then he had a good farm, a saddle mare, and plenty of stock, and was reputed to have saved money. The saddle mare seemed to have great weight in old Ralph T——h's wooing, and I used laughingly to remind Mary of her absent lover, and beg her not to marry Ralph T——h's mare.

THE CANADIAN HUNTER'S SONG
The northern lights are flashing,
On the rapids' restless flow;
And o'er the wild waves dashing,
Swift darts the light canoe.
The merry hunters come.
“What cheer?—what cheer?”—
“We've slain the deer!”
“Hurrah!—You're welcome home!”

The blithesome horn is sounding,
And the woodman's loud halloo;
And joyous steps are bounding
To meet the birch canoe.
“Hurrah!—The hunters come.”
And the woods ring out
To their merry shout
As they drag the dun deer home!

The hearth is brightly burning,
The rustic board is spread;
To greet the sire returning
The children leave their bed.
With laugh and shout they come—
That merry band—
To grasp his hand,
And bid him welcome home!

[Scooter]

CHAPTER XXI — THE LITTLE STUMPY MAN
There was a little man—
I'll sketch him if I can,
For he clung to mine and me
Like the old man of the sea;
And in spite of taunt and scoff
We could not pitch him off,
For the cross-grained, waspish elf
Cared for no one but himself.
Before I dismiss for ever the troubles and sorrows of 1836, I would fain introduce to the notice of my readers some of the odd characters with whom we became acquainted during that period. The first that starts vividly to my recollection is the picture of a short, stumpy, thickset man—a British sailor, too—who came to stay one night under our roof, and took quiet possession of his quarters for nine months, and whom we were obliged to tolerate from the simple fact that we could not get rid of him.

During the fall, Moodie had met this individual (whom I will call Mr. Malcolm) in the mail-coach, going up to Toronto. Amused with his eccentric and blunt manners, and finding him a shrewd, clever fellow in conversation, Moodie told him that if ever he came into his part of the world he should be glad to renew their acquaintance. And so they parted, with mutual good-will, as men often part who have travelled a long journey in good fellowship together, without thinking it probable they should ever meet again.

The sugar season had just commenced with the spring thaw; Jacob had tapped a few trees in order to obtain sap to make molasses for the children, when his plans were frustrated by the illness of my husband, who was again attacked with the ague. Towards the close of a wet, sloppy day, while Jacob was in the wood, chopping, and our servant gone to my sister, who was ill, to help to wash, as I was busy baking bread for tea, my attention was aroused by a violent knocking at the door, and the furious barking of our dog, Hector. I ran to open it, when I found Hector's teeth clenched in the trousers of a little, dark, thickset man, who said in a gruff voice—

“Call off your dog. What the devil do you keep such an infernal brute about the house for? Is it to bite people who come to see you?”

Hector was the best-behaved, best-tempered animal in the world; he might have been called a gentlemanly dog. So little was there of the unmannerly puppy in his behaviour, that I was perfectly astonished at his ungracious conduct. I caught him by the collar, and not without some difficulty, succeeded in dragging him off.

“Is Captain Moodie within?” said the stranger.

“He is, sir. But he is ill in bed—too ill to be seen.”

“Tell him a friend” (he laid a strong stress upon the last word), “a particular friend must speak to him.”

I now turned my eyes to the face of the speaker with some curiosity. I had taken him for a mechanic, from his dirty, slovenly appearance; and his physiognomy was so unpleasant that I did not credit his assertion that he was a friend of my husband, for I was certain that no man who possessed such a forbidding aspect could be regarded by Moodie as a friend. I was about to deliver his message, but the moment I let go Hector's collar, the dog was at him again.

“Don't strike him with your stick,” I cried, throwing my arms over the faithful creature. “He is a powerful animal, and if you provoke him, he will kill you.”

I at last succeeded in coaxing Hector into the girl's room, where I shut him up, while the stranger came into the kitchen, and walked to the fire to dry his wet clothes.

I immediately went into the parlour, where Moodie was lying upon a bed near the stove, to deliver the stranger's message; but before I could say a word, he dashed in after me, and going up to the bed, held out his broad, coarse hand, with “How are you, Mr. Moodie? You see I have accepted your kind invitation sooner than either you or I expected. If you will give me house-room for the night, I shall be obliged to you.”

This was said in a low, mysterious voice; and Moodie, who was still struggling with the hot fit of his disorder, and whose senses were not a little confused, stared at him with a look of vague bewilderment. The countenance of the stranger grew dark.

“You cannot have forgotten me—my name is Malcolm.”

“Yes, sir; I remember you now,” said the invalid holding out his burning, feverish hand. “To my home, such as it is, you are welcome.”

I stood by in wondering astonishment, looking from one to the other, as I had no recollection of ever hearing my husband mention the name of the stranger; but as he had invited him to share our hospitality, I did my best to make him welcome though in what manner he was to be accommodated puzzled me not a little. I placed the arm-chair by the fire, and told him that I would prepare tea for him as soon as I could.

“It may be as well to tell you, Mrs. Moodie,” said he sulkily, for he was evidently displeased by my husband's want of recognition on his first entrance, “that I have had no dinner.”

I sighed to myself, for I well knew that our larder boasted of no dainties; and from the animal expression of our guest's face, I rightly judged that he was fond of good living.

By the time I had fried a rasher of salt pork, and made a pot of dandelion coffee, the bread I had been preparing was baked; but grown flour will not make light bread, and it was unusually heavy. For the first time I felt heartily ashamed of our humble fare. I was sure that he for whom it was provided was not one to pass it over in benevolent silence. “He might be a gentleman,” I thought, “but he does not look like one;” and a confused idea of who he was, and where Moodie had met him, began to float through my mind. I did not like the appearance of the man, but I consoled myself that he was only to stay for one night, and I could give up my bed for that one night, and sleep on a bed on the floor by my sick husband. When I re-entered the parlour to cover the table, I found Moodie fallen asleep, and Mr. Malcolm reading. As I placed the tea-things on the table, he raised his head, and regarded me with a gloomy stare. He was a strange-looking creature; his features were tolerably regular, his complexion dark, with a good colour, his very broad and round head was covered with a perfect mass of close, black, curling hair, which, in growth, texture, and hue, resembled the wiry, curly hide of a water-dog. His eyes and mouth were both well-shaped, but gave, by their sinister expression, an odious and doubtful meaning to the whole of his physiognomy. The eyes were cold, insolent, and cruel, and as green as the eyes of a cat. The mouth bespoke a sullen, determined, and sneering disposition, as if it belonged to one brutally obstinate, one who could not by any gentle means be persuaded from his purpose. Such a man in a passion would have been a terrible wild beast; but the current of his feelings seemed to flow in a deep, sluggish channel, rather than in a violent or impetuous one; and, like William Penn, when he reconnoitred his unwelcome visitors through the keyhole of the door, I looked at my strange guest, and liked him not. Perhaps my distant and constrained manner made him painfully aware of the fact, for I am certain that, from the first hour of our acquaintance, a deep-rooted antipathy existed between us, which time seemed rather to strengthen than diminish.

He ate of his meal sparingly, and with evident disgust, the only remarks which dropped from him were—

“You make bad bread in the bush. Strange, that you can't keep your potatoes from the frost! I should have thought that you could have had things more comfortable in the woods.”

“We have been very unfortunate,” I said, “since we came to the woods. I am sorry that you should be obliged to share the poverty of the land. It would have given me much pleasure could I have set before you a more comfortable meal.”

“Oh, don't mention it. So that I get good pork and potatoes I shall be contented.”

What did these words imply?—an extension of his visit? I hoped that I was mistaken; but before I could lose any time in conjecture my husband awoke. The fit had left him, and he rose and dressed himself, and was soon chatting cheerfully with his guest.

Mr. Malcolm now informed him that he was hiding from the sheriff of the N—— district's officers, and that it would be conferring upon him a great favour if he would allow him to remain at his house for a few weeks.

“To tell you the truth, Malcolm,” said Moodie, “we are so badly off that we can scarcely find food for ourselves and the children. It is out of our power to make you comfortable, or to keep an additional hand, without he is willing to render some little help on the farm. If you can do this, I will endeavour to get a few necessaries on credit, to make your stay more agreeable.”

To this proposition Malcolm readily assented, not only because it released him from all sense of obligation, but because it gave him a privilege to grumble.

Finding that his stay might extend to an indefinite period, I got Jacob to construct a rude bedstead out of two large chests that had transported some of our goods across the Atlantic, and which he put in a corner of the parlour. This I provided with a small hair-mattress, and furnished with what bedding I could spare.

For the first fornight of his sojourn, our guest did nothing but lie upon that bed, and read, and smoke, and drink whiskey-and-water from morning until night. By degrees he let out part of his history; but there was a mystery about him which he took good care never to clear up. He was the son of an officer in the navy, who had not only attained a very high rank in the service, but, for his gallant conduct, had been made a Knight-Companion of the Bath.

He had himself served his time as a midshipman on board his father's flag-ship, but had left the navy and accepted a commission in the Buenos-Ayrean service during the political struggles in that province; he had commanded a sort of privateer under the government, to whom, by his own account, he had rendered many very signal services. Why he left South America and came to Canada he kept a profound secret. He had indulged in very vicious and dissipated courses since he came to the province, and by his own account had spent upwards of four thousand pounds, in a manner not over creditable to himself. Finding that his friends would answer his bills no longer, he took possession of a grant of land obtained through his father's interest, up in Harvey, a barren township on the shores of Stony Lake; and, after putting up his shanty, and expending all his remaining means, he found that he did not possess one acre out of the whole four hundred that would yield a crop of potatoes. He was now considerably in debt, and the lands, such as they were, had been seized, with all his effects, by the sheriff, and a warrant was out for his own apprehension, which he contrived to elude during his sojourn with us. Money he had none; and, beyond the dirty fearnought blue seaman's jacket which he wore, a pair of trousers of the coarse cloth of the country, an old black vest that had seen better days, and two blue-checked shirts, clothes he had none. He shaved but once a week, never combed his hair, and never washed himself. A dirtier or more slovenly creature never before was dignified by the title of a gentleman. He was, however, a man of good education, of excellent abilities, and possessed a bitter, sarcastic knowledge of the world; but he was selfish and unprincipled in the highest degree.

His shrewd observations and great conversational powers had first attracted my husband's attention, and, as men seldom show their bad qualities on a journey, he thought him a blunt, good fellow, who had travelled a great deal, and could render himself a very agreeable companion by a graphic relation of his adventures. He could be all this, when he chose to relax from his sullen, morose mood; and, much as I disliked him, I have listened with interest for hours to his droll descriptions of South American life and manners.

Naturally indolent, and a constitutional grumbler, it was with the greatest difficulty that Moodie could get him to do anything beyond bringing a few pails of water from the swamp for the use of the house, and he often passed me carrying water up from the lake without offering to relieve me of the burden. Mary, the betrothed of Jacob, called him a perfect “beast”; but he, returning good for evil, considered her a very pretty girl, and paid her so many uncouth attentions that he roused the jealousy of honest Jake, who vowed that he would give him a good “loomping” if he only dared to lay a finger upon his sweetheart. With Jacob to back her, Mary treated the “zea-bear,” as Jacob termed him, with vast disdain, and was so saucy to him that, forgetting his admiration, he declared he would like to serve her as the Indians had done a scolding woman in South America. They attacked her house during the absence of her husband, cut out her tongue, and nailed it to the door, by way of knocker; and he thought that all women who could not keep a civil tongue in their head should be served in the same manner.

“And what should be done to men who swear and use ondacent language?” quoth Mary, indignantly. “Their tongues should be slit, and given to the dogs. Faugh! You are such a nasty fellow that I don't think Hector would eat your tongue.”

“I'll kill that beast,” muttered Malcolm, as he walked away.

I remonstrated with him on the impropriety of bandying words with our servants. “You see,” I said, “the disrespect with which they treat you; and if they presume upon your familiarity, to speak to our guest in this contemptuous manner, they will soon extend the same conduct to us.”

“But, Mrs. Moodie, you should reprove them.”

“I cannot, sir, while you continue, by taking liberties with the girl, and swearing at the man, to provoke them to retaliation.”

“Swearing! What harm is there in swearing? A sailor cannot live without oaths.”

“But a gentleman might, Mr. Malcolm. I should be sorry to consider you in any other light.”

“Ah, you are such a prude—so methodistical—you make no allowance for circumstances! Surely, in the woods we may dispense with the hypocritical, conventional forms of society, and speak and act as we please.”

“So you seem to think; but you see the result.”

“I have never been used to the society of ladies, and I cannot fashion my words to please them; and I won't, that's more!” he muttered to himself as he strode off to Moodie in the field. I wished from my very heart that he was once more on the deck of his piratical South American craft.

One night he insisted on going out in the canoe to spear maskinonge with Moodie. The evening turned out very chill and foggy, and, before twelve, they returned, with only one fish, and half frozen with cold. Malcolm had got twinges of rheumatism, and he fussed, and sulked, and swore, and quarrelled with everybody and everything, until Moodie, who was highly amused by his petulance, advised him to go to his bed, and pray for the happy restoration of his temper.

“Temper!” he cried, “I don't believe there's a good-tempered person in the world. It's all hypocrisy! I never had a good-temper! My mother was an ill-tempered woman, and ruled my father, who was a confoundedly severe, domineering man. I was born in an ill-temper. I was an ill-tempered child; I grew up an ill-tempered man. I feel worse than ill-tempered now, and when I die it will be in an ill-temper.”

“Well,” quoth I, “Moodie has made you a tumbler of hot punch, which may help to drive out the cold and the ill-temper, and cure the rheumatism.”

“Ay; your husband's a good fellow, and worth two of you, Mrs. Moodie. He makes some allowance for the weakness of human nature, and can excuse even my ill-temper.”

I did not choose to bandy words with him, and the next day the unfortunate creature was shaking with the ague. A more intractable, outrageous, Im-patient I never had the ill-fortune to nurse. During the cold fit, he did nothing but swear at the cold, and wished himself roasting; and during the fever, he swore at the heat, and wished that he was sitting, in no other garment than his shirt, on the north side of an iceberg. And when the fit at last left him, he got up, and ate such quantities of fat pork, and drank so much whiskey-punch, that you would have imagined he had just arrived from a long journey, and had not tasted food for a couple of days.

He would not believe that fishing in the cold night-air upon the water had made him ill, but raved that it was all my fault for having laid my baby down on his bed while it was shaking with the ague.

Yet, if there were the least tenderness mixed up in his iron nature, it was the affection he displayed for that young child. Dunbar was just twenty months old, with bright, dark eyes, dimpled cheeks, and soft, flowing, golden hair, which fell round his infant face in rich curls. The merry, confiding little creature formed such a contrast to his own surly, unyielding temper, that, perhaps, that very circumstance made the bond of union between them. When in the house, the little boy was seldom out of his arms, and whatever were Malcolm's faults, he had none in the eyes of the child, who used to cling around his neck, and kiss his rough, unshaven cheeks with the greatest fondness.

“If I could afford it, Moodie,” he said one day to my husband, “I should like to marry. I want some one upon whom I could vent my affections.” And wanting that some one in the form of woman, he contented himself with venting them upon the child.

As the spring advanced, and after Jacob left us, he seemed ashamed of sitting in the house doing nothing, and therefore undertook to make us a garden, or “to make garden,” as the Canadians term preparing a few vegetables for the season. I procured the necessary seeds, and watched with no small surprise the industry with which our strange visitor commenced operations. He repaired the broken fence, dug the ground with the greatest care, and laid it out with a skill and neatness of which I had believed him perfectly incapable. In less than three weeks, the whole plot presented a very pleasing prospect, and he was really elated by his success.

“At any rate,” he said, “we shall no longer be starved on bad flour and potatoes. We shall have peas, and beans, and beets, and carrots, and cabbage in abundance; besides the plot I have reserved for cucumbers and melons.”

“Ah,” thought I; “does he, indeed, mean to stay with us until the melons are ripe?” and my heart died within me, for he not only was a great additional expense, but he gave a great deal of additional trouble, and entirely robbed us of all privacy, as our very parlour was converted into a bed-room for his accommodation; besides that, a man of his singularly dirty habits made a very disagreeable inmate.

The only redeeming point in his character, in my eyes, was his love for Dunbar. I could not entirely hate a man who was so fondly attached to my child. To the two little girls he was very cross, and often chased them from him with blows.

He had, too, an odious way of finding fault with everything. I never could cook to please him; and he tried in the most malicious way to induce Moodie to join in his complaints. All his schemes to make strife between us, however, failed, and were generally visited upon himself. In no way did he ever seek to render me the least assistance. Shortly after Jacob left us, Mary Pine was offered higher wages by a family at Peterborough, and for some time I was left with four little children, and without a servant. Moodie always milked the cows, because I never could overcome my fear of cattle; and though I had occasionally milked when there was no one else in the way, it was in fear and trembling.

Moodie had to go down to Peterborough; but before he went, he begged Malcolm to bring me what water and wood I required, and to stand by the cattle while I milked the cows, and he would himself be home before night.

He started at six in the morning, and I got the pail to go and milk. Malcolm was lying upon his bed, reading.

“Mr. Malcolm, will you be so kind as to go with me to the fields for a few minutes while I milk?”

“Yes!” (then, with a sulky frown), “but I want to finish what I am reading.”

“I will not detain you long.”

“Oh, no! I suppose about an hour. You are a shocking bad milker.”

“True; I never went near a cow until I came to this country; and I have never been able to overcome my fear of them.”

“More shame for you! A farmer's wife, and afraid of a cow! Why, these little children would laugh at you.”

I did not reply, nor would I ask him again. I walked slowly to the field, and my indignation made me forget my fear. I had just finished milking, and with a brimming pail was preparing to climb the fence and return to the house, when a very wild ox we had came running with headlong speed from the wood. All my fears were alive again in a moment. I snatched up the pail, and, instead of climbing the fence and getting to the house, I ran with all the speed I could command down the steep hill towards the lake shore; my feet caught in a root of the many stumps in the path, and I fell to the ground, my pail rolling many yards a-head of me. Every drop of my milk was spilt upon the grass. The ox passed on. I gathered myself up and returned home. Malcolm was very fond of new milk, and he came to meet me at the door.

“Hi! hi!—Where's the milk?”

“No milk for the poor children to-day,” said I, showing him the inside of the pail, with a sorrowful shake of the head, for it was no small loss to them and me.

“How the devil's that? So you were afraid to milk the cows. Come away, and I will keep off the buggaboos.”

“I did milk them—no thanks to your kindness, Mr. Malcolm—but—”

“But what?”

“The ox frightened me, and I fell and spilt all the milk.”

“Whew! Now don't go and tell your husband that it was all my fault; if you had had a little patience, I would have come when you asked me, but I don't choose to be dictated to, and I won't be made a slave by you or any one else.”

“Then why do you stay, sir, where you consider yourself so treated?” said I. “We are all obliged to work to obtain bread; we give you the best share—surely the return we ask for it is but small.”

“You make me feel my obligations to you when you ask me to do anything; if you left it to my better feelings we should get on better.”

“Perhaps you are right. I will never ask you to do anything for me in future.”

“Oh, now, that's all mock-humility. In spite of the tears in your eyes, you are as angry with me as ever; but don't go to make mischief between me and Moodie. If you'll say nothing about my refusing to go with you, I'll milk the cows for you myself to-night.”

“And can you milk?” said I, with some curiosity.

“Milk! Yes; and if I were not so confoundedly low-spirited and—lazy, I could do a thousand other things too. But now, don't say a word about it to Moodie.”

I made no promise; but my respect for him was not increased by his cowardly fear of reproof from Moodie, who treated him with a kindness and consideration which he did not deserve.

The afternoon turned out very wet, and I was sorry that I should be troubled with his company all day in the house. I was making a shirt for Moodie from some cotton that had been sent me from home, and he placed himself by the side of the stove, just opposite, and continued to regard me for a long time with his usual sullen stare. I really felt half afraid of him.

“Don't you think me mad!” said he. “I have a brother deranged; he got a stroke of the sun in India, and lost his senses in consequence; but sometimes I think it runs in the family.”

What answer could I give to this speech, but mere evasive common-place!

“You won't say what you really think,” he continued; “I know you hate me, and that makes me dislike you. Now what would you say if I told you I had committed a murder, and that it was the recollection of that circumstance that made me at times so restless and unhappy?”

I looked up in his face, not knowing what to believe.

“'Tis fact,” said he, nodding his head; and I hoped that he would not go mad, like his brother, and kill me.

“Come, I'll tell you all about it; I know the world would laugh at me for calling such an act murder; and yet I have been such a miserable man ever since, that I feel it was.

“There was a noted leader among the rebel Buenos-Ayreans, whom the government wanted much to get hold of. He was a fine, dashing, handsome fellow; I had often seen him, but we never came to close quarters. One night, I was lying wrapped up in my poncho at the bottom of my boat, which was rocking in the surf, waiting for two of my men, who were gone on shore. There came to the shore, this man and one of his people, and they stood so near the boat, that I could distinctly hear their conversation. I suppose it was the devil who tempted me to put a bullet through the man's heart. He was an enemy to the flag under which I fought, but he was no enemy to me—I had no right to become his executioner; but still the desire to kill him, for the mere devilry of the thing, came so strongly upon me that I no longer tried to resist it. I rose slowly upon my knees; the moon was shining very bright at the time, both he and his companion were too earnestly engaged to see me, and I deliberately shot him through the body. He fell with a heavy groan back into the water; but I caught the last look he threw upon the moonlight skies before his eyes glazed in death. Oh, that look!—so full of despair, of unutterable anguish; it haunts me yet—it will haunt me for ever. I would not have cared if I had killed him in strife—but in cold blood, and he so unsuspicious of his doom! Yes, it was murder; I know by this constant tugging at my heart that it was murder. What do you say to it?”

“I should think as you do, Mr. Malcolm. It is a terrible thing to take away the life of a fellow-creature without the least provocation.”

“Ah! I knew you would blame me; but he was an enemy after all; I had a right to kill him; I was hired by the government under whom I served to kill him; and who shall condemn me?”

“No one more than your own heart.”

“It is not the heart, but the brain, that must decide in questions of right and wrong,” said he. “I acted from impulse, and shot that man; had I reasoned upon it for five minutes, the man would be living now. But what's done cannot be undone. Did I ever show you the work I wrote upon South America?”

“Are you an author,” said I, incredulously.

“To be sure I am. Murray offered me 100 pounds for my manuscript, but I would not take it. Shall I read to you some passages from it?”

I am sorry to say that his behaviour in the morning was uppermost in my thoughts, and I had no repugnance in refusing.

“No, don't trouble yourself. I have the dinner to cook, and the children to attend to, which will cause a constant interruption; you had better defer it to some other time.”

“I shan't ask you to listen to me again,” said he, with a look of offended vanity; but he went to his trunk, and brought out a large MS., written on foolscap, which he commenced reading to himself with an air of great self-importance, glancing from time to time at me, and smiling disdainfully. Oh, how glad I was when the door opened, and the return of Moodie broke up this painful tete-a-tete.

From the sublime to the ridiculous is but a step. The very next day, Mr. Malcolm made his appearance before me, wrapped in a great-coat belonging to my husband, which literally came down to his heels. At this strange apparition, I fell a-laughing.

“For God's sake, Mrs. Moodie, lend me a pair of inexpressibles. I have met with an accident in crossing the fence, and mine are torn to shreds—gone to the devil entirely.”

“Well, don't swear. I'll see what can be done for you.”

I brought him a new pair of fine, drab-colored kersey-mere trousers that had never been worn. Although he was eloquent in his thanks, I had no idea that he meant to keep them for his sole individual use from that day thenceforth. But after all, what was the man to do? He had no trousers, and no money, and he could not take to the woods. Certainly his loss was not our gain. It was the old proverb reversed.

The season for putting in the potatoes had now arrived. Malcolm volunteered to cut the sets, which was easy work that could be done in the house, and over which he could lounge and smoke; but Moodie told him that he must take his share in the field, that I had already sets enough saved to plant half-an-acre, and would have more prepared by the time they were required. With many growls and shrugs, he felt obliged to comply; and he performed his part pretty well, the execrations bestowed upon the mosquitoes and black-flies forming a sort of safety-valve to let off the concentrated venom of his temper. When he came in to dinner, he held out his hands to me.

“Look at these hands.”

“They are blistered with the hoe.”

“Look at my face.”

“You are terribly disfigured by the black-flies. But Moodie suffers just as much, and says nothing.”

“Bah!—The only consolation one feels for such annoyances is to complain. Oh, the woods!—the cursed woods!—how I wish I were out of them.” The day was very warm, but in the afternoon I was surprised by a visit from an old maiden lady, a friend of mine from C——. She had walked up with a Mr. Crowe, from Peterborough, a young, brisk-looking farmer, in breeches and top-boots, just out from the old country, who, naturally enough, thought he would like to roost among the woods.

He was a little, lively, good-natured manny, with a real Anglo-Saxon face,—rosy, high cheek-boned, with full lips, and a turned-up nose; and, like most little men, was a great talker, and very full of himself. He had belonged to the secondary class of farmers, and was very vulgar, both in person and manners. I had just prepared tea for my visitors, when Malcolm and Moodie returned from the field. There was no affectation about the former. He was manly in his person, and blunt even to rudeness, and I saw by the quizzical look which he cast upon the spruce little Crowe that he was quietly quizzing him from head to heel. A neighbour had sent me a present of maple molasses, and Mr. Crowe was so fearful of spilling some of the rich syrup upon his drab shorts that he spread a large pocket-hankerchief over his knees, and tucked another under his chin. I felt very much inclined to laugh, but restrained the inclination as well as I could—and if the little creature would have sat still, I could have quelled my rebellious propensity altogether; but up he would jump at every word I said to him, and make me a low, jerking bow, often with his mouth quite full, and the treacherous molasses running over his chin.

Malcolm sat directly opposite to me and my volatile next-door neighbour. He saw the intense difficulty I had to keep my gravity, and was determined to make me laugh out. So, coming slyly behind my chair, he whispered in my ear, with the gravity of a judge, “Mrs. Moodie, that must have been the very chap who first jumped Jim Crowe.”

This appeal obliged me to run from the table. Moodie was astonished at my rudeness; and Malcolm, as he resumed his seat, made the matter worse by saying, “I wonder what is the matter with Mrs. Moodie; she is certainly very hysterical this afternoon.”

The potatoes were planted, and the season of strawberries, green-peas, and young potatoes come, but still Malcolm remained our constant guest. He had grown so indolent, and gave himself so many airs, that Moodie was heartily sick of his company, and gave him many gentle hints to change his quarters; but our guest was determined to take no hint. For some reason best known to himself, perhaps out of sheer contradiction, which formed one great element in his character, he seemed obstinately bent upon remaining where he was.

Moodie was busy under-bushing for a fall fallow. Malcolm spent much of his time in the garden, or lounging about the house. I had baked an eel-pie for dinner, which if prepared well is by no means an unsavoury dish. Malcolm had cleaned some green-peas and washed the first young potatoes we had drawn that season, with his own hands, and he was reckoning upon the feast he should have on the potatoes with childish glee. The dinner at length was put upon the table. The vegetables were remarkably fine, and the pie looked very nice.

Moodie helped Malcolm, as he always did, very largely, and the other covered his plate with a portion of peas and potatoes, when, lo and behold! my gentleman began making a very wry face at the pie.

“What an infernal dish!” he cried, pushing away his plate with an air of great disgust. “These eels taste as if they had been stewed in oil. Moodie, you should teach your wife to be a better cook.”

The hot blood burnt upon Moodie's cheek. I saw indignation blazing in his eye.

“If you don't like what is prepared for you, sir, you may leave the table, and my house, if you please. I will put up with your ungentlemanly and ungrateful conduct to Mrs. Moodie no longer.”

Out stalked the offending party. I thought, to be sure, we had got rid of him; and though he deserved what was said to him, I was sorry for him. Moodie took his dinner, quietly remarking, “I wonder he could find it in his heart to leave those fine peas and potatoes.”

He then went back to his work in the bush, and I cleared away the dishes, and churned, for I wanted butter for tea.

About four o'clock Mr. Malcolm entered the room. “Mrs. Moodie,” said he, in a more cheerful voice than usual, “where's the boss?”

“In the wood, under-bushing.” I felt dreadfully afraid that there would be blows between them.

“I hope, Mr. Malcolm, that you are not going to him with any intention of a fresh quarrel.”

“Don't you think I have been punished enough by losing my dinner?” said he, with a grin. “I don't think we shall murder one another.” He shouldered his axe, and went whistling away.

After striving for a long while to stifle my foolish fears, I took the baby in my arms, and little Dunbar by the hand, and ran up to the bush where Moodie was at work.

At first I only saw my husband, but the strokes of an axe at a little distance soon guided my eyes to the spot where Malcolm was working away, as if for dear life. Moodie smiled, and looked at me significantly.

“How could the fellow stomach what I said to him? Either great necessity or great meanness must be the cause of his knocking under. I don't know whether most to pity or despise him.”

“Put up with it, dearest, for this once. He is not happy, and must be greatly distressed.”

Malcolm kept aloof, ever and anon casting a furtive glance towards us; at last little Dunbar ran to him, and held up his arms to be kissed. The strange man snatched him to his bosom, and covered him with caresses. It might be love to the child that had quelled his sullen spirit, or he might really have cherished an affection for us deeper than his ugly temper would allow him to show. At all events, he joined us at tea as if nothing had happened, and we might truly say that he had obtained a new lease of his long visit.

But what could not be effected by words or hints of ours was brought about a few days after by the silly observation of a child. He asked Katie to give him a kiss, and he would give her some raspberries he had gathered in the bush.

“I don't want them. Go away; I don't like you, you little stumpy man!”

His rage knew no bounds. He pushed the child from him, and vowed that he would leave the house that moment—that she could not have thought of such an expression herself; she must have been taught it by us. This was an entire misconception on his part; but he would not be convinced that he was wrong. Off he went, and Moodie called after him, “Malcolm, as I am sending to Peterborough to-morrow, the man shall take in your trunk.” He was too angry even to turn and bid us good-bye; but we had not seen the last of him yet.

Two months after, we were taking tea with a neighbour, who lived a mile below us on the small lake. Who should walk in but Mr. Malcolm? He greeted us with great warmth for him, and when we rose to take leave, he rose and walked home by our side. “Surely the little stumpy man is not returning to his old quarters?” I am still a babe in the affairs of men. Human nature has more strange varieties than any one menagerie can contain, and Malcolm was one of the oddest of her odd species.

That night he slept in his old bed below the parlour window, and for three months afterwards he stuck to us like a beaver.

He seemed to have grown more kindly, or we had got more used to his eccentricities, and let him have his own way; certainly he behaved himself much better.

He neither scolded the children nor interfered with the maid, nor quarrelled with me. He had greatly discontinued his bad habit of swearing, and he talked of himself and his future prospects with more hope and self-respect. His father had promised to send him a fresh supply of money, and he proposed to buy of Moodie the clergy reserve, and that they should farm the two places on shares. This offer was received with great joy, as an unlooked-for means of paying our debts, and extricating ourselves from present and overwhelming difficulties, and we looked upon the little stumpy man in the light of a benefactor.

So matters continued until Christmas Eve, when our visitor proposed walking into Peterborough, in order to give the children a treat of raisins to make a Christmas pudding.

“We will be quite merry to-morrow,” he said. “I hope we shall eat many Christmas dinners together, and continue good friends.”

He started, after breakfast, with the promise of coming back at night; but night came, the Christmas passed away, months and years fled away, but we never saw the little stumpy man again!

He went away that day with a stranger in a waggon from Peterborough, and never afterwards was seen in that part of Canada. We afterwards learned that he went to Texas, and it is thought that he was killed at St. Antonio; but this is mere conjecture. Whether dead or living, I feel convinced that—

“We ne'er shall look upon his like again.”

OH, THE DAYS WHEN I WAS YOUNG!
Oh, the days when I was young,
A playful little boy,
When my piping treble rung
To the notes of early joy.
Oh, the sunny days of spring,
When I sat beside the shore,
And heard the small birds sing;—
Shall I never hear them more?

And the daisies scatter'd round,
Half hid amid the grass,
Lay like gems upon the ground,
Too gay for me to pass.
How sweet the milkmaid sung,
As she sat beside her cow,
How clear her wild notes rung;—
There's no music like it now.

As I watch'd the ship's white sail
'Mid the sunbeams on the sea,
Spreading canvas to the gale—
How I long'd with her to be.
I thought not of the storm,
Nor the wild cries on her deck,
When writhed her graceful form
'Mid the hurricane and wreck.

And I launch'd my little ship,
With her sails and hold beneath;
Deep laden on each trip,
With berries from the heath.
Ah, little did I know,
When I long'd to be a man,
Of the gloomy cares and woe,
That meet in life's brief span.

Oh, the happy nights I lay
With my brothers in their beds,
Where we soundly slept till day
Shone brightly o'er our heads.
And the blessed dreams that came
To fill my heart with joy.
Oh, that I now could dream,
As I dreamt, a little boy.

The sun shone brighter then,
And the moon more soft and clear,
For the wiles of crafty men
I had not learn'd to fear;
But all seemed fair and gay
As the fleecy clouds above;
I spent my hours in play,
And my heart was full of love.

I loved the heath-clad hill,
And I loved the silent vale,
With its dark and purling rill
That murmur'd in the gale.
Of sighs I'd none to share,
They were stored for riper years,
When I drain'd the dregs of care
With many bitter tears.

My simple daily fare,
In my little tiny mug,
How fain was I to share
With Cato on the rug.
Yes, he gave his honest paw,
And he lick'd my happy face,
He was true to Nature's law,
And I thought it no disgrace.

There's a voice so soft and clear,
And a step so gay and light,
That charms my listening ear
In the visions of the night.
And my father bids me haste,
In the deep, fond tones of love,
And leave this dreary waste,
For brighter realms above.

Now I am old and grey,
My bones are rack'd with pain,
And time speeds fast away—
But why should I complain?
There are joys in life's young morn
That dwell not with the old.
Like the flowers the wind hath torn,
From the strem, all bleak and cold.

The weary heart may mourn
O'er the wither'd hopes of youth,
But the flowers so rudely shorn
Still leave the seeds of truth.
And there's hope for hoary men
When they're laid beneath the sod;
For we'll all be young again
When we meet around our God.
J.W.D.M.

[Scooter]

CHAPTER XXII — THE FIRE
Now, Fortune, do thy worst! For many years,
Thou, with relentless and unsparing hand,
Hast sternly pour'd on our devoted heads
The poison'd phials of thy fiercest wrath.
The early part of the winter of 1837, a year never to be forgotten in the annals of Canadian history, was very severe. During the month of February, the thermometer often ranged from eighteen to twenty-seven degrees below zero. Speaking of the coldness of one particular day, a genuine brother Jonathan remarked, with charming simplicity, that it was thirty degrees below zero that morning, and it would have been much colder if the thermometer had been longer.

The morning of the seventh was so intensely cold that everything liquid froze in the house. The wood that had been drawn for the fire was green, and it ignited too slowly to satisfy the shivering impatience of women and children; I vented mine in audibly grumbling over the wretched fire, at which I in vain endeavoured to thaw frozen bread, and to dress crying children.

It so happened that an old friend, the maiden lady before alluded to, had been staying with us for a few days. She had left us for a visit to my sister, and as some relatives of hers were about to return to Britain by the way of New York, and had offered to convey letters to friends at home, I had been busy all the day before preparing a packet for England.

It was my intention to walk to my sister's with this packet, directly the important affair of breakfast had been discussed; but the extreme cold of the morning had occasioned such delay that it was late before the breakfast-things were cleared away.

After dressing, I found the air so keen that I could not venture out without some risk to my nose, and my husband kindly volunteered to go in my stead.

I had hired a young Irish girl the day before. Her friends were only just located in our vicinity, and she had never seen a stove until she came to our house. After Moodie left, I suffered the fire to die away in the Franklin stove in the parlour, and went into the kitchen to prepare bread for the oven.

The girl, who was a good-natured creature, had heard me complain bitterly of the cold, and the impossibility of getting the green wood to burn, and she thought that she would see if she could not make a good fire for me and the children, against my work was done. Without saying one word about her intention, she slipped out through a door that opened from the parlour into the garden, ran round to the wood-yard, filled her lap with cedar chips, and, not knowing the nature of the stove, filled it entirely with the light wood.

Before I had the least idea of my danger, I was aroused from the completion of my task by the crackling and roaring of a large fire, and a suffocating smell of burning soot. I looked up at the kitchen cooking-stove. All was right there. I knew I had left no fire in the parlour stove; but not being able to account for the smoke and the smell of buring, I opened the door, and to my dismay found the stove red hot, from the front plate to the topmost pipe that let out the smoke through the roof.

My first impulse was to plunge a blanket, snatched from the servant's bed, which stood in the kitchen, into cold water. This I thrust into the stove, and upon it threw cold water, until all was cool below. I then ran up to the loft, and by exhausting all the water in the house, even to that contained in the boilers upon the fire, contrived to cool down the pipes which passed through the loft. I then sent the girl out of doors to look at the roof, which, as a very deep fall of snow had taken place the day before, I hoped would be completely covered, and safe from all danger of fire.

She quickly returned, stamping and tearing her hair, and making a variety of uncouth outcries, from which I gathered that the roof was in flames.

This was terrible news, with my husband absent, no man in the house, and a mile and a quarter from any other habitation. I ran out to ascertain the extent of the misfortune, and found a large fire burning in the roof between the two stove pipes. The heat of the fires had melted off all the snow, and a spark from the burning pipe had already ignited the shingles. A ladder, which for several months had stood against the house, had been moved two days before to the barn, which was at the top of the hill, near the road; there was no reaching the fire through that source. I got out the dining-table, and tried to throw water upon the roof by standing on a chair placed upon it, but I only expended the little water that remained in the boiler, without reaching the fire. The girl still continued weeping and lamenting.

“You must go for help,” I said. “Run as fast as you can to my sister's, and fetch your master.”

“And lave you, ma'arm, and the childher alone wid the burnin' house?”

“Yes, yes! Don't stay one moment.”

“I have no shoes, ma'arm, and the snow is so deep.”

“Put on your master's boots; make haste, or we shall be lost before help comes.”

The girl put on the boots and started, shrieking “Fire!” the whole way. This was utterly useless, and only impeded her progress by exhausting her strength. After she had vanished from the head of the clearing into the wood, and I was left quite alone, with the house burning over my head, I paused one moment to reflect what had best be done.

The house was built of cedar logs; in all probability it would be consumed before any help could arrive. There was a brisk breeze blowing up from the frozen lake, and the thermometer stood at eighteen degrees below zero. We were placed between the two extremes of heat and cold, and there was as much danger to be apprehended from the one as the other. In the bewilderment of the moment, the direful extent of the calamity never struck me; we wanted but this to put the finishing stroke to our misfortunes, to be thrown naked, houseless, and penniless, upon the world. “What shall I save first?” was the thought just then uppermost in my mind. Bedding and clothing appeared the most essentially necessary, and without another moment's pause, I set to work with a right good will to drag all that I could from my burning home.

While little Agnes, Dunbar, and baby Donald filled the air with their cries, Katie, as if fully conscious of the importance of exertion, assisted me in carrying out sheets and blankets, and dragging trunks and boxes some way up the hill, to be out of the way of the burning brands when the roof should fall in.

How many anxious looks I gave to the head of the clearing as the fire increased, and the large pieces of burning pine began to fall through the boarded ceiling, about the lower rooms where we were at work. The children I had kept under a large dresser in the kitchen, but it now appeared absolutely necessary to remove them to a place of safety. To expose the young, tender things to the direful cold was almost as bad as leaving them to the mercy of the fire. At last I hit upon a plan to keep them from freezing. I emptied all the clothes out of a large, deep chest of drawers, and dragged the empty drawers up the hill; these I lined with blankets, and placed a child in each drawer, covering it well over with the bedding, giving to little Agnes the charge of the baby to hold between her knees, and keep well covered until help should arrive. Ah, how long it seemed coming!

The roof was now burning like a brush-heap, and, unconsciously, the child and I were working under a shelf, upon which were deposited several pounds of gunpowder which had been procured for blasting a well, as all our water had to be brought up hill from the lake. This gunpowder was in a stone jar, secured by a paper stopper; the shelf upon which it stood was on fire, but it was utterly forgotten by me at the time; and even afterwards, when my husband was working on the burning loft over it.

I found that I should not be able to take many more trips for goods. As I passed out of the parlour for the last time, Katie looked up at her father's flute, which was suspended upon two brackets, and said—

“Oh, dear mamma! do save papa's flute; he will be so sorry to lose it.”

God bless the dear child for the thought! the flute was saved; and, as I succeeded in dragging out a heavy chest of cloths, and looked up once more despairingly to the road, I saw a man running at full speed. It was my husband. Help was at hand, and my heart uttered a deep thanksgiving as another and another figure came upon the scene.

I had not felt the intense cold, although without cap, or bonnet, or shawl; with my hands bare and exposed to the bitter, biting air. The intense excitement, the anxiety to save all I could, had so totally diverted my thoughts from myself, that I had felt nothing of the danger to which I had been exposed; but now that help was near, my knees trembled under me, I felt giddy and faint, and dark shadows seemed dancing before my eyes.

The moment my husband and brother-in-law entered the house, the latter exclaimed,

“Moodie, the house is gone; save what you can of your winter stores and furniture.”

Moodie thought differently. Prompt and energetic in danger, and possessing admirable presence of mind and coolness when others yield to agitation and despair, he sprang upon the burning loft and called for water. Alas, there was none!

“Snow, snow; hand me up pailsful of snow!”

Oh! it was bitter work filling those pails with frozen snow; but Mr. T—— and I worked at it as fast as we were able.

The violence of the fire was greatly checked by covering the boards of the loft with this snow. More help had now arrived. Young B—— and S—— had brought the ladder down with them from the barn, and were already cutting away the burning roof, and flinging the flaming brands into the deep snow.

“Mrs. Moodie, have you any pickled meat?”

“We have just killed one of our cows, and salted it for winter stores.”

“Well, then, fling the beef into the snow, and let us have the brine.”

This was an admirable plan. Wherever the brine wetted the shingles, the fire turned from it, and concentrated into one spot.

But I had not time to watch the brave workers on the roof. I was fast yielding to the effects of over-excitement and fatigue, when my brother's team dashed down the clearing, bringing my excellent old friend, Miss B——, and the servant-girl.

My brother sprang out, carried me back into the house, and wrapped me up in one of the large blankets scattered about. In a few minutes I was seated with the dear children in the sleigh, and on the way to a place of warmth and safety.

Katie alone suffered from the intense cold. The dear little creature's feet were severely frozen, but were fortunately restored by her uncle discovering the fact before she approached the fire, and rubbing them well with snow.

In the meanwhile, the friends we had left so actively employed at the house succeeded in getting the fire under before it had destroyed the walls. The only accident that occurred was to a poor dog, that Moodie had called Snarleyowe. He was struck by a burning brand thrown from the house, and crept under the barn and died.

Beyond the damage done to the building, the loss of our potatoes and two sacks of flour, we had escaped in a manner almost miraculous. This fact shows how much can be done by persons working in union, without bustle and confusion, or running in each other's way. Here were six men, who, without the aid of water, succeeded in saving a building, which, at first sight, almost all of them had deemed past hope. In after years, when entirely burnt out in a disastrous fire that consumed almost all we were worth in the world, some four hundred persons were present, with a fire-engine to second their endeavours, yet all was lost. Every person seemed in the way; and though the fire was discovered immediately after it took place, nothing was done beyond saving some of the furniture.

Our party was too large to be billetted upon one family. Mrs. T—— took compassion upon Moodie, myself, and the baby, while their uncle received the three children to his hospitable home.

It was some weeks before Moodie succeeded in repairing the roof, the intense cold preventing any one from working in such an exposed situation.

The news of our fire travelled far and wide. I was reported to have done prodigies, and to have saved the greater part of our household goods before help arrived. Reduced to plain prose, these prodigies shrink into the simple, and by no means marvellous fact, that during the excitement I dragged out chests which, under ordinary circumstances, I could not have moved; and that I was unconscious, both of the cold and the danger to which I was exposed while working under a burning roof, which, had it fallen, would have buried both the children and myself under its ruins.

These circumstances appeared far more alarming, as all real danger does, after they were past. The fright and over-exertion gave my health a shock from which I did not recover for several months, and made me so fearful of fire, that from that hour it haunts me like a nightmare. Let the night be ever so serene, all stoves must be shut up, and the hot embers covered with ashes, before I dare retire to rest; and the sight of a burning edifice, so common a spectacle in large towns in this country, makes me really ill. This feeling was greatly increased after a second fire, when, for some torturing minutes, a lovely boy, since drowned, was supposed to have perished in the burning house.

Our present fire led to a new train of circumstances, for it was the means of introducing to Moodie a young Irish gentleman, who was staying at my brother's house. John E—— was one of the best and gentlest of human beings. His father, a captain in the army, had died while his family were quite young, and had left his widow with scarcely any means beyond the pension she received at her husband's death, to bring up and educate a family of five children. A handsome, showy woman, Mrs. E—— soon married again; and the poor lads were thrown upon the world. The eldest, who had been educated for the Church, first came to Canada in the hope of getting some professorship in the college, or of opening a classical school. He was a handsome, gentlemanly, well-educated young man, but constitutionally indolent—a natural defect which seemed common to all the males of the family, and which was sufficiently indicated by their soft, silky, fair hair and milky complexions. R—— had the good sense to perceive that Canada was not the country for him. He spent a week under our roof, and we were much pleased with his elegant tastes and pursuits; but my husband strongly advised him to try and get a situation as a tutor in some family at home. This he afterwards obtained. He became tutor and travelling companion to the young Lord M——, and has since got an excellent living.

John, who had followed his brother to Canada without the means of transporting himself back again, was forced to remain, and was working with Mr. S—— for his board. He proposed to Moodie working his farm upon shares; and as we were unable to hire a man, Moodie gladly closed with his offer; and, during the time he remained with us, we had every reason to be pleased with the arrangement.

It was always a humiliating feeling to our proud minds, that hirelings should witness our dreadful struggle with poverty, and the strange shifts we were forced to make in order to obtain even food. But John E—— had known and experienced all that we had suffered, in his own person, and was willing to share our home with all its privations. Warm-hearted, sincere, and truly affectionate—a gentleman in word, thought, and deed—we found his society and cheerful help a great comfort. Our odd meals became a subject of merriment, and the peppermint and sage tea drank with a better flavour when we had one who sympathised in all our trials, and shared all our toils, to partake of it with us.

The whole family soon became attached to our young friend; and after the work of the day was over, greatly we enjoyed an hour's fishing on the lake. John E—— said that we had no right to murmur, as long as we had health, a happy home, and plenty of fresh fish, milk, and potatoes. Early in May, we received an old Irishwoman into our service, who for four years proved a most faithful and industrious creature. And what with John E—— to assist my husband on the farm, and old Jenny to help me to nurse the children, and manage the house, our affairs, if they were no better in a pecuniary point of view, at least presented a more pleasing aspect at home. We were always cheerful, and sometimes contented and even happy.

How great was the contrast between the character of our new inmate and that of Mr. Malcolm! The sufferings of the past year had been greatly increased by the intolerable nuisance of his company, while many additional debts had been contracted in order to obtain luxuries for him which we never dreamed of purchasing for ourselves. Instead of increasing my domestic toils, John did all in his power to lessen them; and it always grieved him to see me iron a shirt, or wash the least article of clothing for him. “You have too much to do already; I cannot bear to give you the least additional work,” he would say. And he generally expressed the greatest satisfaction at my method of managing the house, and preparing our simple fare. The little ones he treated with the most affectionate kindness, and gathered the whole flock about his knees the moment he came in to his meals.

On a wet day, when no work could be done abroad, Moodie took up his flute, or read aloud to us, while John and I sat down to work. The young emigrant, early cast upon the world and his own resources, was an excellent hand at the needle. He would make or mend a shirt with the greatest precision and neatness, and cut out and manufacture his canvas trousers and loose summer-coats with as much adroitness as the most experienced tailor; darn his socks, and mend his boots and shoes, and often volunteered to assist me in knitting the coarse yarn of the country into socks for the children, while he made them moccasins from the dressed deer-skins that we obtained from the Indians.

Scrupulously neat and clean in his person, the only thing which seemed to ruffle his calm temper was the dirty work of logging; he hated to come in from the field with his person and clothes begrimed with charcoal and smoke. Old Jenny used to laugh at him for not being able to eat his meals without first washing his hands and face.

“Och! my dear heart, yer too particular intirely; we've no time in the woods to be clane.” She would say to him, in answer to his request for soap and a towel, “An' is it soap yer a-wantin'? I tell yer that that same is not to the fore; bating the throuble of makin', it's little soap that the misthress can get to wash the clothes for us and the childher, widout yer wastin' it in makin' yer purty skin as white as a leddy's. Do, darlint, go down to the lake and wash there; that basin is big enough, any how.” And John would laugh, and go down to the lake to wash, in order to appease the wrath of the old woman. John had a great dislike to cats, and even regarded with an evil eye our old pet cat, Peppermint, who had taken a great fancy to share his bed and board.

“If I tolerate our own cat,” he would say, “I will not put up with such a nuisance as your friend Emilia sends us in the shape of her ugly Tom. Why, where in the world do you think I found that beast sleeping last night?”

I expressed my ignorance.

“In our potato-pot. Now, you will agree with me that potatoes dressed with cat's hair is not a very nice dish. The next time I catch Master Tom in the potato-pot, I will kill him.”

“John, you are not in earnest. Mrs. —— would never forgive any injury done to Tom, who is a great favourite.”

“Let her keep him at home, then. Think of the brute coming a mile through the woods to steal from us all he can find, and then sleeping off the effects of his depredations in the potato-pot.”

I could not help laughing, but I begged John by no means to annoy Emilia by hurting her cat.

The next day, while sitting in the parlour at work, I heard a dreadful squall, and rushed to the rescue. John was standing, with a flushed cheek, grasping a large stick in his hand, and Tom was lying dead at his feet.

“Oh, the poor cat!”

“Yes, I have killed him; but I am sorry for it now. What will Mrs. —— say?”

“She must not know it. I have told you the story of the pig that Jacob killed. You had better bury it with the pig.”

John was really sorry for having yielded, in a fit of passion, to do so cruel a thing; yet a few days after he got into a fresh scrape with Mrs. ——'s animals.

The hens were laying, up at the barn. John was very fond of fresh eggs, but some strange dog came daily and sucked the eggs. John had vowed to kill the first dog he found in the act. Mr. —— had a very fine bull-dog, which he valued very highly; but with Emilia, Chowder was an especial favourite. Bitterly had she bemoaned the fate of Tom, and many were the inquiries she made of us as to his sudden disappearance.

One afternoon John ran into the room. “My dear Mrs. Moodie, what is Mrs. ——'s dog like?”

“A large bull-dog, brindled black and white.”

“Then, by Jove, I've shot him!”

“John, John! you mean me to quarrel in earnest with my friend. How could you do it?”

“Why, how the deuce should I know her dog from another? I caught the big thief in the very act of devouring the eggs from under your sitting hen, and I shot him dead without another thought. But I will bury him, and she will never find it out a bit more than she did who killed the cat.”

Some time after this, Emilia returned from a visit at P——. The first thing she told me was the loss of the dog. She was so vexed at it, she had had him advertised, offering a reward for his recovery.

I, of course, was called upon to sympathise with her, which I did with a very bad grace. “I did not like the beast,” I said; “he was cross and fierce, and I was afraid to go up to her house while he was there.”

“Yes; but to lose him so. It is so provoking; and him such a valuable animal. I could not tell how deeply she felt the loss. She would give four dollars to find out who had stolen him.”

How near she came to making the grand discovery the sequel will show.

Instead of burying him with the murdered pig and cat, John had scratched a shallow grave in the garden, and concealed the dead brute.

After tea, Emilia requested to look at the garden; and I, perfectly unconscious that it contained the remains of the murdered Chowder, led the way. Mrs. —— whilst gathering a handful of fine green-peas, suddenly stooped, and looking earnestly at the ground, called to me—

“Come here, Susanna, and tell me what has been buried here. It looks like the tail of a dog.”

She might have added, “of my dog.” Murder, it seems, will out. By some strange chance, the grave that covered the mortal remains of Chowder had been disturbed, and the black tail of the dog was sticking out.

“What can it be?” said I, with an air of perfect innocence. “Shall I call Jenny, and dig it up?”

“Oh, no, my dear; it has a shocking smell, but it does look very much like Chowder's tail.”

“Impossible! How could it come among my peas?”

“True. Besides, I saw Chowder, with my own eyes, yesterday, following a team; and George C—— hopes to recover him for me.”

“Indeed! I am glad to hear it. How these mosquitoes sting. Shall we go back to the house?”

While we returned to the house, John, who had overheard the whole conversation, hastily disinterred the body of Chowder, and placed him in the same mysterious grave with Tom and the pig.

Moodie and his friend finished logging-up the eight acres which the former had cleared the previous winter; besides putting in a crop of peas and potatoes, and an acre of Indian corn, reserving the fallow for fall wheat, while we had the promise of a splendid crop of hay off the sixteen acres that had been cleared in 1834. We were all in high spirits and everything promised fair, until a very trifling circumstance again occasioned us much anxiety and trouble, and was the cause of our losing most of our crop.

Moodie was asked to attend a bee, which was called to construct a corduroy-bridge over a very bad piece of road. He and J. E—— were obliged to go that morning with wheat to the mill, but Moodie lent his yoke of oxen for the work.

The driver selected for them at the bee was the brutal M——y, a man noted for his ill-treatment of cattle, especially if the animals did not belong to him. He gave one of the oxen such a severe blow over the loins with a handspike that the creature came home perfectly disabled, just as we wanted his services in the hay-field and harvest.

Moodie had no money to purchase, or even to hire a mate for the other ox; but he and John hoped that by careful attendance upon the injured animal he might be restored to health in a few days. They conveyed him to a deserted clearing, a short distance from the farm, where he would be safe from injury from the rest of the cattle; and early every morning we went in the canoe to carry poor Duke a warm mash, and to watch the progress of his recovery.

Ah, ye who revel in this world's wealth, how little can you realise the importance which we, in our poverty, attached to the life of this valuable animal! Yes, it even became the subject of prayer, for the bread for ourselves and our little ones depended greatly upon his recovery. We were doomed to disappointment. After nursing him with the greatest attention and care for some weeks, the animal grew daily worse, and suffered such intense agony, as he lay groaning upon the ground, unable to rise, that John shot him to put him out of pain.

Here, then, were we left without oxen to draw in our hay, or secure our other crops. A neighbour, who had an odd ox, kindly lent us the use of him, when he was not employed on his own farm; and John and Moodie gave their own work for the occasional loan of a yoke of oxen for a day. But with all these drawbacks, and in spite of the assistance of old Jenny and myself in the field, a great deal of the produce was damaged before it could be secured. The whole summer we had to labour under this disadvantage. Our neighbours were all too busy to give us any help, and their own teams were employed in saving their crops. Fortunately, the few acres of wheat we had to reap were close to the barn, and we carried the sheaves thither by hand; old Jenny proving an invaluable help, both in the harvest and hay-field.

Still, with all these misfortunes, Providence watched over us in a signal manner. We were never left entirely without food. Like the widow's cruise of oil, our means, though small, were never suffered to cease entirely. We had been for some days without meat, when Moodie came running in for his gun. A great she-bear was in the wheat-field at the edge of the wood, very busily employed in helping to harvest the crop. There was but one bullet, and a charge or two of buckshot, in the house; but Moodie started to the wood with the single bullet in his gun, followed by a little terrier dog that belonged to John E——. Old Jenny was busy at the wash-tub, but the moment she saw her master running up the clearing, and knew the cause, she left her work, and snatching up the carving-knife, ran after him, that in case the bear should have the best of the fight, she would be there to help “the masther.” Finding her shoes incommode her, she flung them off, in order to run faster. A few minutes after, came the report of the gun, and I heard Moodie halloo to E——, who was cutting stakes for a fence in the wood. I hardly thought it possible that he could have killed the bear, but I ran to the door to listen. The children were all excitement, which the sight of the black monster, borne down the clearing upon two poles, increased to the wildest demonstrations of joy. Moodie and John were carrying the prize, and old Jenny, brandishing her carving-knife, followed in the rear.

The rest of the evening was spent in skinning, and cutting up, and salting the ugly creature, whose flesh filled a barrel with excellent meat, in flavour resembling beef, while the short grain and juicy nature of the flesh gave to it the tenderness of mutton. This was quite a Godsend, and lasted us until we were able to kill two large, fat hogs, in the fall.

A few nights after, Moodie and I encountered the mate of Mrs. Bruin, while returning from a visit to Emilia, in the very depth of the wood.

We had been invited to meet our friend's father and mother, who had come up on a short visit to the woods; and the evening passed away so pleasantly that it was near midnight before the little party of friends separated. The moon was down. The wood, through which we had to return, was very dark; the ground being low and swampy, and the trees thick and tall. There was, in particular, one very ugly spot, where a small creek crossed the road. This creek could only be passed by foot-passengers scrambling over a fallen tree, which, in a dark night, was not very easy to find.

I begged a torch of Mr. ——; but no torch could be found. Emilia laughed at my fears; still, knowing what a coward I was in the bush of a night, she found up about an inch of candle, which was all that remained from the evening's entertainment. This she put into an old lanthorn.

“It will not last you long; but it will carry you over the creek.”

This was something gained, and off we set.

It was so dark in the bush, that our dim candle looked like a solitary red spark in the intense surrounding darkness, and scarcely served to show us the path.

We went chatting along, talking over the news of the evening, Hector running on before us, when I saw a pair of eyes glare upon us from the edge of the swamp, with the green, bright light emitted by the eyes of a cat.

“Did you see those terrible eyes, Moodie?” and I clung, trembling, to his arm.

“What eyes?” said he, feigning ignorance. “It's too dark to see anything. The light is nearly gone, and, if you don't quicken your pace, and cross the tree before it goes out, you will, perhaps, get your feet wet by falling into the creek.”

“Good Heavens! I saw them again; and do just look at the dog.”

Hector stopped suddenly, and, stretching himself along the ground, his nose resting between his forepaws, began to whine and tremble. Presently he ran back to us, and crept under our feet. The cracking of branches, and the heavy tread of some large animal, sounded close beside us.

Moodie turned the open lanthorn in the direction from whence the sounds came, and shouted as loud as he could, at the same time endeavouring to urge forward the fear-stricken dog, whose cowardice was only equalled by my own.

Just at that critical moment the wick of the candle flickered a moment in the socket, and expired. We were left, in perfect darkness, alone with the bear—for such we supposed the animal to be.

My heart beat audibly; a cold perspiration was streaming down my face, but I neither shrieked nor attempted to run. I don't know how Moodie got me over the creek. One of my feet slipped into the water, but, expecting, as I did every moment, to be devoured by master Bruin, that was a thing of no consequence. My husband was laughing at my fears, and every now and then he turned towards our companion, who continued following us at no great distance, and gave him an encouraging shout. Glad enough was I when I saw the gleam of the light from our little cabin window shine out among the trees; and, the moment I got within the clearing I ran, without stopping until I was safely within the house. John was sitting up for us, nursing Donald. He listened with great interest to our adventure with the bear, and thought that Bruin was very good to let us escape without one affectionate hug.

“Perhaps it would have been otherwise had he known, Moodie, that you had not only killed his good lady, but were dining sumptuously off her carcass every day.”

The bear was determined to have something in return for the loss of his wife. Several nights after this, our slumbers were disturbed, about midnight, by an awful yell, and old Jenny shook violently at our chamber door.

“Masther, masther, dear! Get up wid you this moment, or the bear will desthroy the cattle intirely.”

Half asleep, Moodie sprang from his bed, seized his gun, and ran out. I threw my large cloak round me, struck a light, and followed him to the door. The moment the latter was unclosed, some calves that we were rearing rushed into the kitchen, closely followed by the larger beasts, who came bellowing headlong down the hill, pursued by the bear.

It was a laughable scene, as shown by that paltry tallow-candle. Moodie, in his night-shirt, taking aim at something in the darkness, surrounded by the terrified animals; old Jenny, with a large knife in her hand, holding on to the white skirts of her master's garment, making outcry loud enough to frighten away all the wild beasts in the bush—herself almost in a state of nudity.

“Och, masther, dear! don't timpt the ill-conditioned crathur wid charging too near; think of the wife and the childher. Let me come at the rampaging baste, an' I'll stick the knife into the heart of him.”

Moodie fired. The bear retreated up the clearing, with a low growl. Moodie and Jenny pursued him some way, but it was too dark to discern any object at a distance. I, for my part, stood at the open door, laughing until the tears ran down my cheeks, at the glaring eyes of the oxen, their ears erect, and their tails carried gracefully on a level with their backs, as they stared at me and the light, in blank astonishment. The noise of the gun had just roused John E—— from his slumbers. He was no less amused than myself, until he saw that a fine yearling heifer was bleeding, and found, upon examination, that the poor animal, having been in the claws of the bear, was dangerously, if not mortally hurt.

“I hope,” he cried, “that the brute has not touched my foal!” I pointed to the black face of the filly peeping over the back of an elderly cow.

“You see, John, that Bruin preferred veal; there's your 'horsey,' as Dunbar calls her, safe, and laughing at you.”

Moodie and Jenny now returned from the pursuit of the bear. E—— fastened all the cattle into the back yard, close to the house. By daylight he and Moodie had started in chase of Bruin, whom they tracked by his blood some way into the bush; but here he entirely escaped their search.

THE BEARS OF CANADA
Oh! bear me from this savage land of bears,
For 'tis indeed unbearable to me:
I'd rather cope with vilest worldly cares,
Or writhe with cruel sickness of the sea.
Oh! bear me to my own bear land of hills,(1)
Where I'd be sure brave bear-legg'd lads to see—
bear cakes, bear rocks, and whiskey stills,
And bear-legg'd nymphs, to smile once more on me.

I'd bear the heat, I'd bear the freezing air
Of equatorial realm or Arctic sea,
I'd sit all bear at night, and watch the Northern bear,
And bless my soul that he was far from me.
I'd bear the poor-rates, tithes, and all the ills
John Bull must bear, (who takes them all, poor sinner!
As patients do, when forced to gulp down pills,
And water-gruel drink in lieu of dinner).

I'd bear the bareness of all barren lands
Before I'd bear the bearishness of this;
bear head, bear feet, bear legs, bear hands,
bear everything, but want of social bliss.
But should I die in this drear land of bears,
Oh! ship me off, my friends, discharge the sable wearers,
For if you don't, in spite of priests and prayers,
The bear will come, and eat up corpse and bearers.
J.W.D.M.
(1) The Orkney Isles.

[Scooter]

CHAPTER XXIII — THE OUTBREAK
Can a corrupted stream pour through the land
Health-giving waters? Can the slave, who lures
His wretched followers with the hope of gain,
Feel in his bosom the immortal fire
That bound a Wallace to his country's cause,
And bade the Thracian shepherd cast away
Rome's galling yoke; while the astonish'd world—
Rapt into admiration at the deed—
Paus'd, ere she crush'd, with overwhelming force,
The man who fought to win a glorious grave?
The long-protracted harvest was at length brought to a close. Moodie had procured another ox from Dummer, by giving a note at six months date for the payment; and he and John E—— were in the middle of sowing their fall crop of wheat, when the latter received a letter from the old country, which conveyed to him intelligence of the death of his mother, and of a legacy of two hundred pounds. It was necessary for him to return to claim the property, and though we felt his loss severely, we could not, without great selfishness, urge him to stay. John had formed an attachment to a young lady in the country, who, like himself, possessed no property. Their engagement, which had existed several years, had been dropped, from its utter hopelessness, by mutual consent. Still the young people continued to love each other, and to look forward to better days, when their prospects might improve so far that E—— would be able to purchase a bush farm, and raise a house, however lowly, to shelter his Mary.

He, like our friend Malcolm, had taken a fancy to buy a part of our block of land, which he could cultivate in partnership with Moodie, without being obliged to hire, when the same barn, cattle, and implements would serve for both. Anxious to free himself from the thraldom of debts which pressed him sore, Moodie offered to part with two hundred acres at less than they cost us, and the bargain was to be considered as concluded directly the money was forthcoming.

It was a sorrowful day when our young friend left us; he had been a constant inmate in the house for nine months, and not one unpleasant word had ever passed between us. He had rendered our sojourn in the woods more tolerable by his society, and sweetened our bitter lot by his friendship and sympathy. We both regarded him as a brother, and parted with him with sincere regret. As to old Jenny, she lifted up her voice and wept, consigning him to the care and protection of all the saints in the Irish calendar.

For several days after John left us, a deep gloom pervaded the house. Our daily toil was performed with less cheerfulness and alacrity; we missed him at the evening board, and at the evening fire; and the children asked each day, with increasing earnestness, when dear E—— would return.

Moodie continued sowing his fall wheat. The task was nearly completed, and the chill October days were fast verging upon winter, when towards the evening of one of them he contrived—I know not how—to crawl down from the field at the head of the hill, faint and pale, and in great pain. He had broken the small bone of his leg. In dragging, among the stumps, the heavy machine (which is made in the form of the letter V, and is supplied with large iron teeth), had hitched upon a stump, and being swung off again by the motion of the oxen, had come with great force against his leg. At first he was struck down, and for some time was unable to rise; but at length he contrived to unyoke the team, and crawled partly on his hands and knees down the clearing.

What a sad, melancholy evening that was! Fortune seemed never tired of playing us some ugly trick. The hope which had so long sustained me seemed about to desert me altogether; when I saw him on whom we all depended for subsistence, and whose kindly voice ever cheered us under the pressure of calamity, smitten down helpless, all my courage and faith in the goodness of the Divine Father seemed to forsake me, and I wept long and bitterly.

The next morning I went in search of a messenger to send to Peterborough for the doctor; but though I found and sent the messenger, the doctor never came. Perhaps he did not like to incur the expense of a fatiguing journey with small chance of obtaining a sufficient remuneration.

Our dear sufferer contrived, with assistance, to bandage his leg; and after the first week of rest had expired, he amused himself with making a pair of crutches, and in manufacturing Indian paddles for the canoe, axe-handles, and yokes for the oxen. It was wonderful with what serenity he bore this unexpected affliction.

Buried in the obscurity of those woods, we knew nothing, heard nothing of the political state of the country, and were little aware of the revolution which was about to work a great change for us and for Canada.

The weather continued remarkably mild. The first great snow, which for years had ordinarily fallen between the 10th and 15th of November, still kept off. November passed on, and as all our firewood had to be chopped by old Jenny during the lameness of my husband, I was truly grateful to God for the continued mildness of the weather.

On the 4th of December—that great day of the outbreak—Moodie was determined to take advantage of the open state of the lake to carry a large grist up to Y——'s mill. I urged upon him the danger of a man attempting to manage a canoe in rapid water, who was unable to stand without crutches; but Moodie saw that the children would need bread, and he was anxious to make the experiment.

Finding that I could not induce him to give up the journey, I determined to go with him. Old Wittals, who happened to come down that morning, assisted in placing the bags of wheat in the little vessel, and helped to place Moodie at the stern. With a sad, foreboding spirit I assisted to push off from the shore.

The air was raw and cold, but our sail was not without its pleasure.

The lake was very full from the heavy rains, and the canoe bounded over the waves with a free, springy motion. A slight frost had hung every little bush and spray along the shores with sparkling crystals. The red pigeon-berries, shining through their coating of ice, looked like cornelian beads set in silver, and strung from bush to bush. We found the rapids at the entrance of Bessikakoon Lake very hard to stem, and were so often carried back by the force of the water, that, cold as the air was, the great exertion which Moodie had to make use of to obtain the desired object brought the perspiration out in big drops upon his forehead. His long confinement to the house and low diet had rendered him very weak.

The old miller received us in the most hearty and hospitable manner; and complimented me upon my courage in venturing upon the water in such cold, rough weather. Norah was married, but the kind Betty provided us an excellent dinner, while we waited for the grist to be ground.

It was near four o'clock when we started on our return. If there had been danger in going up the stream, there was more in coming down. The wind had changed, the air was frosty, keen, and biting, and Moodie's paddle came up from every dip into the water loaded with ice. For my part, I had only to sit still at the bottom of the canoe, as we floated rapidly down with wind and tide. At the landing we were met by old Jenny, who had a long story to tell us, of which we could make neither head nor tail—how some gentleman had called during our absence, and left a large paper, all about the Queen and the Yankees; that there was war between Canada and the States; that Toronto had been burnt, and the governor killed, and I know not what other strange and monstrous statements. After much fatigue, Moodie climbed the hill, and we were once more safe by our own fireside. Here we found the elucidation of Jenny's marvelous tales: a copy of the Queen's proclamation, calling upon all loyal gentlemen to join in putting down the unnatural rebellion.

A letter from my sister explained the nature of the outbreak, and the astonishment with which the news had been received by all the settlers in the bush. My brother and my sister's husband had already gone off to join some of the numerous bands of gentlemen who were collecting from all quarters to march to the aid of Toronto, which it was said was besieged by the rebel force. She advised me not to suffer Moodie to leave home in his present weak state; but the spirit of my husband was aroused, he instantly obeyed what he considered the imperative call of duty, and told me to prepare him a few necessaries, that he might be ready to start early in the morning.

Little sleep visited our eyes that night. We talked over the strange news for hours; our coming separation, and the probability that if things were as bad as they appeared to be, we might never meet again. Our affairs were in such a desperate condition that Moodie anticipated that any change must be for the better; it was impossible for them to be worse. But the poor, anxious wife thought only of a parting which to her put a finishing stroke to all her misfortunes.

Before the cold, snowy morning broke, we were all stirring. The children, who had learned that their father was preparing to leave them, were crying and clinging round his knees. His heart was too deeply affected to eat; the meal passed over in silence, and he rose to go. I put on my hat and shawl to accompany him through the wood as far as my sister Mrs. T——'s. The day was like our destiny, cold, dark, and lowering. I gave the dear invalid his crutches, and we commenced our sorrowful walk. Then old Jenny's lamentations burst forth, as, flinging her arms round my husband's neck, she kissed and blessed him after the fashion of her country.

“Och hone! Och hone!” she cried, wringing her hands, “masther dear, why will you lave the wife and the childher? The poor crathur is breakin' her heart intirely at partin' wid you. Shure an' the war is nothin' to you, that you must be goin' into danger; an' you wid a broken leg. Och hone! Och hone! Come back to your home—you will be kilt, and thin what will become of the wife and the wee bairns?”

Her cries and lamentations followed us into the wood. At my sister's, Moodie and I parted; and with a heavy heart I retraced my steps through the wood. For once, I forgot all my fears. I never felt the cold. Sad tears were flowing over my cheeks; when I entered the house, hope seemed to have deserted me, and for upwards of an hour I lay upon the bed and wept.

Poor Jenny did her best to comfort me, but all joy had vanished with him who was my light of life.

Left in the most absolute uncertainty as to the real state of public affairs, I could only conjecture what might be the result of this sudden outbreak. Several poor settlers called at the house during the day, on their way down to Peterborough, but they brought with them the most exaggerated accounts. There had been a battle, they said, with the rebels, and the loyalists had been defeated; Toronto was besieged by sixty thousand men, and all the men in the backwoods were ordered to march instantly to the relief of the city.

In the evening, I received a note from Emilia, who was at Peterborough, in which she informed me that my husband had borrowed a horse of Mr. S——, and had joined a large party of two hundred volunteers, who had left that morning for Toronto; that there had been a battle with the insurgents; that Colonel Moodie had been killed, and the rebels had retreated; and that she hoped my husband would return in a few days.

The honest backwoodsman, perfectly ignorant of the abuses that had led to the present position of things, regarded the rebels as a set of monsters, for whom no punishment was too severe, and obeyed the call to arms with enthusiasm. The leader of the insurgents must have been astonished at the rapidity with which a large force was collected, as if by magic, to repel his designs. A great number of these volunteers were half-pay officers, many of whom had fought in the continental wars with the armies of Napoleon, and would have been found a host in themselves. I must own that my British spirit was fairly aroused, and as I could not aid in subduing the enemies of my beloved country with my arm, I did what little I could to serve the good cause with my pen. It may probably amuse my readers, to give them a few specimens of these loyal staves, which were widely circulated through the colony at the time.

AN ADDRESS TO THE FREEMEN OF CANADA
Canadians! will you join the band—
The factious band—who dare oppose
The regal power of that bless'd land
From whence your boasted freedom flows?
Brave children of a noble race,
Guard well the altar and the hearth;
And never by your deeds disgrace
The British sires who gave you birth.

What though your bones may never lie
Beneath dear Albion's hallow'd sod,
Spurn the base wretch who dare defy,
In arms, his country and his God!
Whose callous bosom cannot feel
That he who acts a traitor's part,
Remorselessly uplifts the steel
To plunge it in a parent's heart.

Canadians! will you see the flag,
Beneath whose folds your fathers bled,
Supplanted by the vilest rag(1)
That ever host to rapine led?
Thou emblem of a tyrant's sway,
Thy triple hues are dyed in gore;
Like his, thy power has pass'd away—
Like his, thy short-lived triumph's o'er.

Ay! Let the trampled despot's fate
Forewarn the rash, misguided band
To sue for mercy, ere too late,
Nor scatter ruin o'er the land.
The baffled traitor, doomed to bear
A people's hate, his colleagues' scorn,
Defeated by his own despair,
Will curse the hour that he was born!

By all the blood for Britain shed
On many a glorious battle-field,
To the free winds her standard spread,
Nor to these base insurgents yield.
With loyal bosoms beating high,
In your good cause securely trust;
“God and Victoria!” be your cry,
And crush the traitors to the dust.
(1) The tri-coloured flag assumed by the rebels.

This outpouring of a national enthusiasm, which I found it impossible to restrain, was followed by

THE OATH OF THE CANADIAN VOLUNTEERS
Huzza for England!—May she claim
Our fond devotion ever;
And, by the glory of her name,
Our brave forefathers' honest fame,
We swear—no foe shall sever
Her children from their parent's side;
Though parted by the wave,
In weal or woe, whate'er betide,
We swear to die, or save
Her honour from the rebel band
Whose crimes pollute our injured land!

Let the foe come—we will not shrink
To meet them if they dare;
Well must they fight, ere rashly think
To rend apart one sacred link
That binds our country fair
To that dear isle, from whence we sprung;
Which gave our fathers birth;
Whose glorious deeds her bards have sung;
The unrivall'd of the earth.
The highest privilege we claim,
To own her sway—to bear her name.

Then, courage, loyal volunteers!
God will defend the right;
That thought will banish slavish fears,
That blessed consciousness still cheers
The soldier in the fight.
The stars for us shall never burn,
The stripes may frighten slaves,
The Briton's eye will proudly turn
Where Britain's standard waves.
Beneath its folds, if Heaven requires,
We'll die, as died of old our sires!
In a week, Moodie returned. So many volunteers had poured into Toronto that the number of friends was likely to prove as disastrous as that of enemies, on account of the want of supplies to maintain them all. The companies from the back townships had been remanded, and I received with delight my own again. But this re-union did not last long. Several regiments of militia were formed to defend the colony, and to my husband was given the rank of captain in one of those then stationed in Toronto.

On the 20th of January, 1838, he bade us a long adieu. I was left with old Jenny and the children to take care of the farm. It was a sad, dull time. I could bear up against all trials with him to comfort and cheer me, but his long-continued absence cast a gloom upon my spirit not easily to be shaken off. Still his very appointment to this situation was a signal act of mercy. From his full pay, he was enabled to liquidate many pressing debts, and to send home from time to time sums of money to procure necessaries for me and the little ones. These remittances were greatly wanted; but I demurred before laying them out for comforts which we had been so long used to dispense with. It seemed almost criminal to purchase any article of luxury, such as tea or sugar, while a debt remained unpaid.

The Y——y's were very pressing for the thirty pounds that we owed them for the clearing; but they had such a firm reliance upon the honour of my husband, that, poor and pressed for money as they were, they never sued us. I thought it would be a pleasing surprise to Moodie, if, with the sums of money which I occasionally received from him, I could diminish this debt, which had always given him the greatest uneasiness; and, my resolution once formed, I would not allow any temptation to shake it.

The money was always transmitted to Dummer. I only reserved the sum of two dollars a month, to pay a little lad to chop wood for us. After a time, I began to think the Y——y's were gifted with secondsight; for I never received a money-letter, but the very next day I was sure to see some of the family.

Just at this period I received a letter from a gentleman, requesting me to write for a magazine (the Literary Garland) just started in Montreal, with promise to remunerate me for my labours. Such an application was like a gleam of light springing up in the darkness; it seemed to promise the dawning of a brighter day. I had never been able to turn my thoughts towards literature during my sojourn in the bush. When the body is fatigued with labour, unwonted and beyond its strength, the mind is in no condition for mental occupation.

The year before, I had been requested by an American author, of great merit, to contribute to the North American Review, published for several years in Philadelphia; and he promised to remunerate me in proportion to the success of the work. I had contrived to write several articles after the children were asleep, though the expense even of the stationery and the postage of the manuscripts was severely felt by one so destitute of means; but the hope of being of the least service to those dear to me cheered me to the task. I never realised anything from that source; but I believe it was not the fault of the editor. Several other American editors had written to me to furnish them with articles; but I was unable to pay the postage of heavy packets to the States, and they could not reach their destination without being paid to the frontier. Thus, all chance of making anything in that way had been abandoned. I wrote to Mr. L——, and frankly informed him how I was situated. In the most liberal manner, he offered to pay the postage on all manuscripts to his office, and left me to name my own terms of remuneration. This opened up a new era in my existence; and for many years I have found in this generous man, to whom I am still personally unknown, a steady friend. I actually shed tears of joy over the first twenty-dollar bill I received from Montreal. It was my own; I had earned it with my own hand; and it seemed to my delighted fancy to form the nucleus out of which a future independence for my family might arise. I no longer retired to bed when the labours of the day were over. I sat up, and wrote by the light of a strange sort of candles, that Jenny called “sluts,” and which the old woman manufactured out of pieces of old rags, twisted together and dipped in pork lard, and stuck in a bottle. They did not give a bad light, but it took a great many of them to last me for a few hours.

The faithful old creature regarded my writings with a jealous eye. “An', shure, it's killin' yerself that you are intirely. You were thin enough before you took to the pen; scribblin' an' scrabblin' when you should be in bed an' asleep. What good will it be to the childhren, dear heart! If you die afore your time, by wastin' your strength afther that fashion?”

Jenny never could conceive the use of books. “Sure, we can live and die widout them. It's only a waste of time botherin' your brains wid the like of them; but, thanks goodness! the lard will soon be all done, an' thin we shall hear you spakin' again, instead of sittin' there doubled up all night, desthroying your eyes wid porin' over the dirthy writin'.”

As the sugar-making season drew near, Jenny conceived the bold thought of making a good lump of sugar, that the “childher” might have something to “ate” with their bread during the summer. We had no sugar-kettle, but a neighbour promised to lend us his, and to give us twenty-eight troughs, on condition that we gave him half the sugar we made. These terms were rather hard, but Jenny was so anxious to fulfil the darling object that we consented. Little Sol. and the old woman made some fifty troughs more, the trees were duly tapped, a shanty in the bush was erected of small logs and brush and covered in at the top with straw; and the old woman and Solomon, the hired boy, commenced operations.

The very first day, a terrible accident happened to us; a large log fell upon the sugar-kettle—the borrowed sugar-kettle—and cracked it, spilling all the sap, and rendering the vessel, which had cost four dollars, useless. We were all in dismay. Just at that time Old Wittals happened to pass, on his way to Peterborough. He very good-naturedly offered to get the kettle repaired for us; which, he said, could be easily done by a rivet and an iron hoop. But where was the money to come from? I thought awhile. Katie had a magnificent coral and bells, the gift of her godfather; I asked the dear child if she would give it to buy another kettle for Mr. T——. She said, “I would give ten times as much to help mamma.”

I wrote a little note to Emilia, who was still at her father's; and Mr. W——, the storekeeper, sent us a fine sugar-kettle back by Wittals, and also the other mended, in exchange for the useless piece of finery. We had now two kettles at work, to the joy of Jenny, who declared that it was a lucky fairy who had broken the old kettle.

While Jenny was engaged in boiling and gathering the sap in the bush, I sugared off the syrup in the house; an operation watched by the children with intense interest. After standing all day over the hot stove-fire, it was quite a refreshment to breathe the pure air at night. Every evening I ran up to see Jenny in the bush, singing and boiling down the sap in the front of her little shanty. The old woman was in her element, and afraid of nothing under the stars; she slept beside her kettles at night, and snapped her fingers at the idea of the least danger. She was sometimes rather despotic in her treatment of her attendant, Sol. One morning, in particular, she bestowed upon the lad a severe cuffing.

I ran up the clearing to the rescue, when my ears were assailed by the “boo-hooing” of the boy.

“What has happened? Why do you beat the child, Jenny?”

“It's jist, thin, I that will bate him—the unlucky omadhawn! Has not he spilt and spiled two buckets of syrup, that I have been the live-long night bilin'. Sorra wid him; I'd like to strip the skin off him, I would! Musha! but 'tis enough to vex a saint.”

“Ah, Jenny!” blubbered the poor boy, “but you have no mercy. You forget that I have but one eye, and that I could not see the root which caught my foot and threw me down.”

“Faix! an' 'tis a pity that you have the one eye, when you don't know how to make a betther use of it,” muttered the angry dame, as she picked up the pails, and, pushing him on before her, beat a retreat into the bush.

I was heartily sick of the sugar-making, long before the season was over; however, we were well paid for our trouble. Besides one hundred and twelve pounds of fine soft sugar, as good as Muscovado, we had six gallons of molasses, and a keg containing six gallons of excellent vinegar.

Fifty pounds went to Mr. T——, for the use of his kettle; and the rest (with the exception of a cake for Emilia, which I had drained in a wet flannel bag until it was almost as white as loaf sugar), we kept for our own use. There was no lack, this year, of nice preserves and pickled cucumbers, dainties found in every native Canadian establishment.

Besides gaining a little money with my pen, I practised a method of painting birds and butterflies upon the white, velvety surface of the large fungi that grow plentifully upon the bark of the sugar-maple. These had an attractive appearance; and my brother, who was a captain in one of the provisional regiments, sold a great many of them among the officers, without saying by whom they were painted. One rich lady in Peterborough, long since dead, ordered two dozen to send as curiosities to England. These, at one shilling each, enabled me to buy shoes for the children, who, during our bad times, had been forced to dispense with these necessary coverings. How often, during the winter season, have I wept over their little chapped feet, literally washing them with my tears! But these days were to end; Providence was doing great things for us; and Hope raised at last her drooping head to regard with a brighter glance the far-off future.

Slowly the winter rolled away; but he to whom every thought turned was still distant from his humble home. The receipt of an occasional letter from him was my only solace during his long absence, and we were still too poor to indulge often in this luxury. My poor Katie was as anxious as her mother to hear from her father; and when I did get the long-looked-for prize, she would kneel down before me, her little elbows resting on my knees, her head thrown back, and tears trickling down her innocent cheeks, eagerly drinking in every word.

The spring brought us plenty of work; we had potatoes and corn to plant, and the garden to cultivate. By lending my oxen for two days' work, I got Wittals, who had no oxen, to drag me in a few acres of oats, and to prepare the land for potatoes and corn. The former I dropped into the earth, while Jenny covered them up with the hoe.

Our garden was well dug and plentifully manured, the old woman bringing the manure, which had lain for several years at the barn door, down to the plot, in a large Indian basket placed upon a hand-sleigh. We had soon every sort of vegetable sown, with plenty of melons and cucumbers, and all our beds promised a good return. There were large flights of ducks upon the lake every night and morning; but though we had guns, we did not know how to use them. However, I thought of a plan, which I flattered myself might prove successful; I got Sol to plant two stakes in the shallow water, near the rice beds, and to these I attached a slender rope made by braiding long strips of the inner bark of the basswood together; to these again I fastened, at regular intervals, about a quarter of a yard of whipcord, headed by a strong perch-hook. These hooks I baited with fish offal, leaving them to float just under the water. Early next morning, I saw a fine black duck fluttering upon the line. The boy ran down with the paddles, but before he could reach the spot, the captive got away by carrying the hook and line with him. At the next stake he found upon the hooks a large eel and a cat-fish.

I had never before seen one of those whiskered, toad-like natives of the Canadian waters (so common to the Bay of Quinte, where they grow to a great size), that I was really terrified at the sight of the hideous beast, and told Sol to throw it away. In this I was very foolish, for they are esteemed good eating in many parts of Canada; but to me, the sight of the reptile-like thing is enough—it is uglier, and far more disgusting-looking than a toad.

When the trees came into leaf, and the meadows were green and flushed with flowers, the poor children used to talk constantly to me of their father's return; their innocent prattle made me very sad. Every evening we walked into the wood, along the path that he must come whenever he did return home, to meet him, and though it was a vain hope, and the walk was taken just to amuse the little ones, I used to be silly enough to feel deeply disappointed when we returned alone. Donald, who was a mere baby when his father left us, could just begin to put words together. “Who is papa?” “When will he come?” “Will he come by the road?” “Will he come in a canoe?” The little creature's curiosity to see this unknown father was really amusing; and oh! how I longed to present the little fellow, with his rosy cheeks and curling hair, to his father; he was so fair, so altogether charming in my eyes. Emilia had called him Cedric the Saxon; and he well suited the name, with his frank, honest disposition, and large, loving blue eyes.

June had commenced; the weather was very warm, and Mr. T—— had sent for the loan of old Jenny to help him for a day with his potatoes. I had just prepared dinner when the old woman came shrieking like a mad thing down the clearing, and waving her hands towards me. I could not imagine what had happened.

“Ninny's mad!” whispered Dunbar; “she's the old girl for making a noise.”

“Joy! Joy!” bawled out the old woman, now running breathlessly toward us. “The masther's come—the masther's come!”

“Where?—where?”

“Jist above in the wood. Goodness gracious! I have run to let you know—so fast—that my heart—is like to—break.”

Without stopping to comfort poor Jenny, off started the children and myself, at the very top of our speed; but I soon found that I could not run—I was too much agitated. I got to the head of the bush, and sat down upon a fallen tree. The children sprang forward like wild kids, all but Donald, who remained with his old nurse. I covered my face with my hands; my heart, too, was beating audibly; and now that he was come, and was so near me, I scarcely could command strength to meet him. The sound of happy young voices roused me up; the children were leading him along in triumph; and he was bending down to them, all smiles, but hot and tired with his long journey. It was almost worth our separation, that blissful meeting. In a few minutes he was at home, and the children upon his knees. Katie stood silently holding his hand, but Addie and Dunbar had a thousand things to tell him. Donald was frightened at his military dress, but he peeped at him from behind my gown, until I caught and placed him in his father's arms.

His leave of absence only extended to a fortnight. It had taken him three days to come all the way from Lake Erie, where his regiment was stationed, at Point Abino; and the same time would be consumed in his return. He could only remain with us eight days. How soon they fled away! How bitter was the thought of parting with him again! He had brought money to pay the Y——y's. How surprised he was to find their large debt more than half liquidated. How gently did he chide me for depriving myself and the children of the little comforts he had designed for us, in order to make this sacrifice. But never was self-denial more fully rewarded; I felt happy in having contributed in the least to pay a just debt to kind and worthy people. You must become poor yourself before you can fully appreciate the good qualities of the poor—before you can sympathise with them, and fully recognise them as your brethren in the flesh. Their benevolence to each other, exercised amidst want and privation, as far surpasses the munificence of the rich towards them, as the exalted philanthropy of Christ and his disciples does the Christianity of the present day. The rich man gives from his abundance; the poor man shares with a distressed comrade his all.

One short, happy week too soon fled away, and we were once more alone. In the fall, my husband expected the regiment in which he held his commission would be reduced, which would again plunge us into the same distressing poverty. Often of a night I revolved these things in my mind, and perplexed myself with conjectures as to what in future was to become of us. Although he had saved all he could from his pay, it was impossible to pay several hundreds of pounds of debt; and the steam-boat stock still continued a dead letter. To remain much longer in the woods was impossible, for the returns from the farm scarcely fed us; and but for the clothing sent us by friends from home, who were not aware of our real difficulties, we should have been badly off indeed.

I pondered over every plan that thought could devise; at last, I prayed to the Almighty to direct me as to what would be the best course for us to pursue. A sweet assurance stole over me, and soothed my spirit, that God would provide for us, as He had hitherto done—that a great deal of our distress arose from want of faith. I was just sinking into a calm sleep when the thought seemed whispered into my soul, “Write to the Governor; tell him candidly all you have suffered during your sojourn in this country; and trust to God for the rest.”

At first I paid little heed to this suggestion; but it became so importunate that at last I determined to act upon it as if it were a message sent from heaven. I rose from my bed, struck a light, sat down, and wrote a letter to the Lieutenant-Governor, Sir George Arthur, a simple statement of facts, leaving it to his benevolence to pardon the liberty I had taken in addressing him.

I asked of him to continue my husband in the militia service, in the same regiment in which he now held the rank of captain, which, by enabling him to pay our debts, would rescue us from our present misery. Of the political character of Sir George Arthur I knew nothing. I addressed him as a man and a Christian, and I acknowledge, with the deepest and most heartfelt gratitude, the generous kindness of his conduct towards us.

Before the day dawned, my letter was ready for the post. The first secret I ever had from my husband was the writing of that letter; and, proud and sensitive as he was, and averse to asking the least favour of the great, I was dreadfully afraid that the act I had just done would be displeasing to him; still, I felt resolutely determined to send it. After giving the children their breakfast, I walked down and read it to my brother-in-law, who was not only much pleased with its contents, but took it down himself to the post-office.

Shortly after, I received a letter from my husband, informing me that the regiment had been reduced, and that he should be home in time to get in the harvest. Most anxiously I awaited a reply to my application to the Governor; but no reply came.

The first week in August our dear Moodie came home, and brought with him, to our no small joy, J. E——, who had just returned from Ireland. E—— had been disappointed about the money, which was subject to litigation; and, tired of waiting at home until the tedious process of the law should terminate, he had come back to the woods, and, before night, was reinstated in his old quarters.

His presence made Jenny all alive; she dared him at once to a trial of skill with her in the wheat-field, which E—— prudently declined. He did not expect to stay longer in Canada than the fall, but, whilst he did stay, he was to consider our house his home.

That harvest was the happiest we ever spent in the bush. We had enough of the common necessaries of life. A spirit of peace and harmony pervaded our little dwelling, for the most affectionate attachment existed among its members. We were not troubled with servants, for the good old Jenny we regarded as an humble friend, and were freed, by that circumstance, from many of the cares and vexations of a bush life. Our evening excursions on the lake were doubly enjoyed after the labours of the day, and night brought us calm and healthful repose.

The political struggles that convulsed the country were scarcely echoed in the depths of those old primeval forests, though the expulsion of Mackenzie from Navy Island, and the burning of the Caroline by Captain Drew, had been discussed on the farthest borders of civilisation. With a tribute to the gallant conduct of that brave officer, I will close this chapter:—

THE BURNING OF THE CAROLINE
A sound is on the midnight deep—
The voice of waters vast;
And onward, with resistless sweep,
The torrent rushes past,
In frantic chase, wave after wave,
The crowding surges press, and rave
Their mingled might to cast
Adown Niagara's giant steep;
The fretted billows foaming leap
With wild tumultuous roar;
The clashing din ascends on high,
In deaf'ning thunders to the sky,
And shakes the rocky shore.

Hark! what strange sounds arise—
'Tis not stern Nature's voice—
In mingled chorus to the skies!
The waters in their depths rejoice.
Hark! on the midnight air
A frantic cry uprose;
The yell of fierce despair,
The shout of mortal foes;
And mark yon sudden glare,
Whose red, portentous gleam
Flashes on rock and stream
With strange, unearthly light;
What passing meteor's beam
Lays bare the brow of night?

From yonder murky shore
What demon vessel glides,
Stemming the unstemm'd tides,
Where maddening breakers roar
In hostile surges round her path,
Or hiss, recoiling from her prow,
That reeling, staggers to their wrath;
While distant shores return the glow
That brightens from her burning frame,
And all above—around—below—
Is wrapt in ruddy flame?

Sail on!—sail on!—No mortal hand
Directs that vessel's blazing course;
The vengeance of an injured land
Impels her with resistless force
'Midst breaking wave and fiery gleam,
O'er-canopied with clouds of smoke;
Midway she stems the raging stream,
And feels the rapids' thundering stroke;
Now buried deep, now whirl'd on high,
She struggles with her awful doom,—
With frantic speed now hurries by
To find a watery tomb.

Lo, poised upon the topmost surge,
She shudders o'er the dark abyss;
The foaming waters round her hiss
And hoarse waves ring her funeral dirge;
The chafing billows round her close;
But ere her burning planks are riven,
Shoots up one ruddy spout of fire,—
Her last farewell to earth and heaven.
Down, down to endless night she goes!
So may the traitor's hope expire,
So perish all our country's foes!

Destruction's blazing star
Has vanish'd from our sight;
The thunderbolt of war
Is quench'd in endless night;
Nor sight, nor sound of fear
Startles the listening ear;
Naught but the torrent's roar,
The dull, deep, heavy sound,
From out the dark profound,
Echoes from shore to shore.
Where late the cry of blood
Rang on the midnight air,
The mournful lapsing of the flood,
The wild winds in the lonely wood,
Claim sole dominion there.

To thee, high-hearted Drew!
And thy victorious band
Of heroes tried and true
A nation's thanks are due.
Defender of an injured land!
Well hast thou taught the dastard foe
That British honour never yields
To democratic influence, low,
The glory of a thousand fields.

Justice to traitors, long delay'd,
This night was boldly dealt by thee;
The debt of vengeance thou hast paid,
And may the deed immortal be.
Thy outraged country shall bestow
A lasting monument of fame,
The highest meed of praise below—
A British patriot's deathless name!

[Scooter]

CHAPTER XXIV — THE WHIRLWIND
(For the poem that heads this chapter, I am indebted to my brother, Mr. Strickland, of Douro, C.W.)

Dark, heavy clouds were gathering in the west,
Wrapping the forest in funereal gloom;
Onward they roll'd, and rear'd each livid crest,
Like Death's murk shadows frowning o'er earth's tomb.
From out the inky womb of that deep night
Burst livid flashes of electric flame.
Whirling and circling with terrific might,
In wild confusion on the tempest came.
Nature, awakening from her still repose,
Shudders responsive to the whirlwind's shock,
Feels at her mighty heart convulsive throes,
And all her groaning forests to earth's bosom rock.

But hark!—What means that hollow, rushing sound,
That breaks the death-like stillness of the morn?
Red forked lightnings fiercely glare around,
Sharp, crashing thunders on the winds are borne,
And see yon spiral column, black as night,
Rearing triumphantly its wreathing form;
Ruin's abroad, and through the murky light—
Drear desolation marks the spirit of the storm.
S.S.
The 19th of August came, and our little harvest was all safely housed. Business called Moodie away for a few days to Cobourg. Jenny had gone to Dummer, to visit her friends, and J. E—— had taken a grist of the new wheat, which he and Moodie had threshed the day before, to the mill. I was consequently left alone with the children, and had a double portion of work to do. During their absence it was my lot to witness the most awful storm I ever beheld, and a vivid recollection of its terrors was permanently fixed upon my memory.

The weather had been intensely hot during the three preceding days, although the sun was entirely obscured by a blueish haze, which seemed to render the unusual heat of the atmosphere more oppressive. Not a breath of air stirred the vast forest, and the waters of the lake assumed a leaden hue. After passing a sleepless night, I arose, a little after day-break, to superintend my domestic affairs. E—— took his breakfast, and went off to the mill, hoping that the rain would keep off until after his return.

“It is no joke,” he said, “being upon these lakes in a small canoe, heavily laden, in a storm.”

Before the sun rose, the heavens were covered with hard-looking clouds, of a deep blue and black cast, fading away to white at their edges, and in the form resembling the long, rolling waves of a heavy sea—but with this difference, that the clouds were perfectly motionless, piled in long curved lines, one above the other, and so remained until four o'clock in the afternoon. The appearance of these clouds, as the sun rose above the horizon, was the most splendid that can be imagined, tinged up to the zenith with every shade of saffron, gold, rose-colour, scarlet, and crimson, fading away into the deepest violet. Never did the storm-fiend shake in the face of a day a more gorgeous banner; and, pressed as I was for time, I stood gazing like one entranced upon the magnificent pageant.

As the day advanced, the same blue haze obscured the sun, which frowned redly through his misty veil. At ten o'clock the heat was suffocating, and I extinguished the fire in the cooking-stove, determined to make our meals upon bread and milk, rather than add to the oppressive heat. The thermometer in the shade ranged from ninety-six to ninety-eight degrees, and I gave over my work and retired with the little ones to the coolest part of the house. The young creatures stretched themselves upon the floor, unable to jump about or play; the dog lay panting in the shade; the fowls half-buried themselves in the dust, with open beaks and outstretched wings; all nature seemed to droop beneath the scorching heat.

Unfortunately for me, a gentlemen arrived about one o'clock from Kingston, to transact some business with my husband. He had not tasted food since six o'clock, and I was obliged to kindle the fire to prepare his dinner. It was one of the hardest tasks I ever performed; I almost fainted with the heat, and most inhospitably rejoiced when his dinner was over, and I saw him depart. Shortly after, my friend Mrs. C—— and her brother called in, on their way from Peterborough.

“How do you bear the heat?” asked Mrs. C——. “This is one of the hottest days I ever remember to have experienced in this part of the province. I am afraid that it will end in a hurricane, or what the Lower Canadians term 'l'orage.'”

About four o'clock they rose to go. I urged them to stay longer. “No,” said Mrs. C——, “the sooner we get home the better. I think we can reach it before the storm breaks.”

I took Donald in my arms, and my eldest boy by the hand, and walked with them to the brow of the hill, thinking that the air would be cooler in the shade. In this I was mistaken. The clouds over our heads hung so low, and the heat was so great, that I was soon glad to retrace my steps.

The moment I turned round to face the lake, I was surprised at the change that had taken place in the appearance of the heavens. The clouds, that had before lain so motionless, were now in rapid motion, hurrying and chasing each other round the horizon. It was a strangely awful sight. Before I felt a breath of the mighty blast that had already burst on the other side of the lake, branches of trees, leaves, and clouds of dust were whirled across the lake, whose waters rose in long sharp furrows, fringed with foam, as if moved in their depths by some unseen but powerful agent.

Panting with terror, I just reached the door of the house as the hurricane swept up the hill, crushing and overturning everything in its course. Spell-bound, I stood at the open door, with clasped hands, unable to speak, rendered dumb and motionless by the terrible grandeur of the scene; while little Donald, who could not utter many intelligible words, crept to my feet, appealing to me for protection, while his rosy cheeks paled even to marble whiteness. The hurrying clouds gave to the heavens the appearance of a pointed dome, round which the lightning played in broad ribbons of fire. The roaring of the thunder, the rushing of the blast, the impetuous down-pouring of the rain, and the crash of falling trees were perfectly deafening; and in the midst of this uproar of the elements, old Jenny burst in, drenched with wet, and half-dead with fear.

“The Lord preserve us!” she cried, “this surely is the day of judgment. Fifty trees fell across my very path, between this an' the creek. Mrs. C—— just reached her brother's clearing a few minutes before a great oak fell on her very path. What thunther!—what lightning! Misthress, dear!—it's turn'd so dark, I can only jist see yer face.”

Glad enough was I of her presence; for to be alone in the heart of a great forest, in a log hut, on such a night, was not a pleasing prospect. People gain courage by companionship, and in order to re-assure each other, struggle to conceal their fears.

“And where is Mr. E——?”

“I hope not on the lake. He went early this morning to get the wheat ground at the mill.”

“Och, the crathur! He's surely drowned. What boat could stan' such a scrimmage as this?”

I had my fears for poor John; but as the chance that he had to wait at the mill till others were served was more than probable, I tried to still my apprehensions for his safety.

The storm soon passed over, after having levelled several acres of wood near the house and smitten down in its progress two gigantic pines in the clearing, which must have withstood the force of a thousand winters. Talking over the effects of this whirlwind with my brother, he kindly sent me the following very graphic description of a whirlwind which passed the town of Guelph in the summer of 1829.

(Written by Mr. Strickland, of Douro.) “In my hunting excursions and rambles through the Upper Canadian forests, I had frequently met with extensive wind-falls; and observed with some surprise that the fallen trees lay strewn in a succession of circles, and evidently appeared to have been twisted off the stumps. I also remarked that these wind-falls were generally narrow, and had the appearance of a road, slashed through the forest. From observations made at the time, and since confirmed, I have no doubt that Colonel Reid's theory of storms is the correct one, viz., that all wind-storms move in a circular direction, and the nearer the centre the more violent the force of the wind. Having seen the effects of several similar hurricanes since my residence in Canada West, I shall proceed to describe one which happened in the township of Guelph during the early part of the summer of 1829.

“The weather, for the season of the year (May), had been hot and sultry, with scarcely a breath of wind stirring. I had heard distant thunder from an early hour in the morning, which, from the eastward, is rather an unusual occurrence. About 10 A.M., the sky had a most singular, and I must add a most awful appearance, presenting to the view a vast arch of rolling blackness, which seemed to gather strength and density as it approached the zenith. All at once the clouds began to work round in circles, as if chasing one another through the air. Suddenly the dark arch of clouds appeared to break up into detached masses, whirling and mixing through each other in dreadful commotion. The forked lightning was incessant, accompanied by heavy thunder. In a short time, the clouds seemed to converge to a point, which approached very near the earth, still whirling with great rapidity directly under this point; and apparently from the midst of the woods arose a black column, in the shape of a cone, which instantly joined itself to the depending cloud. The sight was now grand, and awful in the extreme. Picture to your imagination a vast column of smoke, of inky blackness, reaching from the earth to heaven, gyrating with fearful velocity—bright lightnings issuing from the vortex—the roar of the thunder—the rushing of the blast—the crash of timber—the limbs of trees, leaves and rubbish, mingled with clouds of dust, whirling through the air;—you then have a faint idea of the scene.

“I had ample time for observation, as the hurricane commenced its devastating course about two miles from the town, through the centre of which it took its way, passing within fifty yards of where a number of persons, myself among the rest, were standing, watching its fearful progress.

“As the tornado approached, the trees seemed to fall like a pack of cards before its irresistible current. After passing through the clearing made around the village, the force of the wind gradually abated, and in a few minutes died away entirely.

“As soon as the storm was over, I went to see the damage it had done. From the point where I first observed the black column to rise from the woods and join the cloud, the trees were twisted in every direction. A belt of timber had been levelled to the ground about two miles in length, and about one hundred yards in breadth. At the entrance of the town it crossed the river Speed, and uprooted about six acres of wood, which had been thinned out, and left by Mr. Galt (late superintendent of the Canada Company), as an ornament to his house.

“The Eremosa road was completely blocked up for nearly half-a-mile, in the wildest confusion possible. In its progress through the town the storm unroofed several houses, levelled many fences to the ground, and entirely demolished a frame barn. Windows were dashed in; and, in one instance, the floor of a log house was carried through the roof. Some hair-breadth escapes occurred; but, luckily, no lives were lost.

“About twelve years since a similar storm occurred in the north part of the township of Douro, but was of much less magnitude. I heard an intelligent settler, who resided some years in the township of Madoc, state that, during his residence in that township, a similar hurricane to the one I have described, though of a much more awful character, passed through a part of Marmora and Madoc, and had been traced, in a north-easterly direction, upwards of forty miles into the unsurveyed lands; the uniform width of which appeared to be three quarters of a mile.

“It is very evident, from the traces which they have left behind them, that storms of this description have not been unfrequent in the wooded districts of Canada; and it becomes a matter of interesting consideration whether the clearing of our immense forests will not, in a great measure, remove the cause of these phenomena.”

A few minutes after our household had retired to rest, my first sleep was broken by the voice of J. E——, speaking to old Jenny in the kitchen. He had been overtaken by the storm, but had run his canoe ashore upon an island before its full fury burst, and turned it over the flour; while he had to brave the terrors of the pitiless tempest—buffeted by the wind, and drenched with torrents of rain. I got up and made him a cup of tea, while Jenny prepared a rasher of bacon and eggs for his supper.

Shortly after this, J. E—— bade a final adieu to Canada, with his cousin C. W——. He volunteered into the Scotch Greys, and we never saw him more; but I have been told that he was so highly respected by the officers of the regiment that they have subscribed for his commission; that he rose to the rank of lieutenant; accompanied the regiment to India, and was at the taking of Cabul; but from himself we never heard again.

The 16th of October, my third son was born; and a few days after, my husband was appointed pay-master to the militia regiments in the V. District, with the rank and full pay of captain.

This was Sir George Arthur's doing. He returned no answer to my application, but he did not forget us.

As the time that Moodie might retain this situation was very doubtful, he thought it advisable not to remove me and the family until he could secure some permanent situation; by so doing, he would have a better opportunity of saving the greater part of his income to pay off his old debts.

This winter of 1839 was one of severe trial to me. Hitherto I had enjoyed the blessing of health; but both the children and myself were now doomed to suffer from dangerous attacks of illness. All the little things had malignant scarlet fever, and for several days I thought it would please the Almighty to take from me my two girls. This fever is so fatal to children in Canada that none of my neighbors dared approach the house. For three weeks Jenny and I were never undressed; our whole time was taken up nursing the five little helpless creatures through the successive states of their alarming disease. I sent for Dr. Taylor; but he did not come, and I was obliged to trust to the mercy of God, and my own judgment and good nursing. Though I escaped the fever, mental anxiety and fatigue brought on other illness, which for nearly ten weeks rendered me perfectly helpless. When I was again able to creep from my sick bed, the baby was seized with an illness, which Dr. B—— pronounced mortal. Against all hope, he recovered, but these severe mental trials rendered me weak and nervous, and more anxious than ever to be re-united to my husband. To add to these troubles, my sister and her husband sold their farm, and removed from our neighbourhood. Mr. —— had returned to England, and had obtained a situation in the Customs; and his wife, my friend Emilia, was keeping a school in the village; so that I felt more solitary than ever, thus deprived of so many kind, sympathising friends.

A SONG OF PRAISE TO THE CREATOR
Oh, thou great God! from whose eternal throne
Unbounded blessings in rich bounty flow,
Like thy bright sun in glorious state alone,
Thou reign'st supreme, while round thee as they go,
Unnumber'd worlds, submissive to thy sway,
With solemn pace pursue their silent way.

Benignant God! o'er every smiling land,
Thy handmaid, Nature, meekly walks abroad,
Scattering thy bounties with unsparing hand,
While flowers and fruits spring up along her road.
How can thy creatures their weak voices raise
To tell thy deeds in their faint songs of praise?

When, darkling o'er the mountain's summit hoar,
Portentous hangs the black and sulph'rous cloud,
When lightnings flash, and awful thunders roar,
Great Nature sings to thee her anthem loud.
The rocks reverberate her mighty song,
And crushing woods the pealing notes prolong.

The storm is pass'd; o'er fields and woodlands gay,
Gemm'd with bright dew-drops from the eastern sky,
The morning sun now darts his golden ray,
The lark on fluttering wing is poised on high;
Too pure for earth, he wings his way above,
To pour his grateful song of joy and love.

Hark! from the bowels of the earth, a sound
Of awful import! From the central deep
The struggling lava rends the heaving ground,
The ocean-surges roar—the mountains leap—
They shoot aloft,—Oh, God! the fiery tide
Has burst its bounds, and rolls down Etna's side.

Thy will is done, great God! the conflict's o'er,
The silvery moonbeams glance along the sea;
The whispering waves half ripple on the shore,
And lull'd creation breathes a prayer to thee!
The night-flower's incense to their God is given,
And grateful mortals raise their thoughts to heaven.
J.W.D.M.

[Scooter]

CHAPTER XXV — THE WALK TO DUMMER
We trod a weary path through silent woods,
Tangled and dark, unbroken by a sound
Of cheerful life. The melancholy shriek
Of hollow winds careering o'er the snow,
Or tossing into waves the green pine tops,
Making the ancient forest groan and sigh
Beneath their mocking voice, awoke alone
The solitary echoes of the place.
Reader! have you ever heard of a place situated in the forest-depths of this far western wilderness, called Dummer? Ten years ago, it might not inaptly have been termed “The last clearing in the world.” Nor to this day do I know of any in that direction which extends beyond it. Our bush-farm was situated on the border-line of a neighbouring township, only one degree less wild, less out of the world, or nearer to the habitations of civilisation than the far-famed “English Line,” the boast and glory of this terra incognita.

This place, so named by the emigrants who had pitched their tents in that solitary wilderness, was a long line of cleared land, extending upon either side for some miles through the darkest and most interminable forest. The English Line was inhabited chiefly by Cornish miners, who, tired of burrowing like moles underground, had determined to emigrate to Canada, where they could breathe the fresh air of Heaven, and obtain the necessaries of life upon the bosom of their mother earth. Strange as it may appear, these men made good farmers, and steady, industrious colonists, working as well above ground as they had toiled in their early days beneath it. All our best servants came from Dummer; and although they spoke a language difficult to be understood, and were uncouth in their manners and appearance, they were faithful and obedient, performing the tasks assigned to them with patient perseverance; good food and kind treatment rendering them always cheerful and contented.

My dear old Jenny, that most faithful and attached of all humble domestic friends, came from Dummer, and I was wont to regard it with complacency for her sake. But Jenny was not English; she was a generous, warm-hearted daughter of the Green Isle—the Emerald gem set in the silver of ocean. Yes, Jenny was one of the poorest children of that impoverished but glorious country where wit and talent seem indigenous, springing up spontaneously in the rudest and most uncultivated minds; showing what the land could bring forth in its own strength, unaided by education, and unfettered by the conventional rules of society. Jenny was a striking instance of the worth, noble self-denial, and devotion which are often met withand, alas! but too often disregarded—in the poor and ignorant natives of that deeply-injured, and much abused land. A few words about my old favourite may not prove uninteresting to my readers.

Jenny Buchanan, or as she called it, Bohanon, was the daughter of a petty exciseman, of Scotch extraction (hence her industry) who, at the time of her birth, resided near the old town of Inniskillen. Her mother died a few months after she was born; and her father, within the twelve months, married again. In the meanwhile, the poor orphan babe had been adopted by a kind neighbour, the wife of a small farmer in the vicinity.

In return for coarse food and scanty clothing, the little Jenny became a servant-of-all-work. She fed the pigs, herded the cattle, assisted in planting potatoes and digging peat from the bog, and was undisputed mistress of the poultry-yard. As she grew up to womanhood, the importance of her labours increased. A better reaper in the harvest-field, or footer of turf in the bog, could not be found in the district, or a woman more thoroughly acquainted with the management of cows and the rearing of young cattle; but here poor Jenny's accomplishments terminated.

Her usefulness was all abroad. Within the house she made more dirt than she had the inclination or the ability to clear away. She could neither read, nor knit, nor sew; and although she called herself a Protestant, and a Church of England woman, she knew no more of religion, as revealed to man through the Word of God, than the savage who sinks to the grave in ignorance of a Redeemer. Hence she stoutly resisted all ideas of being a sinner, or of standing the least chance of receiving hereafter the condemnation of one.

“Och, sure thin,” she would say, with simple earnestness of look and manner, almost irresistible. “God will never throuble Himsel' about a poor, hard-working crathur like me, who never did any harm to the manest of His makin'.”

One thing was certain, that a benevolent Providence had “throubled Himsel'” about poor Jenny in times past, for the warm heart of this neglected child of nature contained a stream of the richest benevolence, which, situated as she had been, could not have been derived from any other source. Honest, faithful, and industrious, Jenny became a law unto herself, and practically illustrated the golden rule of her blessed Lord, “to do unto others as we would they should do unto us.” She thought it was impossible that her poor services could ever repay the debt of gratitude that she owed to the family who had brought her up, although the obligation must have been entirely on their side. To them she was greatly attached—for them she toiled unceasingly; and when evil days came, and they were not able to meet the rent-day, or to occupy the farm, she determined to accompany them in their emigration to Canada, and formed one of the stout-hearted band that fixed its location in the lonely and unexplored wilds now known as the township of Dummer.

During the first year of their settlement, the means of obtaining the common necessaries of life became so precarious, that, in order to assist her friends with a little ready money, Jenny determined to hire out into some wealthy house as a servant. When I use the term wealth as applied to any bush-settler, it is of course only comparatively; but Jenny was anxious to obtain a place with settlers who enjoyed a small income independent of their forest means.

Her first speculation was a complete failure. For five long, hopeless years she served a master from whom she never received a farthing of her stipulated wages. Still her attachment to the family was so strong, and had become so much the necessity of her life, that the poor creature could not make up her mind to leave them. The children whom she had received into her arms at their birth, and whom she had nursed with maternal tenderness, were as dear to her as if they had been her own; she continued to work for them although her clothes were worn to tatters, and her own friends were too poor to replace them.

Her master, Captain N——, a handsome, dashing officer, who had served many years in India, still maintained the carriage and appearance of a gentleman, in spite of his mental and moral degradation arising from a constant state of intoxication; he still promised to remunerate at some future day her faithful services; and although all his neighbours well knew that his means were exhausted, and that that day would never come, yet Jenny, in the simplicity of her faith, still toiled on, in the hope that the better day he spoke of would soon arrive.

And now a few words respecting this master, which I trust may serve as a warning to others. Allured by the bait that has been the ruin of so many of his class, the offer of a large grant of land, Captain N—— had been induced to form a settlement in this remote and untried township; laying out much, if not all, of his available means in building a log house, and clearing a large extent of barren and stony land. To this uninviting home he conveyed a beautiful young wife, and a small and increasing family. The result may be easily anticipated. The want of society—a dreadful want to a man of his previous habits—the absence of all the comforts and decencies of life, produced inaction, apathy, and at last, despondency, which was only alleviated by a constant and immoderate use of ardent spirits. As long as Captain N—— retained his half-pay, he contrived to exist. In an evil hour he parted with this, and quickly trod the downhill path to ruin.

And here I would remark that it is always a rash and hazardous step for any officer to part with his half-pay; although it is almost every day done, and generally followed by the same disastrous results. A certain income, however small, in a country where money is so hard to be procured, and where labour cannot be obtained but at a very high pecuniary remuneration, is invaluable to a gentleman unaccustomed to agricultural employment; who, without this reserve to pay his people, during the brief but expensive seasons of seed-time and harvest, must either work himself or starve. I have known no instance in which such sale has been attended with ultimate advantage; but, alas! too many in which it has terminated in the most distressing destitution. These government grants of land, to half-pay officers, have induced numbers of this class to emigrate to the backwoods of Canada, who are totally unfit for pioneers; but, tempted by the offer of finding themselves landholders of what, on paper, appear to them fine estates, they resign a certainty, to waste their energies, and die half-starved and broken-hearted in the depths of the pitiless wild.

If a gentleman so situated would give up all idea of settling on his grant, but hire a good farm in a favourable situation—that is, not too far from a market—and with his half-pay hire efficient labourers, of which plenty are now to be had, to cultivate the land, with common prudence and economy, he would soon obtain a comfortable subsistence for his family. And if the males were brought up to share the burthen and heat of the day, the expense of hired labour, as it yearly diminished, would add to the general means and well-being of the whole, until the hired farm became the real property of the industrious tenants. But the love of show, the vain boast of appearing richer and better-dressed than our neighbours, too often involves the emigrant's family in debt, from which they are seldom able to extricate themselves without sacrificing the means which would have secured their independence.

This, although a long digression, will not, I hope, be without its use; and if this book is regarded not as a work of amusement but one of practical experience, written for the benefit of others, it will not fail to convey some useful hints to those who have contemplated emigration to Canada: the best country in the world for the industrious and well-principled man, who really comes out to work, and to better his condition by the labour of his hands; but a gulf of ruin to the vain and idle, who only set foot upon these shores to accelerate their ruin.

But to return to Captain N——. It was at this disastrous period that Jenny entered his service. Had her master adapted his habits and expenditure to his altered circumstances, much misery might have been spared, both to himself and his family. But he was a proud man—too proud to work, or to receive with kindness the offers of service tendered to him by his half-civilised, but well-meaning neighbours.

“Hang him!” cried an indignant English settler (Captain N—— was an Irishman), whose offer of drawing wood had been rejected with unmerited contempt. “Wait a few years, and we shall see what his pride will do for him. I am sorry for his poor wife and children; but for himself, I have no pity for him.”

This man had been uselessly insulted, at the very moment when he was anxious to perform a kind and benevolent action; when, like a true Englishman, his heart was softened by witnessing the sufferings of a young, delicate female and her infant family. Deeply affronted by the captain's foolish conduct, he now took a malignant pleasure in watching his arrogant neighbour's progress to ruin.

The year after the sale of his commission, Captain N—— found himself considerably in debt, “Never mind, Ella,” he said to his anxious wife; “the crops will pay all.”

The crops were a failure that year. Creditors pressed hard; the captain had no money to pay his workmen, and he would not work himself. Disgusted with his location, but unable to change it for a better; without friends in his own class (for he was the only gentleman then resident in the new township), to relieve the monotony of his existence with their society, or to afford him advice or assistance in his difficulties, the fatal whiskey-bottle became his refuge from gloomy thoughts.

His wife, an amiable and devoted creature, well-born, well-educated, and deserving of a better lot, did all in her power to wean him from the growing vice. But, alas! the pleadings of an angel, in such circumstances, would have had little effect upon the mind of such a man. He loved her as well as he could love anything, and he fancied that he loved his children, while he was daily reducing them, by his favourite vice, to beggary.

For awhile, he confined his excesses to his own fireside, but this was only for as long a period as the sale of his stock and land would supply him with the means of criminal indulgence. After a time, all these resources failed, and his large grant of eight hundred acres of land had been converted into whiskey, except the one hundred acres on which his house and barn stood, embracing the small clearing from which the family derived their scanty supply of wheat and potatoes. For the sake of peace, his wife gave up all her ornaments and household plate, and the best articles of a once handsome and ample wardrobe, in the hope of hiding her sorrows from the world, and keeping her husband at home.

The pride, that had rendered him so obnoxious to his humbler neighbours, yielded at length to the inordinate craving for drink; the man who had held himself so high above his honest and industrious fellow-settlers, could now unblushingly enter their cabins and beg for a drop of whiskey. The feeling of shame once subdued, there was no end to his audacious mendacity. His whole time was spent in wandering about the country, calling upon every new settler, in the hope of being asked to partake of the coveted poison. He was even known to enter by the window of an emigrant's cabin, during the absence of the owner, and remain drinking in the house while a drop of spirits could be found in the cupboard. When driven forth by the angry owner of the hut, he wandered on to the distant town of P——, and lived there in a low tavern, while his wife and children were starving at home.

“He is the filthiest beast in the township,” said the afore-mentioned neighbour to me; “it would be a good thing for his wife and children if his worthless neck were broken in one of his drunken sprees.”

This might be the melancholy fact, but it was not the less dreadful on that account. The husband of an affectionate wife—the father of a lovely family—and his death to be a matter of rejoicing!—a blessing, instead of being an affliction!—an agony not to be thought upon without the deepest sorrow.

It was at this melancholy period of her sad history that Mrs. N—— found, in Jenny Buchanan, a help in her hour of need. The heart of the faithful creature bled for the misery which involved the wife of her degraded master, and the children she so dearly loved. Their want and destitution called all the sympathies of her ardent nature into active operation; they were long indebted to her labour for every morsel of food which they consumed. For them, she sowed, she planted, she reaped. Every block of wood which shed a cheering warmth around their desolate home was cut from the forest by her own hands, and brought up a steep hill to the house upon her back. For them, she coaxed the neighbours, with whom she was a general favourite, out of many a mess of eggs for their especial benefit; while with her cheerful songs, and hearty, hopeful disposition, she dispelled much of the cramping despair which chilled the heart of the unhappy mother in her deserted home.

For several years did this great, poor woman keep the wolf from the door of her beloved mistress, toiling for her with the strength and energy of a man. When was man ever so devoted, so devoid of all selfishness, so attached to employers, yet poorer than herself, as this uneducated Irishwoman?

A period was at length put to her unrequited services. In a fit of intoxication her master beat her severely with the iron ramrod of his gun, and turned her, with abusive language, from his doors. Oh, hard return for all her unpaid labours of love! She forgave this outrage for the sake of the helpless beings who depended upon her care. He repeated the injury, and the poor creature returned almost heart-broken to her former home.

Thinking that his spite would subside in a few days, Jenny made a third effort to enter his house in her usual capacity; but Mrs. N—— told her, with many tears, that her presence would only enrage her husband, who had threatened herself with the most cruel treatment if she allowed the faithful servant again to enter the house. Thus ended her five years' service to this ungrateful master. Such was her reward!

I heard of Jenny's worth and kindness from the Englishman who had been so grievously affronted by Captain N——, and sent for her to come to me. She instantly accepted my offer, and returned with my messenger. She had scarcely a garment to cover her. I was obliged to find her a suit of clothes before I could set her to work. The smiles and dimples of my curly-headed, rosy little Donald, then a baby-boy of fifteen months, consoled the old woman for her separation from Ellie N——; and the good-will with which all the children (now four in number) regarded the kind old body, soon endeared to her the new home which Providence had assigned to her.

Her accounts of Mrs. N——, and her family, soon deeply interested me in her fate; and Jenny never went to visit her friends in Dummer without an interchange of good wishes passing between us.

The year of the Canadian rebellion came, and brought with it sorrow into many a bush dwelling. Old Jenny and I were left alone with the little children, in the depths of the dark forest, to help ourselves in the best way we could. Men could not be procured in that thinly-settled spot for love nor money, and I now fully realised the extent of Jenny's usefulness. Daily she yoked the oxen, and brought down from the bush fuel to maintain our fires, which she felled and chopped up with her own hands. She fed the cattle, and kept all things snug about the doors; not forgetting to load her master's two guns, “in case,” as she said, “the ribels should attack us in our retrate.”

The months of November and December of 1838 had been unnaturally mild for this iron climate; but the opening of the ensuing January brought a short but severe spell of frost and snow. We felt very lonely in our solitary dwelling, crouching round the blazing fire, that scarcely chased the cold from our miserable log-tenement, until this dreary period was suddenly cheered by the unexpected presence of my beloved friend, Emilia, who came to spend a week with me in my forest home.

She brought her own baby-boy with her, and an ample supply of buffalo robes, not forgetting a treat of baker's bread, and “sweeties” for the children. Oh, dear Emilia! best and kindest of women, though absent in your native land, long, long shall my heart cherish with affectionate gratitude all your visits of love, and turn to you as to a sister, tried, and found most faithful, in the dark hour of adversity, and, amidst the almost total neglect of those from whom nature claimed a tenderer and holier sympathy.

Great was the joy of Jenny at this accession to our family party; and after Mrs. S—— was well warmed, and had partaken of tea—the only refreshment we could offer her—we began to talk over the news of the place.

“By-the-bye, Jenny,” said she, turning to the old servant, who was undressing the little boy by the fire, “have you heard lately from poor Mrs. N——? We have been told that she and the family are in a dreadful state of destitution. That worthless man has left them for the States, and it is supposed that he has joined Mackenzie's band of ruffians on Navy Island; but whether this be true or false, he has deserted his wife and children, taking his eldest son along with him (who might have been of some service at home), and leaving them without money or food.”

“The good Lord! What will become of the crathurs?” responded Jenny, wiping her wrinkled cheek with the back of her hard, brown hand. “An' thin they have not a sowl to chop and draw them firewood; an' the weather so oncommon savare. Och, hone! what has not that baste of a man to answer for?”

“I heard,” continued Mrs. S——, “that they have tasted no food but potatoes for the last nine months, and scarcely enough of them to keep soul and body together; that they have sold their last cow; and the poor young lady and her second brother, a lad of only twelve years old, bring all the wood for the fire from the bush on a hand sleigh.”

“Oh, dear!—oh, dear!” sobbed Jenny; “an' I not there to hilp them! An' poor Miss Mary, the tinder thing! Oh, 'tis hard, terribly hard upon the crathurs, an' they not used to the like.”

“Can nothing be done for them?” said I.

“That is what we want to know,” returned Emilia, “and that was one of my reasons for coming up to D——. I wanted to consult you and Jenny upon the subject. You, who are an officer's wife, and I, who am both an officer's wife and daughter, ought to devise some plan of rescuing this poor, unfortunate lady and her family from her present forlorn situation.”

The tears sprang to my eyes, and I thought, in the bitterness of my heart, upon my own galling poverty, that my pockets did not contain even a single copper, and that I had scarcely garments enough to shield me from the inclemency of the weather. By unflinching industry, and taking my part in the toil of the field, I had bread for myself and family, and this was more than poor Mrs. N—— possessed; but it appeared impossible for me to be of any assistance to the unhappy sufferer, and the thought of my incapacity gave me severe pain. It was only in moments like the present that I felt the curse of poverty.

“Well,” continued my friend, “you see, Mrs. Moodie, that the ladies of P—— are all anxious to do what they can for her; but they first want to learn if the miserable circumstances in which she is said to be placed are true. In short, my dear friend, they want you and me to make a pilgrimage to Dummer, to see the poor lady herself; and then they will be guided by our report.”

“Then let us lose no time in going upon our own mission of mercy.”

“Och, my dear heart, you will be lost in the woods!” said old Jenny. “It is nine long miles to the first clearing, and that through a lonely, blazed path. After you are through the beaver-meadow, there is not a single hut for you to rest or warm yourselves. It is too much for the both of yees; you will be frozen to death on the road.”

“No fear,” said my benevolent friend; “God will take care of us, Jenny. It is on His errand we go; to carry a message of hope to one about to perish.”

“The Lord bless you for a darlint,” cried the old woman, devoutly kissing the velvet cheek of the little fellow sleeping upon her lap. “May your own purty child never know the want and sorrow that is around her.”

Emilia and I talked over the Dummer scheme until we fell asleep. Many were the plans we proposed for the immediate relief of the unfortunate family. Early the next morning, my brother-in-law, Mr. T——, called upon my friend. The subject next to our heart was immediately introduced, and he was called into the general council. His feelings, like our own, were deeply interested; and he proposed that we should each provide something from our own small stores to satisfy the pressing wants of the distressed family; while he promised to bring his cutter the next morning, and take us through the beaver-meadow, and to the edge of the great swamp, which would shorten four miles, at least, of our long and hazardous journey.

We joyfully acceded to his proposal, and set cheerfully to work to provide for the morrow. Jenny baked a batch of her very best bread, and boiled a large piece of beef; and Mr. T—— brought with him, the next day, a fine cooked ham, in a sack, into the bottom of which he stowed the beef and loaves, besides some sugar and tea, which his own kind wife, the author of “the Backwoods of Canada,” had sent. I had some misgivings as to the manner in which these good things could be introduced to the poor lady, who, I had heard, was reserved and proud.

“Oh, Jenny,” I said, “how shall I be able to ask her to accept provisions from strangers? I am afraid of wounding her feelings.”

“Oh, darlint, never fear that! She is proud, I know; but 'tis not a stiff pride, but jist enough to consale her disthress from her ignorant English neighbours, who think so manely of poor folk like her who were once rich. She will be very thankful to you for your kindness, for she has not experienced much of it from the Dummer people in her throuble, though she may have no words to tell you so. Say that old Jenny sent the bread to dear wee Ellie, 'cause she knew she would like a loaf of Jenny's bakin'.”

“But the meat.”

“Och, the mate, is it? May be, you'll think of some excuse for the mate when you get there.”

“I hope so; but I'm a sad coward with strangers, and I have lived so long out of the world that I am at a great loss what to do. I will try and put a good face on the matter. Your name, Jenny, will be no small help to me.”

All was now ready. Kissing our little bairns, who crowded around us with eager and inquiring looks, and charging Jenny for the hundredth time to take especial care of them during our absence, we mounted the cutter, and set off, under the care and protection of Mr. T——, who determined to accompany us on the journey.

It was a black, cold day; no sun visible in the grey, dark sky; a keen wind, and hard frost. We crouched close to each other.

“Good heavens, how cold it is!” whispered Emilia. “What a day for such a journey!”

She had scarcely ceased speaking, when the cutter went upon a stump which lay concealed under the drifted snow; and we, together with the ruins of our conveyance, were scattered around.

“A bad beginning,” said my brother-in-law, with a rueful aspect, as he surveyed the wreck of the cutter from which we had promised ourselves so much benefit. “There is no help for it but to return home.”

“Oh, no,” said Mrs. S——; “bad beginnings make good endings, you know. Let us go on; it will be far better walking than riding such a dreadful day. My feet are half-frozen already with sitting still.”

“But, my dear madam,” expostulated Mr. T——, “consider the distance, the road, the dark, dull day, and our imperfect knowledge of the path. I will get the cutter mended to-morrow; and the day after we may be able to proceed.”

“Delays are dangerous,” said the pertinacious Emilia, who, woman-like, was determined to have her own way. “Now, or never. While we wait for the broken cutter, the broken-hearted Mrs. N—— may starve. We can stop at Colonel C——'s and warm ourselves, and you can leave the cutter at his house until our return.”

“It was upon your account that I proposed the delay,” said the good Mr. T——, taking the sack, which was no inconsiderable weight, upon his shoulder, and driving his horse before him into neighbour W——'s stable. “Where you go, I am ready to follow.”

When we arrived, Colonel C——'s family were at breakfast, of which they made us partake; and after vainly endeavouring to dissuade us from what appeared to them our Quixotic expedition, Mrs. C—— added a dozen fine white fish to the contents of the sack, and sent her youngest son to help Mr. T—— along with his burthen, and to bear us company on our desolate road.

Leaving the colonel's hospitable house on our left, we again plunged into the woods, and after a few minutes' brisk walking, found ourselves upon the brow of a steep bank that overlooked the beaver-meadow, containing within its area several hundred acres.

There is no scenery in the bush that presents such a novel appearance as those meadows, or openings, surrounded as they invariably are, by dark, intricate forests; their high, rugged banks covered with the light, airy tamarack and silver birch. In summer they look like a lake of soft, rich verdure, hidden in the bosom of the barren and howling waste. Lakes they certainly have been, from which the waters have receded, “ages, ages long ago”; and still the whole length of these curious level valleys is traversed by a stream, of no inconsiderable dimensions.

The waters of the narrow, rapid creek, which flowed through the meadow we were about to cross, were of sparkling brightness, and icy cold. The frost-king had no power to check their swift, dancing movements, or stop their perpetual song. On they leaped, sparkling and flashing beneath their ice-crowned banks, rejoicing as they revelled on in their lonely course. In the prime of the year, this is a wild and lovely spot, the grass is of the richest green, and the flowers of the most gorgeous dyes. The gayest butterflies float above them upon painted wings; and the whip-poor-will pours forth from the neighbouring woods, at close of dewy eve, his strange but sadly plaintive cry. Winter was now upon the earth, and the once green meadow looked like a small forest lake covered with snow.

The first step we made into it plunged us up to the knees in the snow, which was drifted to a great height in the open space. Mr. T—— and our young friend C—— walked on ahead of us, in order to break a track through the untrodden snow. We soon reached the cold creek; but here a new difficulty presented itself. It was too wide to jump across, and we could see no other way of passing to the other side.

“There must be some sort of a bridge here about,” said young C——, “or how can the people from Dummer pass constantly during the winter to and fro. I will go along the bank, and halloo to you if I find one.”

In a few minutes he gave the desired signal, and on reaching the spot, we found a round, slippery log flung across the stream by way of bridge. With some trouble, and after various slips, we got safely on the other side. To wet our feet would have been to ensure their being frozen; and as it was, we were not without serious apprehension on that score. After crossing the bleak, snowy plain, we scrambled over another brook, and entered the great swamp, which occupied two miles of our dreary road.

It would be vain to attempt giving any description of this tangled maze of closely-interwoven cedars, fallen trees, and loose-scattered masses of rock. It seemed the fitting abode of wolves and bears, and every other unclean beast. The fire had run through it during the summer, making the confusion doubly confused. Now we stooped, half-doubled, to crawl under fallen branches that hung over our path, then again we had to clamber over prostrate trees of great bulk, descending from which we plumped down into holes in the snow, sinking mid-leg into the rotten trunk of some treacherous, decayed pine-tree. Before we were half through the great swamp, we began to think ourselves sad fools, and to wish that we were safe again by our own firesides. But, then, a great object was in view,—the relief of a distressed fellow-creature, and like the “full of hope, misnamed forlorn,” we determined to overcome every difficulty, and toil on.

It took us an hour at least to clear the great swamp, from which we emerged into a fine wood, composed chiefly of maple-trees. The sun had, during our immersion in the dark shades of the swamp, burst through his leaden shroud, and cast a cheery gleam along the rugged boles of the lofty trees. The squirrel and chipmunk occasionally bounded across our path; the dazzling snow which covered it reflected the branches above us in an endless variety of dancing shadows. Our spirits rose in proportion. Young C—— burst out singing, and Emilia and I laughed and chatted as we bounded along our narrow road. On, on for hours, the same interminable forest stretched away to the right and left, before and behind us.

“It is past twelve,” said my brother T—— thoughtfully; “if we do not soon come to a clearing, we may chance to spend the night in the forest.”

“Oh, I am dying with hunger,” cried Emilia. “Do C——, give us one or two of the cakes your mother put into the bag for us to eat upon the road.”

The ginger-cakes were instantly produced. But where were the teeth to be found that could masticate them? The cakes were frozen as hard as stones; this was a great disappointment to us tired and hungry wights; but it only produced a hearty laugh. Over the logs we went again; for it was a perpetual stepping up and down, crossing the fallen trees that obstructed our path. At last we came to a spot where two distinct blazed roads diverged.

“What are we to do now?” said Mr. T——.

We stopped, and a general consultation was held, and without one dissenting voice we took the branch to the right, which, after pursuing for about half a mile, led us to a log hut of the rudest description.

“Is this the road to Dummer?” we asked a man, who was chopping wood outside the fence.

“I guess you are in Dummer,” was the answer.

My heart leaped for joy, for I was dreadfully fatigued.

“Does this road lead through the English Line?”

“That's another thing,” returned the woodman. “No, you turned off from the right path when you came up here.” We all looked very blank at each other. “You will have to go back, and keep the other road, and that will lead you straight to the English Line.”

“How many miles is it to Mrs. N——'s?”

“Some four, or thereabouts,” was the cheering rejoinder. “'Tis one of the last clearings on the line. If you are going back to Douro to-night, you must look sharp.”

Sadly and dejectedly we retraced our steps. There are few trifling failures more bitter in our journey through life than that of a tired traveller mistaking his road. What effect must that tremendous failure produce upon the human mind, when at the end of life's unretraceable journey, the traveller finds that he has fallen upon the wrong track through every stage, and instead of arriving at a land of blissful promise, sinks for ever into the gulf of despair!

The distance we had trodden in the wrong path, while led on by hope and anticipation, now seemed to double in length, as with painful steps we toiled on to reach the right road. This object once attained, soon led us to the dwellings of men.

Neat, comfortable log houses, surrounded by well-fenced patches of clearing, arose on either side of the forest road; dogs flew out and barked at us, and children ran shouting indoors to tell their respective owners that strangers were passing their gates; a most unusual circumstance, I should think, in that location.

A servant who had hired two years with my brother-in-law, we knew must live somewhere in this neighbourhood, at whose fireside we hoped not only to rest and warm ourselves, but to obtain something to eat. On going up to one of the cabins to inquire for Hannah J——, we fortunately happened to light upon the very person we sought. With many exclamations of surprise, she ushered us into her neat and comfortable log dwelling.

A blazing fire, composed of two huge logs, was roaring up the wide chimney, and the savoury smell that issued from a large pot of pea-soup was very agreeable to our cold and hungry stomachs. But, alas, the refreshment went no further! Hannah most politely begged us to take seats by the fire, and warm and rest ourselves; she even knelt down and assisted in rubbing our half-frozen hands; but she never once made mention of the hot soup, or of the tea, which was drawing in a tin teapot upon the hearth-stone, or of a glass of whiskey, which would have been thankfully accepted by our male pilgrims.

Hannah was not an Irishwoman, no, nor a Scotch lassie, or her very first request would have been for us to take “a pickle of soup,” or “a sup of thae warm broths.” The soup was no doubt cooking for Hannah's husband and two neighbours, who were chopping for him in the bush; and whose want of punctuality she feelingly lamented.

As we left her cottage, and jogged on, Emilia whispered, laughing, “I hope you are satisfied with your good dinner? Was not the pea-soup excellent?—and that cup of nice hot tea!—I never relished anything more in my life. I think we should never pass that house without giving Hannah a call, and testifying our gratitude for her good cheer.”

Many times did we stop to inquire the way to Mrs. N——'s, before we ascended the steep, bleak hill upon which her house stood. At the door, Mr. T—— deposited the sack of provisions, and he and young C—— went across the road to the house of an English settler (who, fortunately for them, proved more hospitable than Hannah J——), to wait until our errand was executed.

The house before which Emilia and I were standing had once been a tolerably comfortable log dwelling. It was larger than such buildings generally are, and was surrounded by dilapidated barns and stables, which were not cheered by a solitary head of cattle. A black pine-forest stretched away to the north of the house, and terminated in a dismal, tangled cedar-swamp, the entrance to the house not having been constructed to face the road.

The spirit that had borne me up during the journey died within me. I was fearful that my visit would be deemed an impertinent intrusion. I knew not in what manner to introduce myself, and my embarrassment had been greatly increased by Mrs. S—— declaring that I must break the ice, for she had not courage to go in. I remonstrated, but she was firm. To hold any longer parley was impossible. We were standing on the top of a bleak hill, with the thermometer many degrees below zero, and exposed to the fiercest biting of the bitter, cutting blast. With a heavy sigh, I knocked slowly but decidedly at the crazy door. I saw the curly head of a boy glance for a moment against the broken window. There was a stir within, but no one answered our summons. Emilia was rubbing her hands together, and beating a rapid tattoo with her feet upon the hard and glittering snow, to keep them from freezing.

Again I appealed to the inhospitable door, with a vehemence which seemed to say, “We are freezing, good people; in mercy let us in!”

Again there was a stir, and a whispered sound of voices, as if in consultation, from within; and after waiting a few minutes longer—which, cold as we were, seemed an age—the door was cautiously opened by a handsome, dark-eyed lad of twelve years of age, who was evidently the owner of the curly head that had been sent to reconnoitre us through the window. Carefully closing the door after him, he stepped out upon the snow, and asked us coldly but respectfully what we wanted. I told him that we were two ladies, who had walked all the way from Douro to see his mamma, and that we wished very much to speak to her. The lad answered us, with the ease and courtesy of a gentleman, that he did not know whether his mamma could be seen by strangers, but he would go in and see. So saying he abruptly left us, leaving behind him an ugly skeleton of a dog, who, after expressing his disapprobation at our presence in the most disagreeable and unequivocal manner, pounced like a famished wolf upon the sack of good things which lay at Emilia's feet; and our united efforts could scarcely keep him off.

“A cold, doubtful reception this!” said my friend, turning her back to the wind, and hiding her face in her muff. “This is worse than Hannah's liberality, and the long, weary walk.”

I thought so too, and began to apprehend that our walk had been in vain, when the lad again appeared, and said that we might walk in, for his mother was dressed.

Emilia, true to her determination, went no farther than the passage. In vain were all my entreating looks and mute appeals to her benevolence and friendship; I was forced to enter alone the apartment that contained the distressed family.

I felt that I was treading upon sacred ground, for a pitying angel hovers over the abode of suffering virtue, and hallows all its woes. On a rude bench, before the fire, sat a lady, between thirty and forty years of age, dressed in a thin, coloured muslin gown, the most inappropriate garment for the rigour of the season, but, in all probability, the only decent one that she retained. A subdued melancholy looked forth from her large, dark, pensive eyes. She appeared like one who, having discovered the full extent of her misery, had proudly steeled her heart to bear it. Her countenance was very pleasing, and, in early life (but she was still young), she must have been eminently handsome. Near her, with her head bent down, and shaded by her thin, slender hand, her slight figure scarcely covered by her scanty clothing, sat her eldest daughter, a gentle, sweet-looking girl, who held in her arms a baby brother, whose destitution she endeavoured to conceal. It was a touching sight; that suffering girl, just stepping into womanhood, hiding against her young bosom the nakedness of the little creature she loved. Another fine boy, whose neatly-patched clothes had not one piece of the original stuff apparently left in them, stood behind his mother, with dark, glistening eyes fastened upon me, as if amused, and wondering who I was, and what business I could have there. A pale and attenuated, but very pretty, delicately-featured little girl was seated on a low stool before the fire. This was old Jenny's darling, Ellie, or Eloise. A rude bedstead, of home manufacture, in a corner of the room, covered with a coarse woollen quilt, contained two little boys, who had crept into it to conceal their wants from the eyes of the stranger. On the table lay a dozen peeled potatoes, and a small pot was boiling on the fire, to receive their scanty and only daily meal. There was such an air of patient and enduring suffering to the whole group, that, as I gazed heart-stricken upon it, my fortitude quite gave way, and I burst into tears.

Mrs. N—— first broke the painful silence, and, rather proudly, asked me to whom she had the pleasure of speaking. I made a desperate effort to regain my composure, and told her, but with much embarrassment, my name; adding that I was so well acquainted with her and her children, through Jenny, that I could not consider her as a stranger; that I hoped that, as I was the wife of an officer, and like her, a resident in the bush, and well acquainted with all its trials and privations, she would look upon me as a friend.

She seemed surprised and annoyed, and I found no small difficulty in introducing the object of my visit; but the day was rapidly declining, and I knew that not a moment was to be lost. At first she coldly rejected all offers of service, and said that she was contented, and wanted for nothing.

I appealed to the situation in which I beheld herself and her children, and implored her, for their sakes, not to refuse help from friends who felt for her distress. Her maternal feelings triumphed over her assumed indifference, and when she saw me weeping, for I could no longer restrain my tears, her pride yielded, and for some minutes not a word was spoken. I heard the large tears, as they slowly fell from her daughter's eyes, drop one by one upon her garments.

At last the poor girl sobbed out, “Dear mamma, why conceal the truth? You know that we are nearly naked, and starving.”

Then came the sad tale of domestic woes:—the absence of the husband and eldest son; the uncertainty as to where they were, or in what engaged; the utter want of means to procure the common necessaries of life; the sale of the only remaining cow that used to provide the children with food. It had been sold for twelve dollars, part to be paid in cash, part in potatoes; the potatoes were nearly exhausted, and they were allowanced to so many a day. But the six dollars she had retained as their last resource. Alas! she had sent the eldest boy the day before to P——, to get a letter out of the post-office, which she hoped contained some tidings of her husband and son. She was all anxiety and expectation, but the child returned late at night without the letter which they had longed for with such feverish impatience. The six dollars upon which they had depended for a supply of food were in notes of the Farmer's Bank, which at that time would not pass for money, and which the roguish purchaser of the cow had passed off upon this distressed family.

Oh! imagine, ye who revel in riches—who can daily throw away a large sum upon the merest toy—the cruel disappointment, the bitter agony of this poor mother's heart, when she received this calamitous news, in the midst of her starving children. For the last nine weeks they had lived upon a scanty supply of potatoes; they had not tasted raised bread or animal food for eighteen months.

“Ellie,” said I, anxious to introduce the sack, which had lain like a nightmare upon my mind, “I have something for you; Jenny baked some loaves last night, and sent them to you with her best love.”

The eyes of all the children grew bright. “You will find the sack with the bread in the passage,” said I to one of the boys. He rushed joyfully out, and returned with Mrs. —— and the sack. Her bland and affectionate greeting restored us all to tranquillity.

The delighted boy opened the sack. The first thing he produced was the ham.

“Oh,” said I, “that is a ham that my sister sent to Mrs. N——; 'tis of her own curing, and she thought that it might be acceptable.”

Then came the white fish, nicely packed in a clean cloth. “Mrs. C—— thought fish might be a treat to Mrs. N——, as she lived so far from the great lakes.” Then came Jenny's bread, which had already been introduced. The beef, and tea, and sugar, fell upon the floor without any comment. The first scruples had been overcome, and the day was ours.

“And now, ladies,” said Mrs. N——, with true hospitality, “since you have brought refreshments with you, permit me to cook something for your dinner.”

The scene I had just witnessed had produced such a choking sensation that all my hunger had vanished. Before we could accept or refuse Mrs. N——'s kind offer, Mr. T—— arrived, to hurry us off.

It was two o'clock when we descended the hill in front of the house, that led by a side-path round to the road, and commenced our homeward route. I thought the four miles of clearings would never be passed; and the English Line appeared to have no end. At length we entered once more the dark forest.

The setting sun gleamed along the ground; the necessity of exerting our utmost speed, and getting through the great swamp before darkness surrounded us, was apparent to all. The men strode vigorously forward, for they had been refreshed with a substantial dinner of potatoes and pork, washed down with a glass of whiskey, at the cottage in which they had waited for us; but poor Emilia and I, faint, hungry, and foot-sore, it was with the greatest difficulty we could keep up. I thought of Rosalind, as our march up and down the fallen logs recommenced, and often exclaimed with her, “Oh, Jupiter! how weary are my legs!”

Night closed in just as we reached the beaver-meadow. Here our ears were greeted with the sound of well-known voices. James and Henry C—— had brought the ox-sleigh to meet us at the edge of the bush. Never was splendid equipage greeted with such delight. Emilia and I, now fairly exhausted with fatigue, scrambled into it, and lying down on the straw which covered the bottom of the rude vehicle, we drew the buffalo robes over our faces, and actually slept soundly until we reached Colonel C——'s hospitable door.

An excellent supper of hot fish and fried venison was smoking on the table, with other good cheer, to which we did ample justice. I, for one, never was so hungry in my life. We had fasted for twelve hours, and that on an intensely cold day, and had walked during that period upwards of twenty miles. Never, never shall I forget that weary walk to Dummer; but a blessing followed it.

It was midnight when Emilia and I reached my humble home; our good friends the oxen being again put in requisition to carry us there. Emilia went immediately to bed, from which she was unable to rise for several days. In the meanwhile I wrote to Moodie an account of the scene I had witnessed, and he raised a subscription among the officers of the regiment for the poor lady and her children, which amounted to forty dollars. Emilia lost no time in making a full report to her friends at P——; and before a week passed away, Mrs. N—— and her family were removed thither by several benevolent individuals in the place. A neat cottage was hired for her; and, to the honour of Canada be it spoken, all who could afford a donation gave cheerfully. Farmers left at her door, pork, beef, flour, and potatoes; the storekeepers sent groceries and goods to make clothes for the children; the shoemakers contributed boots for the boys; while the ladies did all in their power to assist and comfort the gentle creature thus thrown by Providence upon their bounty.

While Mrs. N—— remained at P—— she did not want for any comfort. Her children were clothed and her rent paid by her benevolent friends, and her house supplied with food and many comforts from the same source. Respected and beloved by all who knew her, it would have been well had she never left the quiet asylum where for several years she enjoyed tranquillity and a respectable competence from her school; but in an evil hour she followed her worthless husband to the Southern States, and again suffered all the woes which drunkenness inflicts upon the wives and children of its degraded victims.

THE CONVICT'S WIFE
Pale matron! I see thee in agony steep
The pillow on which thy young innocents sleep;
Their slumbers are tranquil, unbroken their rest,
They know not the grief that convulses thy breast;
They mark not the glance of that red, swollen eye,
That must weep till the fountain of sorrow is dry;
They guess not thy thoughts in this moment of dread,
Thou desolate widow, but not of the dead!

Ah, what are thy feelings, whilst gazing on those,
Who unconsciously smile in their balmy repose,—
The pangs which thy grief-stricken bosom must prove
Whilst gazing through tears on those pledges of love,
Who murmur in slumber the dear, cherish'd name
Of that sire who has cover'd his offspring with shame,—
Of that husband whom justice has wrench'd from thy side
Of the wretch, who the laws of his country defied?

Poor, heart-broken mourner! thy tears faster flow,
Time can bring no oblivion to banish thy woe;
The sorrows of others are soften'd by years.
Ah, what now remains for thy portion but tears?
Anxieties ceaseless, renew'd day by day,
While thy heart yearns for one who is ever away.
No hope speeds thy thoughts as they traverse the wave
To the far-distant land of the exile and slave.

And those children, whose birth with such rapture was hail'd,
When the holiest feelings of nature prevail'd,
And the bright drops that moisten'd the father's glad cheek
Could alone the deep transport of happiness speak;
When he turn'd from his first-born with glances of pride,
In grateful devotion to gaze on his bride,
The loved and the loving, who, silent with joy,
Alternately gazed from the sire to his boy.

Ah! what could induce the young husband to fling
Love's garland away in life's beautiful spring,
To scatter the roses Hope wreath'd for her brow
In the dust, and abandon his partner to woe?
The wine-cup can answer. The Bacchanal's bowl
Corrupted life's chalice, and poison'd his soul.
It chill'd the warm heart, added fire to the brain,
Gave to pleasure and passion unbridled the rein;
Till the gentle endearments of children and wife
Only roused the fell demon to anger and strife.

By conscience deserted, by law unrestrain'd,
A felon, convicted, unblushing, and chain'd;
Too late from the dark dream of ruin he woke
To remember the wife whose fond heart he had broke;
The children abandon'd to sorrow and shame,
Their deepest misfortune the brand of his name.
Oh, dire was the curse he invoked on his soul,
Then gave his last mite for a draught of the bowl!

[Scooter]

CHAPTER XXVI — A CHANGE IN OUR PROSPECTS
The future flower lies folded in the bud,—
Its beauty, colour, fragrance, graceful form,
Carefully shrouded in that tiny cell;
Till time and circumstance, and sun and shower,
Expand the embryo blossom—and it bursts
Its narrow cerements, lifts its blushing head,
Rejoicing in the light and dew of heaven.
But if the canker-worm lies coil'd around
The heart o' the bud, the summer sun and dew
Visit in vain the sear'd and blighted flower.
During my illness, a kind neighbour, who had not only frequently come to see me, but had brought me many nourishing things, made by her own fair hands, took a great fancy to my second daughter, who, lively and volatile, could not be induced to remain quiet in the sick chamber. The noise she made greatly retarded my recovery, and Mrs. H—— took her home with her, as the only means of obtaining for me necessary rest. During that winter and through the ensuing summer, I only received occasional visits from my little girl, who, fairly established with her new friends, looked upon their house as her home.

This separation, which was felt as a great benefit at the time, greatly estranged the affections of the child from her own people. She saw us so seldom that she almost regarded us, when she did meet, as strangers; and I often deeply lamented the hour when I had unwittingly suffered the threefold cord of domestic love to be unravelled by absence, and the flattering attentions which fed the vanity of a beautiful child, without strengthening her moral character. Mrs. H——, whose husband was wealthy, was a generous, warm-hearted girl of eighteen. Lovely in person, and fascinating in manners, and still too young to have any idea of forming the character of a child, she dressed the little creature expensively; and, by constantly praising her personal appearance, gave her an idea of her own importance which it took many years to eradicate.

It is a great error to suffer a child, who has been trained in the hard school of poverty and self-denial, to be transplanted suddenly into the hot-bed of wealth and luxury. The idea of the child being so much happier and better off blinds her fond parents to the dangers of her new situation, where she is sure to contract a dislike to all useful occupation, and to look upon scanty means and plain clothing as a disgrace. If the re-action is bad for a grown-up person, it is almost destructive to a child who is incapable of moral reflection. Whenever I saw little Addie, and remarked the growing coldness of her manner towards us, my heart reproached me for having exposed her to temptation.

Still, in the eye of the world, she was much better situated than she could possibly be with us. The heart of the parent could alone understand the change.

So sensible was her father of this alteration, that the first time he paid us a visit he went and brought home his child.

“If she remain so long away from us, at her tender years,” he said, “she will cease to love us. All the wealth in the world would not compensate me for the love of my child.”

The removal of my sister rendered my separation from my husband doubly lonely and irksome. Sometimes the desire to see and converse with him would press so painfully on my heart that I would get up in the night, strike a light, and sit down and write him a long letter, and tell him all that was in my mind; and when I had thus unburdened my spirit, the letter was committed to the flames, and after fervently commending him to the care of the Great Father of mankind, I would lay down my throbbing head on my pillow beside our first-born son, and sleep tranquilly.

It is a strange fact that many of my husband's letters to me were written at the very time when I felt those irresistible impulses to hold communion with him. Why should we be ashamed to admit openly our belief in this mysterious intercourse between the spirits of those who are bound to each other by the tender ties of friendship and affection, when the experience of every day proves its truth? Proverbs, which are the wisdom of ages collected into a few brief words, tell us in one pithy sentence that “if we talk of the devil he is sure to appear.” While the name of a long-absent friend is in our mouth, the next moment brings him into our presence. How can this be, if mind did not meet mind, and the spirit had not a prophetic consciousness of the vicinity of another spirit, kindred with its own? This is an occurrence so common that I never met with any person to whom it had not happened; few will admit it to be a spiritual agency, but in no other way can they satisfactorily explain its cause. If it were a mere coincidence, or combination of ordinary circumstances, it would not happen so often, and people would not be led to speak of the long-absent always at the moment when they are just about to present themselves before them. My husband was no believer in what he termed my fanciful, speculative theories; yet at the time when his youngest boy and myself lay dangerously ill, and hardly expected to live, I received from him a letter, written in great haste, which commenced with this sentence: “Do write to me, dear S——, when you receive this. I have felt very uneasy about you for some days past, and am afraid that all is not right at home.”

Whence came this sudden fear? Why at that particular time did his thoughts turn so despondingly towards those so dear to him? Why did the dark cloud in his mind hang so heavily above his home? The burden of my weary and distressed spirit had reached him; and without knowing of our sufferings and danger, his own responded to the call.

The holy and mysterious nature of man is yet hidden from himself; he is still a stranger to the movements of that inner life, and knows little of its capabilities and powers. A purer religion, a higher standard of moral and intellectual training may in time reveal all this. Man still remains a half-reclaimed savage; the leaven of Christianity is surely working its way, but it has not yet changed the whole lump, or transformed the deformed into the beauteous child of God. Oh, for that glorious day! It is coming. The dark clouds of humanity are already tinged with the golden radiance of the dawn, but the sun of righteousness has not yet arisen upon the world with healing on his wings; the light of truth still struggles in the womb of darkness, and man stumbles on to the fulfilment of his sublime and mysterious destiny.

This spring I was not a little puzzled how to get in the crops. I still continued so weak that I was quite unable to assist in the field, and my good old Jenny was sorely troubled with inflamed feet, which required constant care. At this juncture, a neighbouring settler, who had recently come among us, offered to put in my small crop of peas, potatoes, and oats, in all not comprising more than eight acres, if I would lend him my oxen to log-up a large fallow of ten acres, and put in his own crops. Trusting to his fair dealing, I consented to this arrangement; but he took advantage of my isolated position, and not only logged-up his fallow, but put in all his spring crops before he sowed an acre of mine. The oxen were worked down so low that they were almost unfit for use, and my crops were put in so late, and with such little care, that they all proved a failure. I should have felt this loss more severely had it happened in any previous year; but I had ceased to feel that deep interest in the affairs of the farm, from a sort of conviction in my own mind that it would not long remain my home.

Jenny and I did our best in the way of hoeing and weeding; but no industry on our part could repair the injury done to the seed by being sown out of season.

We therefore confined our attention to the garden, which, as usual, was very productive, and with milk, fresh butter, and eggs, supplied the simple wants of our family. Emilia enlivened our solitude by her company, for several weeks during the summer, and we had many pleasant excursions on the water together.

My knowledge of the use of the paddle, however, was not entirely without its danger.

One very windy Sunday afternoon, a servant-girl, who lived with my friend Mrs. C——, came crying to the house, and implored the use of my canoe and paddles, to cross the lake to see her dying father. The request was instantly granted; but there was no man upon the place to ferry her across, and she could not manage the boat herself—in short, had never been in a canoe in her life.

The girl was deeply distressed. She said that she had got word that her father could scarcely live till she could reach Smith-town; that if she went round by the bridge, she must walk five miles, while if she crossed the lake she could be home in half an hour.

I did not much like the angry swell upon the water, but the poor creature was in such grief that I told her, if she was not afraid of venturing with me, I would try and put her over.

She expressed her thanks in the warmest terms, accompanied by a shower of blessings; and I took the paddles and went down to the landing. Jenny was very averse to my “tempting Providence,” as she termed it, and wished that I might get back as safe as I went. However, the old woman launched the canoe for me, pushed us from the shore, and away we went. The wind was in my favour, and I found so little trouble in getting across that I began to laugh at my own timidity. I put the girl on shore, and endeavoured to shape my passage home. But this I found was no easy task. The water was rough, and the wind high, and the strong current, which runs through that part of the lake to the Smith rapids, was dead against me. In vain I laboured to cross this current; it resisted all my efforts, and at each repulse I was carried farther down towards the rapids, which were full of sunken rocks, and hard for the strong arm of a man to stem—to the weak hand of a woman their safe passage was impossible. I began to feel rather uneasy at the awkward situation in which I found myself placed, and for some time I made desperate efforts to extricate myself, by paddling with all my might. I soon gave this up, and contented myself by steering the canoe in the path that it thought fit to pursue. After drifting down with the current for some little space, until I came opposite a small island, I put out all my strength to gain the land. In this I fortunately succeeded, and getting on shore, I contrived to drag the canoe so far round the headland that I got her out of the current. All now was smooth sailing, and I joyfully answered old Jenny's yells from the landing, that I was safe, and would join her in a few minutes.

This fortunate manoeuvre stood me in good stead upon another occasion, when crossing the lake, some weeks after this, in company with a young female friend, during a sudden storm.

Two Indian women, heavily laden with their packs of dried venison, called at the house to borrow the canoe, to join their encampment upon the other side. It so happened that I wanted to send to the mill that afternoon, and the boat could not be returned in time without I went over with the Indian women and brought it back. My young friend was delighted at the idea of the frolic, and as she could both steer and paddle, and the day was calm and bright, though excessively warm, we both agreed to accompany the squaws to the other side, and bring back the canoe.

Mrs. Muskrat has fallen in love with a fine fat kitten, whom the children had called “Buttermilk,” and she begged so hard for the little puss, that I presented it to her, rather marvelling how she would contrive to carry it so many miles through the woods, and she loaded with such an enormous pack; when, lo! the squaw took down the bundle, and, in the heart of the piles of dried venison, she deposited the cat in a small basket, giving it a thin slice of the meat to console it for its close confinement. Puss received the donation with piteous mews; it was evident that mice and freedom were preferred by her to venison and the honour of riding on a squaw's back.

The squaws paddled us quickly across, and we laughed and chatted as we bounded over the blue waves, until we were landed in a dark cedar-swamp, in the heart of which we found the Indian encampment.

A large party were lounging around the fire, superintending the drying of a quantity of venison which was suspended on forked sticks. Besides the flesh of the deer, a number of musk-rats were skinned, and extended as if standing bolt upright before the fire, warming their paws. The appearance they cut was most ludicrous. My young friend pointed to the musk-rats, as she sank down, laughing, upon one of the skins.

Old Snow-storm, who was present, imagined that she wanted one of them to eat, and very gravely handed her the unsavoury beast, stick and all.

“Does the old man take me for a cannibal?” she said. “I would as soon eat a child.”

Among the many odd things cooking at that fire there was something that had the appearance of a bull-frog.

“What can that be?” she said, directing my eyes to the strange monster. “Surely they don't eat bull-frogs!”

This sally was received by a grunt of approbation from Snow-storm; and, though Indians seldom forget their dignity so far as to laugh, he for once laid aside his stoical gravity, and, twirling the thing round with a stick, burst into a hearty peal.

“Muckakee! Indian eat muckakee?—Ha! ha! Indian no eat muckakee! Frenchmans eat his hind legs; they say the speckled beast much good. This no muckakee!—the liver of deer, dried—very nice—Indian eat him.”

“I wish him much joy of the delicate morsel,” said the saucy girl, who was intent upon quizzing and examining everything in the camp.

We had remained the best part of an hour, when Mrs. Muskrat laid hold of my hand, and leading me through the bush to the shore, pointed up significantly to a cloud, as dark as night, that hung loweringly over the bush.

“Thunder in that cloud—get over the lake—quick, quick, before it breaks.” Then motioning for us to jump into the canoe, she threw in the paddles, and pushed us from shore.

We saw the necessity of haste, and both plied the paddle with diligence to gain the opposite bank, or at least the shelter of the island, before the cloud poured down its fury upon us. We were just in the middle of the current when the first peal of thunder broke with startling nearness over our heads. The storm frowned darkly upon the woods; the rain came down in torrents; and there were we exposed to its utmost fury in the middle of a current too strong for us to stem.

“What shall we do? We shall be drowned!” said my young friend, turning her pale, tearful face towards me.

“Let the canoe float down the current till we get close to the island; then run her into the land. I saved myself once before by this plan.”

We did so, and were safe; but there we had to remain, wet to our skins, until the wind and the rain abated sufficiently for us to manage our little craft. “How do you like being upon the lake in a storm like this?” I whispered to my shivering, dripping companion.

“Very well in romance, but terribly dull in reality. We cannot, however, call it a dry joke,” continued she, wringing the rain from her dress. “I wish we were suspended over Old Snow-storm's fire with the bull-frog, for I hate a shower-bath with my clothes on.”

I took warning by this adventure, never to cross the lake again without a stronger arm than mine in the canoe to steer me safely through the current.

I received much kind attention from my new neighbour, the Rev. W. W——, a truly excellent and pious clergyman of the English Church. The good, white-haired old man expressed the kindest sympathy in all my trials, and strengthened me greatly with his benevolent counsels and gentle charity. Mr. W—— was a true follower of Christ. His Christianity was not confined to his own denomination; and every Sabbath his log cottage was filled with attentive auditors, of all persuasions, who met together to listen to the word of life delivered to them by a Christian minister in the wilderness.

He had been a very fine preacher, and though considerably turned of seventy, his voice was still excellent, and his manner solemn and impressive.

His only son, a young man of twenty-eight years of age, had received a serious injury in the brain by falling upon a turf-spade from a loft window when a child, and his intellect had remained stationary from that time. Poor Harry was an innocent child; he loved his parents with the simplicity of a child, and all who spoke kindly to him he regarded as friends. Like most persons of his caste of mind, his predilection for pet animals was a prominent instinct. He was always followed by two dogs, whom he regarded with especial favour. The moment he caught your eye, he looked down admiringly upon his four-footed attendants, patting their sleek necks, and murmuring, “Nice dogs—nice dogs.” Harry had singled out myself and my little ones as great favourites. He would gather flowers for the girls, and catch butterflies for the boys; while to me he always gave the title of “dear aunt.”

It so happened that one fine morning I wanted to walk a couple of miles through the bush, to spend the day with Mrs. C——; but the woods were full of the cattle belonging to the neighbouring settlers, and of these I was terribly afraid. Whilst I was dressing the little girls to accompany me, Harry W—— came in with a message from his mother. “Oh, thought I, here is Harry W——. He will walk with us through the bush, and defend us from the cattle.”

The proposition was made, and Harry was not a little proud of being invited to join our party. We had accomplished half the distance without seeing a single hoof; and I was beginning to congratulate myself upon our unusual luck, when a large red ox, maddened by the stings of the gad-flies, came headlong through the brush, tossing up the withered leaves and dried moss with his horns, and making directly towards us. I screamed to my champion for help; but where was he?—running like a frightened chipmunk along the fallen timber, shouting to my eldest girl, at the top of his voice—

“Run Katty, run!—The bull, the bull! Run, Katty!—The bull, the bull!”—leaving us poor creatures far behind in the chase.

The bull, who cared not one fig for us, did not even stop to give us a passing stare, and was soon lost among the trees; while our valiant knight never stopped to see what had become of us, but made the best of his way home. So much for taking an innocent for a guard.

The next month most of the militia regiments were disbanded. My husband's services were no longer required at B——, and he once more returned to help to gather in our scanty harvest. Many of the old debts were paid off by his hard-saved pay; and though all hope of continuing in the militia service was at an end, our condition was so much improved that we looked less to the dark than to the sunny side of the landscape.

The potato crop was gathered in, and I had collected my store of dandelion-roots for our winter supply of coffee, when one day brought a letter to my husband from the Governor's secretary, offering him the situation of sheriff of the V—— district. Though perfectly unacquainted with the difficulties and responsibilities of such an important office, my husband looked upon it as a gift sent from heaven to remove us from the sorrows and poverty with which we were surrounded in the woods.

Once more he bade us farewell; but it was to go and make ready a home for us, that we should no more be separated from each other.

Heartily did I return thanks to God that night for all his mercies to us; and Sir George Arthur was not forgotten in those prayers.

From B——, my husband wrote to me to make what haste I could in disposing of our crops, household furniture, stock, and farming implements; and to prepare myself and the children to join him on the first fall of snow that would make the roads practicable for sleighing. To facilitate this object, he sent me a box of clothing, to make up for myself and the children.

For seven years I had lived out of the world entirely; my person had been rendered coarse by hard work and exposure to the weather. I looked double the age I really was, and my hair was already thickly sprinkled with grey. I clung to my solitude. I did not like to be dragged from it to mingle in gay scenes, in a busy town, and with gaily-dressed people. I was no longer fit for the world; I had lost all relish for the pursuits and pleasures which are so essential to its votaries; I was contented to live and die in obscurity.

My dear Emilia rejoiced, like a true friend, in my changed prospects, and came up to help me to cut clothes for the children, and to assist me in preparing them for the journey.

I succeeded in selling off our goods and chattels much better than I expected. My old friend, Mr. W——, who was a new comer, became the principal purchaser, and when Christmas arrived I had not one article left upon my hands save the bedding, which it was necessary to take with us.

THE MAGIC SPELL
The magic spell, the dream is fled,
The dream of joy sent from above;
The idol of my soul is dead,
And naught remains but hopeless love.
The song of birds, the scent of flowers,
The tender light of parting day—
Unheeded now the tardy hours
Steal sadly, silently away.

But welcome now the solemn night,
When watchful stars are gleaming high,
For though thy form eludes my sight,
I know thy gentle spirit's nigh.
O! dear one, now I feel thy power,
'Tis sweet to rest when toil is o'er,
But sweeter far that blessed hour
When fond hearts meet to part no more.
J.W.D.M.

[Scooter]

CHAPTER XXVII — ADIEU TO THE WOODS
Adieu!—adieu!—when quivering lips refuse
The bitter pangs of parting to declare;
And the full bosom feels that it must lose
Friends who were wont its inmost thoughts to share;
When hands are tightly clasp'd, 'mid struggling sighs
And streaming tears, those whisper'd accents rise,
Leaving to God the objects of our care
In that short, simple, comprehensive prayer—
Adieu!
Never did eager British children look for the first violets and primroses of spring with more impatience than my baby boys and girls watched, day after day, for the first snow-flakes that were to form the road to convey them to their absent father.

“Winter never means to come this year. It will never snow again?” exclaimed my eldest boy, turning from the window on Christmas Day, with the most rueful aspect that ever greeted the broad, gay beams of the glorious sun. It was like a spring day. The little lake in front of the window glittered like a mirror of silver, set in its dark frame of pine woods.

I, too, was wearying for the snow, and was tempted to think that it did not come as early as usual, in order to disappoint us. But I kept this to myself, and comforted the expecting child with the oft-repeated assertion that it would certainly snow upon the morrow.

But the morrow came and passed away, and many other morrows, and the same mild, open weather prevailed. The last night of the old year was ushered in with furious storms of wind and snow; the rafters of our log cabin shook beneath the violence of the gale, which swept up from the lake like a lion roaring for its prey, driving the snow-flakes through every open crevice, of which there were not a few, and powdering the floor until it rivalled in whiteness the ground without.

“Oh, what a dreadful night!” we cried, as we huddled, shivering, around the old broken stove. “A person abroad in the woods to-night would be frozen. Flesh and blood could not long stand this cutting wind.”

“It reminds me of the commencement of a laughable extempore ditty,” said I to my young friend, A. C——, who was staying with me, “composed by my husband, during the first very cold night we spent in Canada”—

Oh, the cold of Canada nobody knows,
The fire burns our shoes without warming our toes;
Oh, dear, what shall we do?
Our blankets are thin, and our noses are blue—
Our noses are blue, and our blankets are thin,
It's at zero without, and we're freezing within!
(Chorus)—Oh, dear, what shall we do?
“But, joking apart, my dear A——, we ought to be very thankful that we are not travelling this night to B——.”

“But to-morrow,” said my eldest boy, lifting up his curly head from my lap. “It will be fine to-morrow, and we shall see dear papa again.”

In this hope he lay down on his little bed upon the floor, and was soon fast asleep; perhaps dreaming of that eagerly-anticipated journey, and of meeting his beloved father.

Sleep was a stranger to my eyes. The tempest raged so furiously without that I was fearful the roof would be carried off the house, or that the chimney would take fire. The night was far advanced when old Jenny and myself retired to bed.

My boy's words were prophetic; that was the last night I ever spent in the bush—in the dear forest home which I had loved in spite of all the hardships which we had endured since we pitched our tent in the backwoods. It was the birthplace of my three boys, the school of high resolve and energetic action in which we had learned to meet calmly, and successfully to battle with the ills of life. Nor did I leave it without many regretful tears, to mingle once more with a world to whose usages, during my long solitude, I had become almost a stranger, and to whose praise or blame I felt alike indifferent.

When the day dawned, the whole forest scenery lay glittering in a mantle of dazzling white; the sun shone brightly, the heavens were intensely blue, but the cold was so severe that every article of food had to be thawed before we could get our breakfast. The very blankets that covered us during the night were stiff with our frozen breath. “I hope the sleighs won't come to-day,” I cried; “we should be frozen on the long journey.”

About noon two sleighs turned into our clearing. Old Jenny ran screaming into the room, “The masther has sent for us at last! The sleighs are come! Fine large sleighs, and illigant teams of horses! Och, and its a cowld day for the wee things to lave the bush.”

The snow had been a week in advance of us at B——, and my husband had sent up the teams to remove us. The children jumped about, and laughed aloud for joy. Old Jenny did not know whether to laugh or cry, but she set about helping me to pack up trunks and bedding as fast as our cold hands would permit.

In the midst of the confusion, my brother arrived, like a good genius, to our assistance, declaring his determination to take us down to B—— himself in his large lumber-sleigh. This was indeed joyful news. In less than three hours he despatched the hired sleighs with their loads, and we all stood together in the empty house, striving to warm our hands over the embers of the expiring fire.

How cold and desolate every object appeared! The small windows, half blocked up with snow, scarcely allowed a glimpse of the declining sun to cheer us with his serene aspect. In spite of the cold, several kind friends had waded through the deep snow to say, “God bless you!—Good-bye;” while a group of silent Indians stood together, gazing upon our proceedings with an earnestness which showed that they were not uninterested in the scene. As we passed out to the sleigh, they pressed forward, and silently held out their hands, while the squaws kissed me and the little ones with tearful eyes. They had been true friends to us in our dire necessity, and I returned their mute farewell from my very heart.

Mr. S—— sprang into the sleigh. One of our party was missing. “Jenny!” shouted my brother, at the top of his voice, “it is too cold to keep your mistress and the little children waiting.”

“Och, shure thin, it is I that am comin'!” returned the old body, as she issued from the house.

Shouts of laughter greeted her appearance. The figure she cut upon that memorable day I shall never forget. My brother dropped the reins upon the horses' necks, and fairly roared. Jenny was about to commence her journey to the front in three hats. Was it to protect her from the cold? Oh, no; Jenny was not afraid of the cold! She could have eaten her breakfast on the north side of an iceberg, and always dispensed with shoes, during the most severe of our Canadian winters. It was to protect these precious articles from injury.

Our good neighbour, Mrs. W——, had presented her with an old sky-blue drawn-silk bonnet, as a parting benediction. This, by way of distinction, for she never had possessed such an article of luxury as a silk bonnet in her life, Jenny had placed over the coarse calico cap, with its full furbelow of the same yellow, ill-washed, homely material, next to her head; over this, as second in degree, a sun-burnt straw hat, with faded pink ribbons, just showed its broken rim and tawdry trimmings; and, to crown all, and serve as a guard to the rest, a really serviceable grey-beaver bonnet, once mine, towered up as high as the celebrated crown in which brother Peter figures in Swift's “Tale of a Tub.”

“Mercy, Jenny! Why, old woman, you don't mean to go with us that figure?”

“Och, my dear heart! I've no band-box to kape the cowld from desthroying my illigant bonnets,” returned Jenny, laying her hand upon the side of the sleigh.

“Go back, Jenny; go back,” cried my brother. “For God's sake take all that tom-foolery from off your head. We shall be the laughing-stock of every village we pass through.”

“Och, shure now, Mr. S——, who'd think of looking at an owld crathur like me! It's only yersel' that would notice the like.”

“All the world, everybody would look at you, Jenny. I believe that you put on those hats to draw the attention of all the young fellows that we shall happen to meet on the road. Ha, Jenny!”

With an air of offended dignity, the old woman returned to the house to re-arrange her toilet, and provide for the safety of her “illigant bonnets,” one of which she suspended to the strings of her cloak, while she carried the third dangling in her hand; and no persuasion of mine would induce her to put them out of sight.

Many painful and conflicting emotions agitated my mind, but found no utterance in words, as we entered the forest path, and I looked my last upon that humble home consecrated by the memory of a thousand sorrows. Every object had become endeared to me during my long exile from civilised life. I loved the lonely lake, with its magnificent belt of dark pines sighing in the breeze; the cedar-swamp, the summer home of my dark Indian friends; my own dear little garden, with its rugged snake-fence which I had helped Jenny to place with my own hands, and which I had assisted the faithful woman in cultivating for the last three years, where I had so often braved the tormenting mosquitoes, black flies, and intense heat, to provide vegetables for the use of the family. Even the cows, that had given a breakfast for the last time to my children, were now regarded with mournful affection. A poor labourer stood in the doorway of the deserted house, holding my noble water-dog, Rover, in a string. The poor fellow gave a joyous bark as my eyes fell upon him.

“James J——, take care of my dog.”

“Never fear, ma'am, he shall bide with me as long as he lives.”

“He and the Indians at least feel grieved for our departure,” I thought. Love is so scarce in this world that we ought to prize it, however lowly the source from whence it flows.

We accomplished only twelve miles of our journey that night. The road lay through the bush, and along the banks of the grand, rushing, foaming Otonabee river, the wildest and most beautiful of forest streams. We slept at the house of kind friends, and early in the morning resumed our long journey, but minus one of our party. Our old favourite cat, Peppermint, had made her escape from the basket in which she had been confined, and had scampered off, to the great grief of the children.

As we passed Mrs. H——'s house, we called for dear Addie. Mr. H—— brought her in his arms to the gate, well wrapped up in a large fur cape and a warm woollen shawl.

“You are robbing me of my dear little girl,” he said. “Mrs. H—— is absent; she told me not to part with her if you should call; but I could not detain her without your consent. Now that you have seen her, allow me to keep her for a few months longer?”

Addie was in the sleigh. I put my arm about her. I felt I had my child again, and I secretly rejoiced in the possession of my own. I sincerely thanked him for his kindness, and Mr. S—— drove on.

At Mr. R——'s, we found a parcel from dear Emilia, containing a plum-cake and other good things for the children. Her kindness never flagged.

We crossed the bridge over the Otonabee, in the rising town of Peterborough, at eight o'clock in the morning. Winter had now set in fairly. The children were glad to huddle together in the bottom of the sleigh, under the buffalo skins and blankets; all but my eldest boy, who, just turned of five years old, was enchanted with all he heard and saw, and continued to stand up and gaze around him. Born in the forest, which he had never quitted before, the sight of a town was such a novelty that he could find no words wherewith to express his astonishment.

“Are the houses come to see one another?” he asked. “How did they all meet here?”

The question greatly amused his uncle, who took some pains to explain to him the difference between town and country. During the day, we got rid of old Jenny and her bonnets, whom we found a very refractory travelling companion; as wilful, and far more difficult to manage than a young child. Fortunately, we overtook the sleighs with the furniture, and Mr. S—— transferred Jenny to the care of one of the drivers; an arrangement that proved satisfactory to all parties.

We had been most fortunate in obtaining comfortable lodgings for the night. The evening had closed in so intensely cold that although we were only two miles from C——, Addie was so much affected by it that the child lay sick and pale in my arms, and, when spoken to, seemed scarcely conscious of our presence.

My brother jumped from the front seat, and came round to look at her. “That child is ill with the cold; we must stop somewhere to warm her, or she will hardly hold out till we get to the inn at C——.”

We were just entering the little village of A——, in the vicinity of the court-house, and we stopped at a pretty green cottage, and asked permission to warm the children. A stout, middle-aged woman came to the sleigh, and in the kindest manner requested us to alight.

“I think I know that voice,” I said. “Surely it cannot be Mrs. S——, who once kept the —— hotel at C——?”

“Mrs. Moodie, you are welcome,” said the excellent woman, bestowing upon me a most friendly embrace; “you and your children. I am heartily glad to see you again after so many years. God bless you all!”

Nothing could exceed the kindness and hospitality of this generous woman; she would not hear of our leaving her that night, and, directing my brother to put up his horses in her stable, she made up an excellent fire in a large bedroom, and helped me to undress the little ones who were already asleep, and to warm and feed the rest before we put them to bed.

This meeting gave me real pleasure. In their station of life, I seldom have found a more worthy couple than this American and his wife; and, having witnessed so many of their acts of kindness, both to ourselves and others, I entertained for them a sincere respect and affection, and truly rejoiced that Providence had once more led me to the shelter of their roof.

Mr. S—— was absent, but I found little Mary—the sweet child who used to listen with such delight to Moodie's flute—grown up into a beautiful girl; and the baby that was, a fine child of eight years old. The next morning was so intensely cold that my brother would not resume the journey until past ten o'clock, and even then it was a hazardous experiment.

We had not proceeded four miles before the horses were covered with icicles. Our hair was frozen as white as old Time's solitary forelock, our eyelids stiff, and every limb aching with cold.

“This will never do,” said my brother, turning to me; “the children will freeze. I never felt the cold more severe than this.”

“Where can we stop?” said I; “we are miles from C——, and I see no prospect of the weather becoming milder.”

“Yes, yes; I know, by the very intensity of the cold, that a change is at hand. We seldom have more than three very severe days running, and this is the third. At all events, it is much warmer at night in this country than during the day; the wind drops, and the frost is more bearable. I know a worthy farmer who lives about a mile ahead; he will give us house-room for a few hours; and we will resume our journey in the evening. The moon is at full; and it will be easier to wrap the children up, and keep them warm when they are asleep. Shall we stop at Old Woodruff's?”

“With all my heart.” My teeth were chattering with the cold, and the children were crying over their aching fingers at the bottom of the sleigh.

A few minutes' ride brought us to a large farm-house, surrounded by commodious sheds and barns. A fine orchard opposite, and a yard well-stocked with fat cattle and sheep, sleek geese, and plethoric-looking swine, gave promise of a land of abundance and comfort. My brother ran into the house to see if the owner was at home, and presently returned, accompanied by the staunch Canadian yeoman and his daughter, who gave us a truly hearty welcome, and assisted in removing the children from the sleigh to the cheerful fire, that made all bright and cozy within.

Our host was a shrewd, humorous-looking Yorkshireman. His red, weather-beaten face, and tall, athletic figure, bent as it was with hard labour, gave indications of great personal strength; and a certain knowing twinkle in his small, clear grey eyes, which had been acquired by long dealing with the world, with a quiet, sarcastic smile that lurked round the corners of his large mouth, gave you the idea of a man who could not easily be deceived by his fellows; one who, though no rogue himself, was quick in detecting the roguery of others. His manners were frank and easy, and he was such a hospitable entertainer that you felt at home with him in a minute.

“Well, how are you, Mr. S——?” cried the farmer, shaking my brother heartily by the hand. “Toiling in the bush still, eh?”

“Just in the same place.”

“And the wife and children?”

“Hearty. Some half-dozen have been added to the flock since you were our way.”

“So much the better—so much the better. The more the merrier, Mr. S——; children are riches in this country.”

“I know not how that may be; I find it hard to clothe and feed mine.”

“Wait till they grow up; they will be brave helps to you then. The price of labour—the price of labour, Mr. S——, is the destruction of the farmer.”

“It does not seem to trouble you much, Woodruff,” said my brother, glancing round the well-furnished apartment.

“My son and S—— do it all,” cried the old man. “Of course the girls help in busy times, and take care of the dairy, and we hire occasionally; but small as the sum is which is expended in wages during seed-time and harvest, I feel it, I can tell you.”

“You are married again, Woodruff?”

“No, sir,” said the farmer, with a peculiar smile; “not yet;” which seemed to imply the probability of such an event. “That tall gal is my eldest daughter; she manages the house, and an excellent housekeeper she is. But I cannot keep her for ever.” With a knowing wink, “Gals will think of getting married, and seldom consult the wishes of their parents upon the subject when once they have taken the notion into their heads. But 'tis natural, Mr. S——, it is natural; we did just the same when we were young.”

My brother looked laughingly towards the fine, handsome young woman, as she placed upon the table hot water, whiskey, and a huge plate of plum-cake, which did not lack a companion, stored with the finest apples which the orchard could produce.

The young girl looked down, and blushed.

“Oh, I see how it is, Woodruff! You will soon lose your daughter. I wonder that you have kept her so long. But who are these young ladies?” he continued, as three girls very demurely entered the room.

“The two youngest are my darters, by my last wife, who, I fear, mean soon to follow the bad example of their sister. The other lady,” said the old man, with a reverential air, “is a particular friend of my eldest darter's.”

My brother laughed slily, and the old man's cheek took a deeper glow as he stooped forward to mix the punch.

“You said that these two young ladies, Woodruff, were by your last wife. Pray how many wives have you had?”

“Only three. It is impossible, they say in my country, to have too much of a good thing.”

“So I suppose you think,” said my brother, glancing first at the old man and then towards Miss Smith. “Three wives! You have been a fortunate man, Woodruff, to survive them all.”

“Ay, have I not, Mr. S——? But to tell you the truth, I have been both lucky and unlucky in the wife way,” and then he told us the history of his several ventures in matrimony, with which I shall not trouble my readers.

When he had concluded, the weather was somewhat milder, the sleigh was ordered to the door, and we proceeded on our journey, resting for the night at a small village about twenty miles from B——, rejoicing that the long distance which separated us from the husband and father was diminished to a few miles, and that, with the blessing of Providence, we should meet on the morrow.

About noon we reached the distant town, and were met at the inn by him whom one and all so ardently longed to see. He conducted us to a pretty, neat cottage, which he had prepared for our reception, and where we found old Jenny already arrived. With great pride the old woman conducted me over the premises, and showed me the furniture “the masther” had bought; especially recommending to my notice a china tea-service, which she considered the most wonderful acquisition of the whole.

“Och! who would have thought, a year ago, misthress dear, that we should be living in a mansion like this, and ating off raal chaney? It is but yestherday that we were hoeing praties in the field.”

“Yes, Jenny, God has been very good to us, and I hope that we shall never learn to regard with indifference the many benefits which we have received at His hands.”

Reader! it is not my intention to trouble you with the sequel of our history. I have given you a faithful picture of a life in the backwoods of Canada, and I leave you to draw from it your own conclusions. To the poor, industrious working man it presents many advantages; to the poor gentleman, none! The former works hard, puts up with coarse, scanty fare, and submits, with a good grace, to hardships that would kill a domesticated animal at home. Thus he becomes independent, inasmuch as the land that he has cleared finds him in the common necessaries of life; but it seldom, if ever, in remote situations, accomplishes more than this. The gentleman can neither work so hard, live so coarsely, nor endure so many privations as his poorer but more fortunate neighbour. Unaccustomed to manual labour, his services in the field are not of a nature to secure for him a profitable return. The task is new to him, he knows not how to perform it well; and, conscious of his deficiency, he expends his little means in hiring labour, which his bush-farm can never repay. Difficulties increase, debts grow upon him, he struggles in vain to extricate himself, and finally sees his family sink into hopeless ruin.

If these sketches should prove the means of deterring one family from sinking their property, and shipwrecking all their hopes, by going to reside in the backwoods of Canada, I shall consider myself amply repaid for revealing the secrets of the prison-house, and feel that I have not toiled and suffered in the wilderness in vain.

THE MAPLE-TREE
A CANADIAN SONG
Hail to the pride of the forest—hail
To the maple, tall and green;
It yields a treasure which ne'er shall fail
While leaves on its boughs are seen.
When the moon shines bright,
On the wintry night,
And silvers the frozen snow;
And echo dwells
On the jingling bells
As the sleighs dart to and fro;
Then it brightens the mirth
Of the social hearth
With its red and cheery glow.

Afar, 'mid the bosky forest shades,
It lifts its tall head on high;
When the crimson-tinted evening fades
From the glowing saffron sky;
When the sun's last beams
Light up woods and streams,
And brighten the gloom below;
And the deer springs by
With his flashing eye,
And the shy, swift-footed doe;
And the sad winds chide
In the branches wide,
With a tender plaint of woe.

The Indian leans on its rugged trunk,
With the bow in his red right-hand,
And mourns that his race, like a stream, has sunk
From the glorious forest land.
But, blythe and free,
The maple-tree
Still tosses to sun and air
Its thousand arms,
While in countless swarms
The wild bee revels there;
But soon not a trace
Of the red man's race
Shall be found in the landscape fair.

When the snows of winter are melting fast,
And the sap begins to rise,
And the biting breath of the frozen blast
Yields to the spring's soft sighs,
Then away to the wood,
For the maple, good,
Shall unlock its honied store;
And boys and girls,
With their sunny curls,
Bring their vessels brimming o'er
With the luscious flood
Of the brave tree's blood,
Into cauldrons deep to pour.

The blaze from the sugar-bush gleams red;
Far down in the forest dark,
A ruddy glow on the trees is shed,
That lights up their rugged bark;
And with merry shout,
The busy rout
Watch the sap as it bubbles high;
And they talk of the cheer
Of the coming year,
And the jest and the song pass by;
And brave tales of old
Round the fire are told,
That kindle youth's beaming eye.

Hurrah! For the sturdy maple-tree!
Long may its green branch wave;
In native strength sublime and free,
Meet emblem for the brave.
May the nation's peace
With its growth increase,
And its worth be widely spread;
For it lifts not in vain
To the sun and rain
Its tall, majestic head.
May it grace our soil,
And reward our toil,
Till the nation's heart is dead.

[Scooter]

CHAPTER XXVIII — CANADIAN SKETCHES
The preceding sketches of Canadian life, as the reader may well suppose, are necessarily tinctured with somewhat somber hues, imparted by the difficulties and privations with which, for so many years the writer had to struggle; but we should be sorry should these truthful pictures of scenes and characters, observed fifteen or twenty years ago, have the effect of conveying erroneous impressions of the present state of a country, which is manifestly destined, at no remote period, to be one of the most prosperous in the world. Had we merely desired to please the imagination of our readers, it would have been easy to have painted the country and the people rather as we could have wished them to be, than as they actually were, at the period to which our description refers; and, probably, what is thus lost in truthfulness, it would have gained in popularity with that class of readers who peruse books more for amusement than instruction.

When I say that Canada is destined to be one of the most prosperous countries in the world, let it not be supposed that I am influenced by any unreasonable partiality for the land of my adoption. Canada may not possess mines of gold or silver, but she possesses all those advantages of climate, geological structure, and position, which are essential to greatness and prosperity. Her long and severe winter, so disheartening to her first settlers, lays up, amidst the forests of the West, inexhaustible supplies of fertilising moisture for the summer, while it affords the farmer the very best of natural roads to enable him to carry his wheat and other produce to market. It is a remarkable fact, that hardly a lot of land containing two hundred acres, in British America, can be found without an abundant supply of water at all seasons of the year; and a very small proportion of the land itself is naturally unfit for cultivation. To crown the whole, where can a country be pointed out which possesses such an extent of internal navigation? A chain of river navigation and navigable inland seas, which, with the canals recently constructed, gives to the countries bordering on them all the advantages of an extended sea-coast, with a greatly diminished risk of loss from shipwreck!

Little did the modern discoverers of America dream, when they called this country “Canada,” from the exclamation of one of the exploring party, “Aca nada,”—“there is nothing here,” as the story goes, that Canada would far outstrip those lands of gold and silver, in which their imaginations revelled, in that real wealth of which gold and silver are but the portable representatives. The interminable forests—that most gloomy and forbidding feature in its scenery to the European stranger, should have been regarded as the most certain proof of its fertility.

The severity of the climate, and the incessant toil of clearing the land to enable the first settlers to procure the mere necessaries of life, have formed in its present inhabitants an indomitable energy of character, which, whatever may be their faults, must be regarded as a distinguishing attribute of the Canadians, in common with our neighbours of the United States. When we consider the progress of the Northern races of mankind, it cannot be denied, that while the struggles of the hardy races of the North with their severe climate, and their forests, have gradually endowed them with an unconquerable energy of character, which has enabled them to become the masters of the world; the inhabitants of more favoured climates, where the earth almost spontaneously yields all the necessaries of life, have remained comparatively feeble and inactive, or have sunk into sloth and luxury. It is unnecessary to quote any other instances in proof of this obvious fact, than the progress of Great Britain and the United States of America, which have conquered as much by their industry as by their swords.

Our neighbours of the United States are in the habit of attributing their wonderful progress in improvements of all kinds to their republican institutions. This is no doubt quite natural in a people who have done so much for themselves in so short a time; but when we consider the subject in all its bearings, it may be more truly asserted that, with any form of government not absolutely despotic, the progress of North America, peopled by a civilised and energetic race, with every motive to industry and enterprise in the nature of the country itself, must necessarily have been rapid. An unbounded extent of fertile soil, with an increasing population, were circumstances which of themselves were sufficient to create a strong desire for the improvement of internal communications; as, without common roads, rail-roads, or canals, the interior of the country would have been unfit to be inhabited by any but absolute barbarians. All the first settlers of America wanted was to be left to themselves.

When we compare the progress of Great Britain with that of North America, the contrast is sufficiently striking to attract our attention. While the progress of the former has been the work of ages, North America has sprung into wealth and power almost within a period which we can remember. But the colonists of North America should recollect, when they indulge in such comparisons, that their British ancestors took many centuries to civilise themselves, before they could send free and intelligent settlers to America. The necessity for improvements in the internal communications is vastly more urgent in a widely extended continent than in an island, no part of which is far removed from the sea-coast; and patriotism, as well as self-interest, would readily suggest such improvements to the minds of a people who inherited the knowledge of their ancestors, and were besides stimulated to extraordinary exertions by their recently-acquired independence. As the political existence of the United States commenced at a period when civilisation had made great progress in the mother-country, their subsequent improvement would, for various reasons, be much more rapid than that of the country from which they originally emigrated. To show the influence of external circumstances on the characters of men, let us just suppose two individuals, equal in knowledge and natural capacity, to be placed, the one on an improved farm in England, with the necessary capital and farm-stock, and the other in the wilds of America, with no capital but his labour, and the implements required to clear the land for his future farm. In which of these individuals might we reasonably expect to find the most energy, ingenuity, and general intelligence on subjects connected with their immediate interests? No one who has lived for a few years in the United States or Canada can hesitate for a reply.

The farmer in the more improved country generally follows the beaten track, the example of his ancestors, or the successful one of his more intelligent contemporaries; he is rarely compelled to draw upon his individual mental resources. Not so with the colonist. He treads in tracks but little known; he has to struggle with difficulties on all sides. Nature looks sternly on him, and in order to preserve his own existence, he must conquer Nature, as it were, by his perseverance and ingenuity. Each fresh conquest tends to increase his vigour and intelligence, until he becomes a new man, with faculties of mind which, but for his severe lessons in the school of adversity, might have lain for ever dormant.

While America presents the most forbidden aspect to the new settler, it at the same time offers the richest rewards to stimulate his industry. On the one hand, there is want and misery; on the other, abundance and prosperity. There is no middle course for the settler; he must work or starve. In North America there is another strong incentive to improvement, to be found in the scarcity of labour; and still more, therefore, than in Europe must every mechanical contrivance which supersedes manual labour tend to increase the prosperity of the inhabitants. When these circumstances are duly considered, we need no longer wonder at the rapid improvements in labour-saving machinery, and in the means of internal communication throughout the United States. But for the steam-engine, canals, and railroads, North America would have remained for ages a howling wilderness of endless forests, and instead of the busy hum of men, and the sound of the mill and steam-engine, we should now have heard nothing but

“The melancholy roar of unfrequented floods.”

The scenes and characters presented to the reader in the preceding pages, belong, in some measure, rather to the past than the present state of Canada. In the last twenty years great changes have taken place, as well in the external appearance of the country, as in the general character of its inhabitants. In many localities where the land was already under the plough, the original occupants of the soil have departed to renew their endless wars with the giants of the forest, in order to procure more land for their increasing families where it could be obtained at a cheaper price. In the back-woods, forests have been felled, the blackened stumps have disappeared, and regular furrows are formed by the ploughman, where formerly he had not time or inclination to whistle at his work. A superior class of farmers has sprung up, whose minds are as much improved by cultivation as their lands, and who are comfortably settled on farms supposed to be exhausted of their fertility by their predecessors. As the breadth of land recovered from the forest is increased, villages, towns, and cities have grown up and increased in population and wealth in proportion to the productiveness of the surrounding country.

In Canada, it is particularly to be noted, that there is hardly any intermediate stage between the rude toil and privation of the back-woods, and the civilisation, comfort, and luxury of the towns and cities, many of which are to outward appearance entirely European, with the encouraging prospect of a continual increase in the value of fixed property. When a colony, capable, from the fertility of the soil and abundance of moisture, of supporting a dense population, has been settled by a civilised race, they are never long in establishing a communication with the sea-coast and with other countries. When such improvements have been effected, the inhabitants may be said at once to take their proper place among civilised nations. The elements of wealth and power are already there, and time and population only are required fully to develope the resources of the country.

Unhappily the natural progress of civilised communities in our colonies is too often obstructed by the ignorance of governments, and unwise or short-sighted legislation; and abundance of selfish men are always to be found in the colonies themselves, who, destitute of patriotism, greedily avail themselves of this ignorance, in order to promote their private interests at the expense of the community. Canada has been greatly retarded in its progress by such causes, and this will in a great measure account for its backwardness when compared with the United States, without attributing the difference to the different forms of government. It was manifestly the intention of the British government, in conferring representative institutions on Canada, that the people should enjoy all the privileges of their fellow-subjects in the mother-country. The more to assimilate our government to that of its great original, the idea was for some time entertained of creating a titled and hereditary aristocracy, but it was soon found that though

“The King can make a belted knight,
A marquis, duke, an' a' that,”

it was not in his power to give permanency to an institution which, in its origin, was as independent as royalty itself, arising naturally out of the feudal system: but which was utterly inconsistent with the genius and circumstances of a modern colony. The sovereign might endow the members of such an aristocracy with grants of the lands of the crown to support their dignity, but what benefit could such grants be, even to the recipients, in a country covered with boundless forests and nearly destitute of inhabitants? It is obvious that no tenants could be found to pay rents for such lands, or indeed even to occupy them, while lands could be purchased on easy terms in the United States, or in Canada itself. Had this plan been carried out, Canada would have been a doomed country for centuries.

The strongest incitements to industry are required, those of proprietorship and ultimate independence, to induce settlers to encounter all the privations and toil of a new settlement in such a country. A genuine aristocracy can only exist in a country already peopled, and which has been conquered and divided among the conquerors. In such a state of things, aristocracy, though artificial in its origin, becomes naturalised, if I may use the expression, and even, as in Great Britain, when restrained within proper limits, highly beneficial in advancing civilization. Be it for good or be it for evil, it is worse than useless to disguise the fact that the government of a modern colony, where every conquest is made from the forest by little at a time, must be essentially republican.

Any allusion to political parties is certainly foreign to the object of the preceding sketches; but it is impossible to make the British reader acquainted with the various circumstances which retarded the progress of this fine colony, without explaining how the patronage of the local government came formerly to be so exclusively bestowed on one class of the population,—thus creating a kind of spurious aristocracy which disgusted the colonists, and drove emigration from our shores to those of the United States.

After the American Revolution, considerable numbers of loyalists in the United States voluntarily relinquished their homesteads and property, and came to Canada, which then, even on the shores of Lake Ontario, was a perfect wilderness. Lands were of course granted to them by the government, and very naturally these settlers were peculiarly favoured by the local authorities. These loyalists were generally known by the name of “tories,” to distinguish them from the republicans, and forming the great mass of the population. Any one who called himself a reformer was regarded with distrust and suspicion, as a concealed republican or rebel. It must not, however, be supposed that these loyalists were really tories in their political principles. Their notions on such subjects were generally crude and undefined, and living in a country where the whole construction of society and habits of feeling were decidedly republican, the term tory, when adopted by them, was certainly a misnomer. However, hated by, and hating as cordially, the republican party in the United States, they by no means unreasonably considered that their losses and their attachment to British institutions, gave them an almost exclusive claim to the favour of the local government in Canada. Thus the name of U.E. (United Empire) Loyalist or Tory came to be considered an indispensable qualification for every office in the colony.

This was all well enough so long as there was no other party in the country. But gradually a number of other American settlers flowed into Canada from the United States, who had no claim to the title of tories or loyalists, but who in their feelings and habits were probably not much more republican than their predecessors. These were of course regarded with peculiar jealousy by the older or loyalist settlers from the same country. It seemed to them as if a swarm of locusts had come to devour their patrimony. This will account for the violence of party feeling which lately prevailed in Canada.

There is nothing like a slight infusion of self-interest to give point and pungency to party feeling. The British immigrants, who afterwards flowed into this colony in greater numbers, of course brought with them their own particular political predilections. They found what was called toryism and high churchism in the ascendant, and self-interest or prejudice induced most of the more early settlers of this description to fall in with the more powerful and favoured party; while influenced by the representations of the old loyalist party they shunned the other American settlers as republicans. In the meantime, however, the descendants of the original loyalists were becoming numerous, while the government became unable to satisfy them all according to their own estimation of their merits; and as high churchism was, unfortunately for the peace of society, associated with toryism, every shade of religious dissent as well as political difference of opinion generally added to the numbers and power of the reform party, which was now beginning to be known in the colony. Strange to say, the great bulk of the present reform party is composed of the descendants of these U.E. Loyalists, while many of our most ultra tories are the descendants of republican settlers from the United States.

As may be supposed, thirty years of increasing emigration from the mother-country has greatly strengthened the reform party, and they now considerably out-number the conservatives. While the mass of the people held tory, or, I should rather call them, conservative principles, our government seemed to work as well as any representative government may be supposed to work without the necessary check of a constitutional opposition. Favouritism was, of course, the order of the day; and the governor, for the time being, filled up all offices according to his will and pleasure, without many objections being made by the people as to the qualifications of the favourite parties, provided the selections for office were made from the powerful party. Large grants of land were given to favoured individuals in the colony, or to immigrants who came with commendations from the home government. In such a state of matters the people certainly possessed the external form of a free government, but as an opposition party gradually acquired an ascendancy in the lower House of Parliament, they were unable to carry the measures adopted by their majority into operation, in consequence of the systematic opposition of the legislative and executive councils, which were generally formed exclusively from the old conservative party. Whenever the conservatives obtained the majority in the House of Assembly, the reformers, in retaliation, as systematically opposed every measure. Thus a constant bickering was kept up between the parties in Parliament; while the people, amidst these attentions, lost sight of the true interests of the country, and improvements of all kinds came nearly to a stand-still. As matters were then conducted, it would have been much better had the colony been ruled by a governor and council; for, in that case, beneficial measures might have been carried into effect. Such a state of things could not last long; and the discontent of a large portion of the people, terminating, through the indiscretion of an infatuated local government, in actual rebellion, soon produced the remedy. The party generally most powerful in the Legislative Assembly, and the members of which had been so long and so unconstitutionally excluded from holding offices under the government, at once obtained the position which they were entitled, and the people being thus given the power of governing by their majorities in Parliament, improvements of all kinds are steadily advancing up the present moment, and their prosperity and contentment have increased in an equal proportion.

Had the first settlement of Canada been conducted on sound and philosophical principles, much hardship and privation, as well as loss of capital in land speculations, would have been saved to its first settlers, and the country, improved and improving as it now is, would have presented a very different aspect at the present time. With the best intentions, the British government may be justly accused of gross ignorance of the true principles of colonisation, and the local governments are still more open to the accusation of squandering the resources of the colony—its lands—in building up the fortunes of a would-be aristocracy, who being non-resident proprietors of wild lands, necessarily obstructed the progress of improvement, while the people were tantalised with the empty semblance of a free government.

No sooner did emigrants from Great Britain begin to pour into Upper Canada, so as to afford a prospect of the wild lands becoming saleable, than a system of land speculation was resorted to by many of the old colonists. This land speculation has no doubt enriched many individuals, but more than any other abuse has it retarded the natural progress of the country, and the interests of the many have thus been sacrificed to those of the few. Almost all other speculations may be said, in one shape or another, to do good; but land speculation has been an unmitigated curse to Canada, because it occasions a monopoly of the soil, and prevents it from being cleared and rendered productive, until the speculators can obtain their own price for it.

The lands granted to soldiers and sailors who had served in Canada, and those granted to the U.E. loyalists, were bought up, often at merely nominal prices, from the original grantees and their children, and sold again with an immense profit to new settlers from the old country, or retained for many years in an unproductive state. A portion of the lands granted to the U.E. loyalists was, of course, occupied by the heads of families; but the lands to which their children became entitled, under the same benevolent provision of the government, were generally drawn in remote situations. By far the larger portion of these grants, however, were not located or rendered available by the grantees, but remained in the shape of U.E. rights, which were purchased at very low prices by the speculators. These U.E. rights were bought at the rate of 1s. 3d., 2s. 6d., or 3s. 9d. per acre; and it was by no means uncommon for old soldiers to sell one hundred acres of land for two or three dollars, or even for a bottle of rum, so little value did they set on such grants in the then state of Canada. These grants, though well meant, and with respect to the U.E. Loyalists, perhaps, unavoidable, have been most injurious to the country.

The great error in this matter, and which could have been avoided, was the opening of too great an extent of land at once for settlement. A contrary system, steadily pursued, would have produced a concentrated population; and the resources of such a population would have enabled the colonists, by uniting their labour and capital, to make the means of communication, in some degree, keep pace with the settlement of the lands; and Upper Canada would now have been as well provided with canals and railroads as the United States. The same abuses, no doubt, existed formerly to as great an extent in that country, but, being longer settled, it has outgrown the evil. Enough has been said on this subject to show some of the causes which have retarded improvements in Canada.

Another chief cause of the long and helpless torpor in which the country lay, was the absence of municipal governments in the various rural localities. It indeed seems strange, that such a simple matter as providing the means of making roads and bridges by local assessment could not have been conceded to the people, who, if we suppose them to be gifted with common sense, are much more capable of understanding and managing their own parish business, than any government, however well disposed to promote their interests.

Formerly the government of Upper Canada was deluged with petitions for grants of money from Parliament to be expended in improvements in this or that locality, of the reasonableness of which claims the majority of the legislators were, of course, profoundly ignorant. These money grants became subjects of a species of jobbing, or manoeuvering, among the members of the House of Assembly; and he was considered the best member who could get the most money for his county. Commissioners resident in the particular localities were appointed to superintend these public works; and as these commissioners were generally destitute of practical knowledge, these Parliamentary grants were usually expended without producing equivalent results. Nothing in the abstract is more reasonable than that any number of individuals should be allowed to associate themselves for the purpose of effecting some local improvement, which would be beneficial to others as well as to themselves; but nothing of this could be attempted without an Act of Parliament, which, of course, was attended with expense and delay, if not disappointment. The time and attention of the provincial parliament were thus occupied with a mass of parish business, which could have been much better managed by the people themselves on the spot.

When the union of the two provinces was in contemplation, it became evident that the business of such an extended colony could not be carried on in the United Parliament, were it to be encumbered and distracted with the contending claims of so many localities. This consideration led to the establishment of the District (now County) Municipal Councils. These municipal councils were denounced by the conservative party at the time as a step towards republicanism! Were this true, it would only prove that the government of our republican neighbours is better than our own; for these municipal institutions have been eminently beneficial to Canada. But municipal councils are necessarily no more republican in their nature, than the House of Commons in England. However this may be, the true prosperity of Upper Canada may be mainly attributed to their influence on the minds of the people.

Possessing many of the external forms of a parliament, they are admirable political schools for a free people. The most intelligent men in the different townships are freely elected by the inhabitants, and assemble in the county town to deliberate and make by-laws, to levy taxes, and, in short, to do everything which in their judgment will promote the interest of their constituents. Having previously been solely occupied in agricultural pursuits, it might naturally be expected that their first notions would be somewhat crude, and that they would have many long-cherished prejudices to overcome. Their daily intercourse with the more educated inhabitants of the towns, however, tended to remove these prejudices, while new ideas were continually presented to their minds. The rapidity with which this species of practical education is acquired is remarkable, and also, how soon men with such limited opportunities of acquiring knowledge, learn to think and to express their views and opinions in appropriate language. These municipal councillors go home among their constituents, where they have to explain and defend their proceedings; while so engaged, they have occasion to communicate facts and opinions, which are fairly discussed, and thus enlightened views are diffused through the mass of people.

The councillors, at first, were averse to the imposition or increase of taxation, however desirable the object might be; but pride and emulation very soon overcame this natural reluctance; and the example of some neighbouring county, with that natural desire to do good, which, more or less, influences the feelings and conduct of all public men, were not long in producing their beneficial results, even with the risk of offending their constituents. When the County Municipal Councils were first established, the warden or president of the council, and also the treasurer, were appointed by the governor; but both these offices were afterwards made elective, the warden being elected by the council from their own body, and the treasurer being selected by them, without previous election by the people.

Lately, councils have been also established in each township for municipal purposes affecting the interest of the township only, the reeves, or presidents, of which minor councils form the members of the county council. This general system of municipalities, and a late act of the provincial parliament, enabling the inhabitants to form themselves into road companies, have converted the formerly torpid and inactive townships into busy hives of industry and progressive improvement.

Our agricultural societies have also played no mean part in furthering the progress of the colony. In colonies fewer prejudices are entertained on the subject of agricultural matters than on any others, and the people are ever ready to try any experiment which offers any prospect of increased remuneration for labour. Education, of late, has also made rapid advances in this province; and now, the yeomanry of the more improved townships, though they may be inferior to the yeomanry of England in the acquirements derived from common school education, are certainly far superior to them in general intelligence. Their minds are better stocked with ideas, and they are infinitely more progressive. When we consider the relative periods at which the first settlements were formed in the United States and in Upper Canada, and the accumulation of capital in the former, it will not be difficult to show that the progress of Canada has been much more rapid.

The excavation of the Erie Canal, the parent of all the subsequent improvements of a similar nature in the United States, opened-up for settlement a vast country to the westward, which would otherwise for many years have remained a wilderness, unfit for the habitation of man. The boundless success of this experiment necessarily led to all the other similar undertakings. The superior advantages Canada enjoyed in her river and lake navigation, imperfect as that navigation was, operated in a manner rather to retard than to accelerate improvements of this kind; while the construction of the Erie Canal was a matter of prospective necessity, in order to provide for a rapidly increasing population and immigration. In the same manner, the recent completion of the works on the St. Lawrence, and the enlargement of the Welland Canal, connecting Lakes Erie and Ontario, will just as necessarily be followed by similar results, with the additional advantage of the whole colony being greatly benefitted by the commerce of the United States, in addition to her own.

We have now, thanks to responsible government, municipal councils, and common schools, no longer any reason to consider their institutions better calculated to develope the resources of the colony, than our own. Our interests are almost identical, and with our canals and railroads on both sides mutually beneficial, our former hostility has merged into a friendly rivalry in the march of intellect, and we may now truly say that, without wishing for any change in political institutions, which are most congenial to the feelings of the people where they exist, each country now sincerely rejoices in the prosperity of its neighbour.

Before concluding this chapter, I shall endeavour to give the reader a short description of the county of Hastings, in which I have held the office of sheriff for the last twelve years, and which, I believe, possesses many advantages as a place of settlement, over all the other places I have seen in the Upper Province. I should premise, however, lest my partiality for this part of the colony should be supposed to incline me to overrate its comparative advantages to the settler, that my statements are principally intended to show the progress of Upper Province generally; and that when I claim any superiority for this part of it, I shall give, what I trust the reader will consider, satisfactory reasons for my conclusion.

The settlement of a thickly-wooded country, when it is left to chance, is a most uncertain and capricious matter. The narrow views and interests of a clique in the colony, or even of an influential individual, often direct emigration out of its natural course, involving unnecessary suffering to the settler, a waste or absolute loss of capital, and a retarding of the progress of the country. The circumstances and situation of the United States were less productive of these evils than those of Upper Canada, because settlement went on more uniformly from the seacoast towards the interior. The mighty rivers and lakes of Canada, though productive of boundless prosperity, operated in the first period of its settlement, most unfavourably on the growth of the colony, by throwing open for settlement an extensive inland coast, at that time unconnected with the ocean by means of canals. Hence numerous detached, feeble, and unprogressive settlements, came into existence, where the new settlers had to struggle for years with the most disheartening difficulties.

European settlers know but little of the value of situation. In most cases they are only desirous of acquiring a large extent of land at a low price, and thus, unless restrained by the wise regulations of a provident government, they too often ruin themselves, and waste their capital in a wilderness, where it does good to no one. When emigration from the United Kingdom began to set in to Upper Canada, the pernicious speculation in wild lands commenced in earnest. As most of the land speculators possessed shares in the steam-boats on Lake Ontario, the interests of both speculations were combined. It was, of course, the interest of the steam-boat proprietors to direct emigration as far to the westward as possible; and influenced by their interested representations and those of the land speculators settled in Toronto, Cobourg, and Hamilton, the greater portion of the emigrants possessing capital were thrown into these towns, near which they were led to expect desirable locations. In the same manner the agents of the Canada Land Company, who were to be found on every steamer, were actively employed in directing the emigrants to the Huron tract.

By a simple inspection of the map of Upper Canada, it will be seen, that as the Bay of Quinte was out of the general route of the steamers, and too near the lower end of the lake navigation, it did not suit the views of the parties most interested to direct emigration to its shores. Thus the beautiful Bay of Quinte, with the most fertile land on its shores, and scenery which exceeds in variety and picturesque beauty that of any part of Upper Canada, Hamilton and Niagara alone excepted, has been passed by for years for situations much less desirable or attractive to European settlers.

The forbidding aspect of the country near Kingston, which is situated at the entrance of the bay from the St. Lawrence, where the soil has a rocky and barren appearance, has no doubt deterred emigrants from proceeding in this direction.

The shores of the Bay of Quinte were originally occupied principally by U.E. loyalists and retired officers, who had served during the late war with the United States, but the emigration from Europe has chiefly consisted of the poorer class of Irish Catholics, and of Protestants from the North of Ireland, settled in two very thriving townships in the county of Hastings. There is also a sprinkling of Scotch and English in different parts of the county. Comparatively few possessing any considerable amount of capital have found their way here, as the county town, Belleville, is not in the line of the summer travel on the lakes.

The scenery along the shores of the bay is exceedingly beautiful all the way from Kingston to the head, where a large river, the Trent, discharges itself into it at a thriving village, of about a thousand inhabitants, called Trent Port. A summer ride along the lower portion of this river presents scenery of a bolder and grander character than is often met with in Upper Canada, and it is enlivened by spectacles of immense rafts of timber descending the rapids, and by the merry chorus of the light-hearted lumbermen, as they pursue their toilsome and perilous voyage to Quebec.

Belleville was originally a spot reserved for the Mississagua Indians, and was laid out in 1816 for a village, when there were only two or three white men settled among them as traders in the place. It was only during the last year that the two frame farm-houses, situated about a quarter of a mile apart, were removed to make room for more substantial buildings. Belleville remained nearly stationary for several years, during which a few persons realised handsome fortunes, by means of large profits, not withstanding the limited extent of their business. It at length began to grow in importance as the fine country in its neighbourhood was cleared and rendered productive.

In 1839, when the county of Hastings was set apart from the Midland district, under the name of the District of Victoria, and Belleville became the District town, the population of the county, including Belleville, was about 12,000, and that of Belleville about 1500. In 1850 the population of the county had reached 23,454, of which that of Belleville was 3326. By the census just taken, on a much more correct principle than formerly, the population of Belleville in 1852 appears to be 4554, showing an increase of 1228 in two years. During the same period, from 1850 to 1852, the population of Cobourg on Lake Ontario, which town formerly enjoyed the full benefit of a large emigration, has risen from 3379 to 3867, showing an increase of only 488. The town of Dundas in the same time has increased its population from 2311 in 1850 to 3519 in 1852, showing an increase of 1208. The population of the city of Hamilton in 1850 was 10,312, and now, in 1852, it is said to exceed 13,000. In 1838 the then town of Hamilton contained a population of only 3116. When I first visited that place in 1832 it was a dull insignificant village, which might, I suppose, contain a population of 1200 or 1500. I can hardly describe my surprise on revisiting it in 1849, to behold a city grown up suddenly, as if by enchantment, with several handsome churches and public and private buildings of cut stone, brought from the fine freestone quarries in the precipitous mountains or tableland behind the city.

Little need be said of the capital of the province, the city of Toronto, the progress of which has been less remarkable in the same period, for the obvious reason that its merits were sooner appreciated or known by the emigrants from Europe. The population of Toronto, then called Little York, in 1826 was 1677, while that of the now city of Kingston was 2329. In 1838 the population of Toronto was 12,571, and that of Kingston 3877. In 1850 the population of Toronto was 25,166, and that of Kingston 10,097.

These few facts will enable the reader to form some idea of the comparative progress of different towns in Upper Canada, under circumstances similar in some cases and different in others. When it is considered that all of these last-mentioned towns have for many years reaped the full benefit of the influx of emigration and capital from the mother country, while the shores of the Bay of Quinte were little known or appreciated, it will appear that the progress of Belleville has been at least equal to that of any of them. The prosperity of Belleville may in fact be almost entirely attributed to the gradual development of its own internal resources, the fertility of the lands in its vicinity, and a large exportation, of late years, of lumber of all kinds to the United States.

Having no desire unnecessarily to trouble the reader with dry statistical tables, I shall merely quote the following facts and figures, kindly furnished me by G. Benjamin, Esq., the present warden of the county of Hastings, to whose business talents and public spirit the county is largely indebted for its progress in internal improvement.

The increase of business at the port of Belleville has been most extraordinary. In 1839, the total amount of duties paid at this port amounted to 280l; and in the year (1850) the amount reached 3659l. 12s. 4d. The total arrivals at this port from the United States are as follows:

No. of Tons Hands
Vessels employed
British propellers ........... 8 2,400 104
British sailing vessels ...... 81 4,140 375
Foreign do. do. .............. 124 12,643 730
————- ————— ————-
Total ........................ 213 19,183 1209

This in addition to our daily steamers.

Our exports to the United States are ............ L52,532 17 5
And British ports below Belleville .............. 153,411 16 6
———————————
L205,944 13 11
L s d
Total imports from United States 25,067 2 6
Total acceptances from United States 17,435 0 0
Total importations from lower ports,
including drafts and other resources 130,294 0 0 172,796 2 6
————————- ——————————-
Showing the balance of trade in
favour of this port to be ........................ L33,148 11 5

Our exports to the lower ports are made up as follows:

3,485 barrels of Potash .................... L27,880 0 0
33,198 “ Flour ..................... 33,198 0 0
357 bushels of Grass seed ................ 133 17 6
1,450 “ Barley .................... 181 5 0
4,947 “ Peas ...................... 594 14 0
4,349 “ Rye ....................... 434 18 0
37,360 “ Wheat ..................... 7,472 0 0
198 barrels of Pork ...................... 396 0 0
54 “ Beef ...................... 74 5 0
1,141 Sheep-skins .......................... 114 2 0
4,395,590 feet square Timber ................... 74,903 2 6
173 kegs of Butter ....................... 540 12 6
Furs ................................. 716 0 0
Fatted Cattle ........................ 1,840 0 0
High Wines ........................... 3,098 0 0
Whiskey .............................. 1,830 0 0
————————————-
L153,411 16 6

Our exports to the United States are made up as follows:

30,686 bushels of Wheat ..................... L6,137 4 11
3,514 “ Rye ....................... 351 8 0
3,728 “ Peas ...................... 466 0 0
90 “ Barley .................... 9 0 0
316 “ Grass seed ................ 118 10 0
18,756 barrels of Flour ..................... 18,756 0 0
338 “ Potash .................... 2,366 0 0
1,000 bushels of Potatoes .................. 62 10 0
92 M. Shingles .................. 23 0 0
117 M. Laths ..................... 43 15 0
18,210 lbs. Rags ...................... 190 0 0
9,912 lbs. Wool ...................... 481 19 6
466 Sheep-skins .......................... 57 10 0
61 kegs of Butter ....................... 122 0 0
19,648,000 feet sawed Lumber .................... 21,296 0 0
513 Cows ................................. 2,052 0 0
————————————
L52,532 17 5

[Scooter]

The River Moira passing through Belleville, where it discharges itself into the Bay of Quinte, is one principal source of its prosperity. The preceding statement will show the quantity of sawed lumber exported, most of which is furnished by the saw-mills of Belleville, or its immediate vicinity. Besides saw and flour-mills, there are cloth and paper manufactories, a manufactory of edge tools; pail manufactories, where great quantities of these useful articles are made at a low price by machinery; planing machines, several iron foundries, breweries, distilleries, &c., in almost all of which establishments steam-engines, or water-power from the river, are used. A remarkable feature in Belleville, in common with other towns in Canada, is the great number of tailoring and shoe-making establishments, when compared with towns of an equal population in Great Britain. This shows, more than anything I am aware of, the general prosperity of the people, who can afford to be large consumers of such articles.

There is very little difference to be observed in the costliness of the clothing of the different classes of society in Upper Canadian towns and cities, and much less difference in the taste with which these articles are selected, than might be expected. With the exception of the lower class of labourers, all persons are well and suitably clad, and they can afford to be so.

Twelve years ago there were not more than five or six piano-fortes in Belleville. Now there are nearly one hundred of a superior description, costing from 80 to 150 pounds.

Another remarkable circumstance in Upper Canada is the number of lawyers in all the towns. In Belleville there are about a dozen, which seems to be a large number for a town containing only 4554 inhabitants, when in an English town of the same size there is often not more than one. Of course, I do not mention this as any particular advantage, but to show the great difference in the amount of transactions, and of subjects of contention, in an old and a new country. The same may be said of the number of newspapers, as indicative of commercial activity. Two newspapers, representing the two political parties, are well-supported in Belleville, both by their subscribers, and the number of advertisements.

The mouth of the Moira River, which widens out at its junction with the Bay of Quinte, is completely covered with saw-logs and square timber of various kinds during the summer months. This river, at Belleville, is often dammed up by confused piles of timber. No sooner are these removed than its waters are covered over by vast quantities of oak staves, which are floated down separately to be rafted off like the squared lumber for the Quebec market. The greater proportion of the saw-logs are, however, cut up for exportation to the United States by the various saw-mills on the river, or by a large steam saw-mill with twenty or thirty run of saws, erected on a little island in the mouth of the river. Several large schooners are constantly loading with sawed lumber, and there are two or three steamboats always running between Belleville and Kingston, carrying passengers to and fro, and generally heavily laden with goods or produce. The Bay of Quinte offers more than common facilities in the summer months for rapid and safe communication with other places; and, in the winter time, being but slightly affected by the current of the river Trent, it affords excellent sleighing.

Large quantities of wheat and other farm produce are transported over the ice to Belleville from the neighbouring county of Prince Edward, which is an exceedingly prosperous agricultural settlement, yielding wheat of the finest quality, and particularly excellent cheese and butter. The scenery on the shores of Prince Edward is exceedingly picturesque, and there are numerous wharfs at short distances, from whence the farmers roll their barrels of flour and other articles on board the steamers on their way to market. I have seen no scenery in Upper Canada presenting the same variety and beauty as that of the shores of Prince Edward in particular.

The peninsular situation of this county is its only disadvantage—being out of the line of the land travel and of the telegraphic communication which passes through Belleville. The county of Prince Edward having nearly exhausted its exportation lumber—the people are thus freed from the evils of a trade that is always more or less demoralising in its tendency and can now give their undivided attention to the cultivation of their farms. Certain it is, that more quiet, industrious, and prosperous settlers, are not to be found in the Province.

A few miles below Belleville, on the south side of the bay, is a very remarkable natural curiosity, called “The Stone Mills.” On the summit of a table-land, rising abruptly several hundred feet above the shore of the bay, there is a lake of considerable size and very great depth, and which apparently receives a very inadequate supply from the elevated land on which it is situated. The lake has no natural outlet, and the common opinion is that it is unfathomable, and that it is supplied with water by means of a subterranean communication with Lake Huron, or some other lake at the same level. This is, of course, extremely improbable, but there can be no doubt of its great depth, and that it cannot be supplied from the Bay of Quinte, so far beneath its level. As a small rivulet runs into this lake from the flat ground in its vicinity, and as the soil of this remarkable excavation, however it may have been originally formed, is tenacious, I think we require no such improbable theory to account for its existence. Availing himself of the convenient position of this lake, a farmer in the neighbourhood erected a mill, which gives its name to the lake, on the shore of the Bay of Quinte, and which he supplied with water by making a deep cutting from the lake to the edge of the precipice, from whence it is conveyed in troughs to the mill.

There is a somewhat similar lake in the township of Sidney in the county of Hastings, covering some hundred acres. This lake is also of great depth, though situated on the summit of a range of high hills, from whence it gets the name of the “Oak Hill Pond.”

The Bay of Quinte abounds in excellent fish of various kinds, affording excellent sport to those who are fond of fishing. When the ice breaks up in the spring, immense shoals of pickerel commence running up the Moira river, at Belleville, to spawn in the interior. At that time a number of young men amuse themselves with spearing them, standing on the flat rocks at the end of the bridge which crosses the river. They dart their spears into the rushing waters at hap-hazard in the darkness, bringing up a large fish at every second or third stroke. My eldest son, a youth of fifteen, sometimes caught so many fish in this manner in two or three hours, that we had to send a large wheelbarrow to fetch them home. Formerly, before so many mills were erected, the fish swarmed in incredible numbers in all our rivers and lakes.

In the back-woods there is excellent deer-hunting, and parties are often formed for this purpose by the young men, who bring home whole waggon-loads of venison.

While speaking of Belleville, I may mention, as one of its chief advantages, the long period for which the sleighing continues in this part of the country, when compared with other places on the shore of Lake Ontario. Nearly the whole winter there is excellent sleighing on the Bay of Quinte; and on the land we have weeks of good sleighing for days in most other places. This is owing to the influence of a large sheet of frozen water interposed between us and Lake Ontario, which is never frozen.

The county of Prince Edward is a peninsula connected with the main land by a narrow isthmus of low swampy land about four miles wide. Through this neck of land it has long been in contemplation to cut a canal to enable the lake steam-boats to take Belleville in their route between Kingston and Toronto, thus affording a safe navigation in stormy weather. The effect of such a work on the prosperity of the counties of Hastings and Prince Edward would be very great, as European emigrants would have an opportunity of seeing a country which has hitherto escaped their notice, from the causes already mentioned.

Besides the usual variety of churches, there is a grammar-school, and also four large common schools, which latter are free schools, being supported by assessments on the people of the town.

Every Saturday, which is the great day for business from the country, the streets are crowded with farmers' waggons or sleighs, with their wives and pretty daughters, who come in to make their little purchases of silk gowns and ribbons, and to sell their butter and eggs, which are the peculiar perquisites for the females in this country. The counties of Hastings and Prince Edward are celebrated for female beauty, and nowhere can you see people in the same class more becomingly attired. At the same time there is nothing rustic about them, except genuine good nature and unaffected simplicity of manners. To judge by their light elastic step and rosy smiling countenances, no people on earth seem to enjoy a greater share of health and contentment.

Since the establishment of the county municipal councils, plank and macadamised roads have branched out in all directions from the various central county towns, stretching their ramifications like the veins of the human body, conveying nourishment and prosperity throughout the country, increasing the trade and the travel, connecting man with man and promoting intelligence and civilisation; while the magnetic telegraph, now traversing the whole length of the country, like the nervous system, still further stimulates the inhabitants to increased activity.

The people of this county have not been behind their neighbours in these improvements. The first plank-road which they constructed was from Belleville to Canniff's Mills, a distance of three miles over a road which at the time was often knee-deep in mud, with a solid foundation of flat limestone rock, which prevented the escape of the water. So infamous was this road, that, on some parts of it, it was a matter of serious doubt whether a boat or waggon would be the better mode of conveyance. Notwithstanding the badness of this road, it was the greatest thoroughfare in the county, as it was the only approach to a number of mills situated on the river, and to Belleville, from the back country. It was, however, with the utmost difficulty that the warden could induce the other members of the county-council to sanction the construction of a plank-road at the expense of the county; so little was then known in Canada of the effects of such works.

The profits yielded by this road are unusually large, amounting, it is said, to seventy or eighty per cent. This extraordinary success encouraged the people to undertake other lines, by means of joint-stock companies formed among the farmers. All these plank-roads are highly remunerative, averaging, it is stated, fourteen per cent. over and above all expenses of repair. More than thirty miles of plank-road is already constructed in the county. In a few years plank or gravel roads will be extended through every part of the country, and they will be most available as feeders to the great line of railway which will very soon be constructed through the entire length of the province, and which has been already commenced at Toronto and Hamilton. A single track plank-road costs from 375 to 425 pounds per mile, according to the value of the land to be purchased, or other local causes. The cost of a gravel road, laid twelve feet wide and nine inches deep, and twenty-two feet from out to out, is from 250 to 325 pounds, and it is much more lasting, and more easily repaired than a plank-road. Macadamised or gravel roads will no doubt entirely supersede the others.

In the present circumstances of the colony, however, plank-roads will be preferred, because they are more quickly constructed, and with less immediate outlay of money in the payment of labourers' wages, as our numerous saw-mills enable the farmers to get their own logs sawed, and they thus pay the greater portion of their instalments on the stock taken in the roads. In fact, by making arrangements with the proprietors of saw-mills they can generally manage to get several months' credit, so that they will receive the first dividends from the road before they will be required to pay any money. The mode of making these roads is exceedingly simple.

The space required for the road is first levelled, ditched, and drained, and then pieces of scantling, five or six inches square, are laid longitudinally on each side, at the proper distance for a road-way twelve feet wide, and with the ends of each piece sawn off diagonally, so as to rest on the end of the next piece, which is similarly prepared, to prevent the road from settling down unequally. The pieces of scantling thus connected are simply bedded firmly in the ground, which is levelled up to their upper edges. Pine planks, three inches thick, are then laid across with their ends resting on the scantling. The planks are closely wedged together like the flooring of a house, and secured here and there by strong wooden pins, driven into auger-holes bored through the planks into the scantling. The common way is to lay the plank-flooring at right angles with the scantling, but a much better way has been adopted in the county of Hastings. The planks are here laid diagonally, which of course requires that they should be cut several feet longer. This ensures greater durability, as the shoes of the horses cut up the planks much more when the grain of the wood corresponds in direction with their sharp edges. When a double track is required, three longitudinal courses of scantling are used, and the ends of the planks meet on the centre one. Very few, if any, iron nails are generally used.

The great advantage of a plank-road is the large load it enables the horses to draw. Whilst on a common road a farmer can only carry twenty-five bushels of wheat in his waggon, a plank-road will enable him to carry forty or fifty bushels of the same grain with a pair of horses. The principal disadvantage of the plank-roads is, that they are found by experience to be injurious to horses, particularly when they are driven quickly on them. They are best adapted for a large load drawn at a slow pace. I shall not attempt to describe the country in the neighbourhood of Belleville, or the more northern parts of the county. It will suffice to observe, that the country is generally much varied in its surface, and beautiful, and the soil is generally excellent. Within the last ten or twelve years the whole country has been studded with good substantial stone or brick houses, or good white painted frame houses, even for thirty miles back, and the farms are well fenced and cultivated, showing undeniable signs of comfort and independence. Streams and water are abundant, and there are several thriving villages and hamlets scattered through the county,—the village of Canniff's Mills, three miles from Belleville, and soon destined to form a part of it, alone containing a population of about a thousand.

In describing the progress of this county, I may be understood as describing that of most other counties in the Upper Province; the progress of all of them being rapid, though varying according to the advantages of situation or from causes already alluded to.

From what has been said, the reader will perceive that the present condition of Canada generally is exceedingly prosperous, and when the resources of the country are fully developed by the railroads now in progress of construction, and by the influx of capital and population from Europe, no rational person can doubt that it will ultimately be as prosperous and opulent as any country in the world, ancient or modern.

It may be said, “should we not then be hopeful and contented with our situation and prospects.” And so the people are in the main, and the shrewd capitalists of England think so, or they would not be so ready to invest their money in our public works. But some deduction from this general state of contentment and confidence must be made for those little discontents and grumblings created by the misrepresentations of certain disappointed politicians and ambitious men of all parties, who expect to gain popularity by becoming grievance-mongers. Much has been done, and a great deal still remains to be done in the way of reform, here as elsewhere. But there never was any just cause or motive in that insane cry for “annexation” to the United States, which was raised some years ago, and by the tories, too, of all people in the world! The “annexation” mania can now only be regarded as indicative of the last expiring struggle of a domineering party—it would not be correct to call it a political party—which had so long obstructed the progress of Canada by its selfish and monopolising spirit, when it found that its reign had ceased for ever.

Great sacrifices have been, and will be made, by men of loyalty and principle in support of institutions, which are justly dear to every Briton and to every freeman; but this feeling necessarily has its limits among the mass of mankind; and the loyalty of a people must be supported by reason and justice. They should have good reason to believe that their institutions are more conducive to happiness and prosperity than those of all other countries. Without this conviction, loyalty in a people who have by any means been deprived of the power of correcting the abuses of their government, would be hardly rational. Canadians now have that power to its full extent. Why, then, should we not be loyal to the constitution of our country which has stood the test of ages, purifying itself and developing its native energies as a vigorous constitution outgrows disease in the human frame. The government of Canada is practically more republican than that of the mother country and nearly as republican as that of the United States. Our government is also notoriously much less expensive. Our public officers are also, practically, much more responsible to the people, though indirectly, because they are appointed by a Colonial Ministry who are elected by the people, and whose popularity depends in a great degree on the selections they make and upon their watchfulness over their conduct.

The government of the United States is not a cheap government, because all officers being elective by the people, the responsibility of the selections to office is divided and weakened. Moreover, the change or prospect of the electors being the elected inclines them to put up with abuses and defalcations which would be considered intolerable under another form of government. The British Government now holds the best security for the continued loyalty of the people of Canada, in their increasing prosperity. To Great Britain they are bound by the strongest ties of duty and interest; and nothing but the basest ingratitude or absolute infatuation can ever tempt them to transfer their allegiance to another country.

I shall conclude this chapter with a few verses written two years ago, and which were suggested by an indignant feeling at the cold manner with which the National Anthem was received by some persons who used to be loud in their professions of loyalty on former public occasions. Happily, this wayward and pettish, I will not call it disloyal spirit, has passed away, and most of the “Annexationists” are now heartily ashamed of their conduct.

GOD SAVE THE QUEEN
God save the Queen. The time has been
When these charmed words, or said or sung,
Have through the welkin proudly rung;
And, heads uncovered, every tongue
Has echoed back—“God save the Queen!”
God save the Queen!

It was not like the feeble cry
That slaves might raise as tyrants pass'd,
With trembling knees and hearts downcast,
While dungeoned victims breathed their last
In mingled groans of agony!
God save the Queen!

Nor were these shouts without the will,
Which servile crowds oft send on high,
When gold and jewels meet the eye,
When pride looks down on poverty,
And makes the poor man poorer still!
God save the Queen!

No!—it was like the thrilling shout—
The joyous sounds of price and praise
That patriot hearts are wont to raise,
'Mid cannon's roar and bonfires blaze,
When Britain's foes are put to rout—
God save the Queen!

For 'mid those sounds, to Britons dear,
No dastard selfish thoughts intrude
To mar a nation's gratitude:
But one soul moves that multitude—
To sing in accents loud and clear—
God save the Queen!

Such sounds as these in days of yore,
On war-ship's deck and battle plain,
Have rung o'er heaps of foemen slain—
And with God's help they'll ring again,
When warriors' blood shall flow no more,
God save the Queen!

God save the Queen! let patriots cry;
And palsied be the impious hand
Would guide the pen, or wield the brand,
Against our glorious Fatherland.
Let shouts of freemen rend the sky,
God save the Queen!—and Liberty!

Reader! my task is ended.

[Methuselah]

How embarasing! The message came from a MSWord file, which was sharing the screen with Plan B. False Alarm.

Update: Just got a second message that really did come from the system. Let the speculations begin, but please do so in a PM.

"POST REVIEW
At least one new post has been made to this topic. You may wish to review your post in light of this."

Maybe it is time for breakfast. I'm now embarrased because the software is telling me I misspelled a word, but I'm too tired to research for a fix.

[Scooter]

Did I hear someone ask for some Mein Kampf?

VOLUME I: A RETROSPECT




CHAPTER I



IN THE HOME OF MY PARENTS


It has turned out fortunate for me to-day that destiny appointed
Braunau-on-the-Inn to be my birthplace. For that little town is situated
just on the frontier between those two States the reunion of which
seems, at least to us of the younger generation, a task to which we
should devote our lives and in the pursuit of which every possible means
should be employed.

German-Austria must be restored to the great German Motherland. And not
indeed on any grounds of economic calculation whatsoever. No, no. Even
if the union were a matter of economic indifference, and even if it were
to be disadvantageous from the economic standpoint, still it ought to
take place. People of the same blood should be in the same REICH. The
German people will have no right to engage in a colonial policy until
they shall have brought all their children together in the one State.
When the territory of the REICH embraces all the Germans and finds
itself unable to assure them a livelihood, only then can the moral right
arise, from the need of the people to acquire foreign territory. The
plough is then the sword; and the tears of war will produce the daily
bread for the generations to come.

And so this little frontier town appeared to me as the symbol of a great
task. But in another regard also it points to a lesson that is
applicable to our day. Over a hundred years ago this sequestered spot
was the scene of a tragic calamity which affected the whole German
nation and will be remembered for ever, at least in the annals of German
history. At the time of our Fatherland's deepest humiliation a
bookseller, Johannes Palm, uncompromising nationalist and enemy of the
French, was put to death here because he had the misfortune to have
loved Germany well. He obstinately refused to disclose the names of his
associates, or rather the principals who were chiefly responsible for
the affair. Just as it happened with Leo Schlageter. The former, like
the latter, was denounced to the French by a Government agent. It was a
director of police from Augsburg who won an ignoble renown on that
occasion and set the example which was to be copied at a later date by
the neo-German officials of the REICH under Herr Severing's
regime (Note 1).

[Note 1. In order to understand the reference here, and similar
references in later portions of MEIN KAMPF, the following must be borne
in mind:

From 1792 to 1814 the French Revolutionary Armies overran Germany. In
1800 Bavaria shared in the Austrian defeat at Hohenlinden and the French
occupied Munich. In 1805 the Bavarian Elector was made King of Bavaria by
Napoleon and stipulated to back up Napoleon in all his wars with a force
of 30,000 men. Thus Bavaria became the absolute vassal of the French.
This was 'TheTime of Germany's Deepest Humiliation', Which is referred
to again and again by Hitler.

In 1806 a pamphlet entitled 'Germany's Deepest Humiliation' was
published in South Germany. Amnng those who helped to circulate the
pamphlet was the Nürnberg bookseller, Johannes Philipp Palm. He was
denounced to the French by a Bavarian police agent. At his trial he
refused to disclose thename of the author. By Napoleon's orders, he was
shot at Braunau-on-the-Innon August 26th, 1806. A monument erected to
him on the site of the executionwas one of the first public objects that
made an impression on Hitler asa little boy.

Leo Schlageter's case was in many respects parallel to that of Johannes
Palm. Schlageter was a German theological student who volunteered for
service in 1914. He became an artillery officer and won the Iron Cross of
both classes. When the French occupied the Ruhr in 1923 Schlageter helped
to organize the passive resistance on the German side. He and his
companions blew up a railway bridge for the purpose of making the
transport of coal to France more difficult.

Those who took part in the affair were denounced to the French by a
German informer. Schlageter took the whole responsibility on his own
shoulders and was condemned to death, his companions being sentenced to
various terms of imprisonment and penal servitude by the French Court.
Schlageter refused to disclose the identity of those who issued the order
to blow up the railway bridge and he would not plead for mercy before a
French Court. He was shot by a French firing-squad on May 26th, 1923.
Severing was at that time German Minister of the Interior. It is said
that representations were made, to himon Schlageter's behalf and that he
refused to interfere.

Schlageter has become the chief martyr of the German resistancc to the
French occupation of the Ruhr and also one of the great heroes of the
National Socialist Movement. He had joined the Movement at a very early
stage, his card of membership bearing the number 61.]

In this little town on the Inn, haloed by the memory of a German martyr,
a town that was Bavarian by blood but under the rule of the Austrian
State, my parents were domiciled towards the end of the last century. My
father was a civil servant who fulfilled his duties very
conscientiously. My mother looked after the household and lovingly
devoted herself to the care of her children. From that period I have not
retained very much in my memory; because after a few years my father had
to leave that frontier town which I had come to love so much and take up
a new post farther down the Inn valley, at Passau, therefore actually in
Germany itself.

In those days it was the usual lot of an Austrian civil servant to be
transferred periodically from one post to another. Not long after coming
to Passau my father was transferred to Linz, and while there he retired
finally to live on his pension. But this did not mean that the old
gentleman would now rest from his labours.

He was the son of a poor cottager, and while still a boy he grew
restless and left home. When he was barely thirteen years old he buckled
on his satchel and set forth from his native woodland parish. Despite
the dissuasion of villagers who could speak from 'experience,' he went
to Vienna to learn a trade there. This was in the fiftieth year of the
last century. It was a sore trial, that of deciding to leave home and
face the unknown, with three gulden in his pocket. By when the boy of
thirteen was a lad of seventeen and had passed his apprenticeship
examination as a craftsman he was not content. Quite the contrary. The
persistent economic depression of that period and the constant want and
misery strengthened his resolution to give up working at a trade and
strive for 'something higher.' As a boy it had seemed to him that the
position of the parish priest in his native village was the highest in
the scale of human attainment; but now that the big city had enlarged
his outlook the young man looked up to the dignity of a State official
as the highest of all. With the tenacity of one whom misery and trouble
had already made old when only half-way through his youth the young man
of seventeen obstinately set out on his new project and stuck to it
until he won through. He became a civil servant. He was about
twenty-three years old, I think, when he succeeded in making himself
what he had resolved to become. Thus he was able to fulfil the promise
he had made as a poor boy not to return to his native village until he
was 'somebody.'

He had gained his end. But in the village there was nobody who had
remembered him as a little boy, and the village itself had become
strange to him.

Now at last, when he was fifty-six years old, he gave up his active
career; but he could not bear to be idle for a single day. On the
outskirts of the small market town of Lambach in Upper Austria he bought
a farm and tilled it himself. Thus, at the end of a long and
hard-working career, he came back to the life which his father had led.

It was at this period that I first began to have ideals of my own. I
spent a good deal of time scampering about in the open, on the long road
from school, and mixing up with some of the roughest of the boys, which
caused my mother many anxious moments. All this tended to make me
something quite the reverse of a stay-at-home. I gave scarcely any
serious thought to the question of choosing a vocation in life; but I
was certainly quite out of sympathy with the kind of career which my
father had followed. I think that an inborn talent for speaking now
began to develop and take shape during the more or less strenuous
arguments which I used to have with my comrades. I had become a juvenile
ringleader who learned well and easily at school but was rather
difficult to manage. In my freetime I practised singing in the choir of
the monastery church at Lambach, and thus it happened that I was placed
in a very favourable position to be emotionally impressed again and
again by the magnificent splendour of ecclesiastical ceremonial. What
could be more natural for me than to look upon the Abbot as representing
the highest human ideal worth striving for, just as the position of the
humble village priest had appeared to my father in his own boyhood days?
At least, that was my idea for a while. But the juvenile disputes I had
with my father did not lead him to appreciate his son's oratorical gifts
in such a way as to see in them a favourable promise for such a career,
and so he naturally could not understand the boyish ideas I had in my
head at that time. This contradiction in my character made him feel
somewhat anxious.

As a matter of fact, that transitory yearning after such a vocation soon
gave way to hopes that were better suited to my temperament. Browsing
through my father's books, I chanced to come across some publications
that dealt with military subjects. One of these publications was a
popular history of the Franco-German War of 1870-71. It consisted of two
volumes of an illustrated periodical dating from those years. These
became my favourite reading. In a little while that great and heroic
conflict began to take first place in my mind. And from that time
onwards I became more and more enthusiastic about everything that was in
any way connected with war or military affairs.

But this story of the Franco-German War had a special significance for
me on other grounds also. For the first time, and as yet only in quite a
vague way, the question began to present itself: Is there a
difference--and if there be, what is it--between the Germans who fought
that war and the other Germans? Why did not Austria also take part in
it? Why did not my father and all the others fight in that struggle? Are
we not the same as the other Germans? Do we not all belong together?

That was the first time that this problem began to agitate my small
brain. And from the replies that were given to the questions which I
asked very tentatively, I was forced to accept the fact, though with a
secret envy, that not all Germans had the good luck to belong to
Bismarck's Empire. This was something that I could not understand.

It was decided that I should study. Considering my character as a whole,
and especially my temperament, my father decided that the classical
subjects studied at the Lyceum were not suited to my natural talents. He
thought that the REALSCHULE (Note 2) would suit me better. My obvious
talent for drawing confirmed him in that view; for in his opinion drawing
was a subject too much neglected in the Austrian GYMNASIUM. Probably also
the memory of the hard road which he himself had travelled contributed to
make him look upon classical studies as unpractical and accordingly to
set little value on them. At the back of his mind he had the idea that
his son also should become an official of the Government. Indeed he had
decided on that career for me. The difficulties through which he had to
struggle in making his own career led him to overestimate what he had
achieved, because this was exclusively the result of his own
indefatigable industry and energy. The characteristic pride of the
self-made man urged him towards the idea that his son should follow the
same calling and if possible rise to a higher position in it. Moreover,
this idea was strengthened by the consideration that the results of his
own life's industry had placed him in a position to facilitate his son's
advancement in the same career.

[Note 2. Non-classical secondary school. The Lyceum and GYMNASIUM were
classical or semi-classical secondary schools.]

He was simply incapable of imagining that I might reject what had meant
everything in life to him. My father's decision was simple, definite,
clear and, in his eyes, it was something to be taken for granted. A man
of such a nature who had become an autocrat by reason of his own hard
struggle for existence, could not think of allowing 'inexperienced' and
irresponsible young fellows to choose their own careers. To act in such
a way, where the future of his own son was concerned, would have been a
grave and reprehensible weakness in the exercise of parental authority
and responsibility, something utterly incompatible with his
characteristic sense of duty.

And yet it had to be otherwise.

For the first time in my life--I was then eleven years old--I felt
myself forced into open opposition. No matter how hard and determined my
father might be about putting his own plans and opinions into action,
his son was no less obstinate in refusing to accept ideas on which he
set little or no value.

I would not become a civil servant.

No amount of persuasion and no amount of 'grave' warnings could break
down that opposition. I would not become a State official, not on any
account. All the attempts which my father made to arouse in me a love or
liking for that profession, by picturing his own career for me, had only
the opposite effect. It nauseated me to think that one day I might be
fettered to an office stool, that I could not dispose of my own time but
would be forced to spend the whole of my life filling out forms.

One can imagine what kind of thoughts such a prospect awakened in the
mind of a young fellow who was by no means what is called a 'good boy'
in the current sense of that term. The ridiculously easy school tasks
which we were given made it possible for me to spend far more time in
the open air than at home. To-day, when my political opponents pry into
my life with diligent scrutiny, as far back as the days of my boyhood,
so as finally to be able to prove what disreputable tricks this Hitler
was accustomed to in his young days, I thank heaven that I can look back
to those happy days and find the memory of them helpful. The fields and
the woods were then the terrain on which all disputes were fought out.

Even attendance at the REALSCHULE could not alter my way of spending my
time. But I had now another battle to fight.

So long as the paternal plan to make a State functionary contradicted my
own inclinations only in the abstract, the conflict was easy to bear. I
could be discreet about expressing my personal views and thus avoid
constantly recurrent disputes. My own resolution not to become a
Government official was sufficient for the time being to put my mind
completely at rest. I held on to that resolution inexorably. But the
situation became more difficult once I had a positive plan of my own
which I might present to my father as a counter-suggestion. This
happened when I was twelve years old. How it came about I cannot exactly
say now; but one day it became clear to me that I would be a painter--I
mean an artist. That I had an aptitude for drawing was an admitted fact.
It was even one of the reasons why my father had sent me to the
REALSCHULE; but he had never thought of having that talent developed in
such a way that I could take up painting as a professional career. Quite
the contrary. When, as a result of my renewed refusal to adopt his
favourite plan, my father asked me for the first time what I myself
really wished to be, the resolution that I had already formed expressed
itself almost automatically. For a while my father was speechless. "A
painter? An artist-painter?" he exclaimed.

He wondered whether I was in a sound state of mind. He thought that he
might not have caught my words rightly, or that he had misunderstood
what I meant. But when I had explained my ideas to him and he saw how
seriously I took them, he opposed them with that full determination
which was characteristic of him. His decision was exceedingly simple and
could not be deflected from its course by any consideration of what my
own natural qualifications really were.

"Artist! Not as long as I live, never." As the son had inherited some of
the father's obstinacy, besides having other qualities of his own, my
reply was equally energetic. But it stated something quite the contrary.

At that our struggle became stalemate. The father would not abandon his
'Never', and I became all the more consolidated in my 'Nevertheless'.

Naturally the resulting situation was not pleasant. The old gentleman
was bitterly annoyed; and indeed so was I, although I really loved him.
My father forbade me to entertain any hopes of taking up the art of
painting as a profession. I went a step further and declared that I
would not study anything else. With such declarations the situation
became still more strained, so that the old gentleman irrevocably
decided to assert his parental authority at all costs. That led me to
adopt an attitude of circumspect silence, but I put my threat into
execution. I thought that, once it became clear to my father that I was
making no progress at the REALSCHULE, for weal or for woe, he would be
forced to allow me to follow the happy career I had dreamed of.

I do not know whether I calculated rightly or not. Certainly my failure
to make progress became quite visible in the school. I studied just the
subjects that appealed to me, especially those which I thought might be
of advantage to me later on as a painter. What did not appear to have
any importance from this point of view, or what did not otherwise appeal
to me favourably, I completely sabotaged. My school reports of that time
were always in the extremes of good or bad, according to the subject and
the interest it had for me. In one column my qualification read 'very
good' or 'excellent'. In another it read 'average' or even 'below
average'. By far my best subjects were geography and, even more so,
general history. These were my two favourite subjects, and I led the
class in them.

When I look back over so many years and try to judge the results of that
experience I find two very significant facts standing out clearly before
my mind.

First, I became a nationalist.

Second, I learned to understand and grasp the true meaning of history.

The old Austria was a multi-national State. In those days at least the
citizens of the German Empire, taken through and through, could not
understand what that fact meant in the everyday life of the individuals
within such a State. After the magnificent triumphant march of the
victorious armies in the Franco-German War the Germans in the REICH
became steadily more and more estranged from the Germans beyond their
frontiers, partly because they did not deign to appreciate those other
Germans at their true value or simply because they were incapable of
doing so.

The Germans of the REICH did not realize that if the Germans in Austria
had not been of the best racial stock they could never have given the
stamp of their own character to an Empire of 52 millions, so definitely
that in Germany itself the idea arose--though quite an erroneous
one--that Austria was a German State. That was an error which led to
dire consequences; but all the same it was a magnificent testimony to
the character of the ten million Germans in that East Mark. (Note 3)
Only very few of the Germans in the REICH itself had an idea of the bitter
struggle which those Eastern Germans had to carry on daily for the
preservation of their German language, their German schools and their
German character. Only to-day, when a tragic fate has torn several
millions of our kinsfolk away from the REICH and has forced them to live
under the rule of the stranger, dreaming of that common fatherland
towards which all their yearnings are directed and struggling to uphold
at least the sacred right of using their mother tongue--only now have
the wider circles of the German population come to realize what it means
to have to fight for the traditions of one's race. And so at last
perhaps there are people here and there who can assess the greatness of
that German spirit which animated the old East Mark and enabled those
people, left entirely dependent on their own resources, to defend the
Empire against the Orient for several centuries and subsequently to hold
fast the frontiers of the German language through a guerilla warfare of
attrition, at a time when the German Empire was sedulously cultivating
an interest for colonies but not for its own flesh and blood before the
threshold of its own door.

[Note 3. See Translator's Introduction.]

What has happened always and everywhere, in every kind of struggle,
happened also in the language fight which was carried on in the old
Austria. There were three groups--the fighters, the hedgers and the
traitors. Even in the schools this sifting already began to take place.
And it is worth noting that the struggle for the language was waged
perhaps in its bitterest form around the school; because this was the
nursery where the seeds had to be watered which were to spring up and
form the future generation. The tactical objective of the fight was the
winning over of the child, and it was to the child that the first
rallying cry was addressed:

"German youth, do not forget that you are a German," and "Remember,
little girl, that one day you must be a German mother."

Those who know something of the juvenile spirit can understand how youth
will always lend a glad ear to such a rallying cry. Under many forms the
young people led the struggle, fighting in their own way and with their
own weapons. They refused to sing non-German songs. The greater the
efforts made to win them away from their German allegiance, the more
they exalted the glory of their German heroes. They stinted themselves
in buying things to eat, so that they might spare their pennies to help
the war chest of their elders. They were incredibly alert in the
significance of what the non-German teachers said and they contradicted
in unison. They wore the forbidden emblems of their own kinsfolk and
were happy when penalised for doing so, or even physically punished. In
miniature they were mirrors of loyalty from which the older people might
learn a lesson.

And thus it was that at a comparatively early age I took part in the
struggle which the nationalities were waging against one another in the
old Austria. When meetings were held for the South Mark German League
and the School League we wore cornflowers and black-red-gold colours to
express our loyalty. We greeted one another with HEIL! and instead of
the Austrian anthem we sang our own DEUTSCHLAND ÜBER ALLES, despite
warnings and penalties. Thus the youth were educated politically at a
time when the citizens of a so-called national State for the most part
knew little of their own nationality except the language. Of course, I
did not belong to the hedgers. Within a little while I had become an
ardent 'German National', which has a different meaning from the party
significance attached to that phrase to-day.

I developed very rapidly in the nationalist direction, and by the time I
was 15 years old I had come to understand the distinction between
dynastic patriotism and nationalism based on the concept of folk, or
people, my inclination being entirely in favour of the latter.

Such a preference may not perhaps be clearly intelligible to those who
have never taken the trouble to study the internal conditions that
prevailed under the Habsburg Monarchy.

Among historical studies universal history was the subject almost
exclusively taught in the Austrian schools, for of specific Austrian
history there was only very little. The fate of this State was closely
bound up with the existence and development of Germany as a whole; so a
division of history into German history and Austrian history would be
practically inconceivable. And indeed it was only when the German people
came to be divided between two States that this division of German
history began to take place.

The insignia (Note 4) of a former imperial sovereignty which were still
preserved in Vienna appeared to act as magical relics rather than as the
visible guarantee of an everlasting bond of union.

[Note 4. When Francis II had laid down his title as Emperor of the Holy
Roman Empireof the German Nation, which he did at the command of Napoleon,
the Crownand Mace, as the Imperial Insignia, were kept in Vienna. After
the German Empire was refounded, in 1871, under William I, there were many
demands tohave the Insignia transferred to Berlin. But these went
unheeded. Hitler had them brought to Germany after the Austrian Anschluss
and displayed at Nuremberg during the Party Congress in September 1938.]

When the Habsburg State crumbled to pieces in 1918 the Austrian Germans
instinctively raised an outcry for union with their German fatherland.
That was the voice of a unanimous yearning in the hearts of the whole
people for a return to the unforgotten home of their fathers. But such a
general yearning could not be explained except by attributing the cause
of it to the historical training through which the individual Austrian
Germans had passed. Therein lay a spring that never dried up. Especially
in times of distraction and forgetfulness its quiet voice was a reminder
of the past, bidding the people to look out beyond the mere welfare of
the moment to a new future.

The teaching of universal history in what are called the middle schools
is still very unsatisfactory. Few teachers realize that the purpose of
teaching history is not the memorizing of some dates and facts, that the
student is not interested in knowing the exact date of a battle or the
birthday of some marshal or other, and not at all--or at least only very
insignificantly--interested in knowing when the crown of his fathers was
placed on the brow of some monarch. These are certainly not looked upon
as important matters.

To study history means to search for and discover the forces that are
the causes of those results which appear before our eyes as historical
events. The art of reading and studying consists in remembering the
essentials and forgetting what is not essential.

Probably my whole future life was determined by the fact that I had a
professor of history who understood, as few others understand, how to
make this viewpoint prevail in teaching and in examining. This teacher
was Dr. Leopold Poetsch, of the REALSCHULE at Linz. He was the ideal
personification of the qualities necessary to a teacher of history in
the sense I have mentioned above. An elderly gentleman with a decisive
manner but a kindly heart, he was a very attractive speaker and was able
to inspire us with his own enthusiasm. Even to-day I cannot recall
without emotion that venerable personality whose enthusiastic exposition
of history so often made us entirely forget the present and allow
ourselves to be transported as if by magic into the past. He penetrated
through the dim mist of thousands of years and transformed the
historical memory of the dead past into a living reality. When we
listened to him we became afire with enthusiasm and we were sometimes
moved even to tears.

It was still more fortunate that this professor was able not only to
illustrate the past by examples from the present but from the past he
was also able to draw a lesson for the present. He understood better
than any other the everyday problems that were then agitating our minds.
The national fervour which we felt in our own small way was utilized by
him as an instrument of our education, inasmuch as he often appealed to
our national sense of honour; for in that way he maintained order and
held our attention much more easily than he could have done by any other
means. It was because I had such a professor that history became my
favourite subject. As a natural consequence, but without the conscious
connivance of my professor, I then and there became a young rebel. But
who could have studied German history under such a teacher and not
become an enemy of that State whose rulers exercised such a disastrous
influence on the destinies of the German nation? Finally, how could one
remain the faithful subject of the House of Habsburg, whose past history
and present conduct proved it to be ready ever and always to betray the
interests of the German people for the sake of paltry personal
interests? Did not we as youngsters fully realize that the House of
Habsburg did not, and could not, have any love for us Germans?

What history taught us about the policy followed by the House of
Habsburg was corroborated by our own everyday experiences. In the north
and in the south the poison of foreign races was eating into the body of
our people, and even Vienna was steadily becoming more and more a
non-German city. The 'Imperial House' favoured the Czechs on every
possible occasion. Indeed it was the hand of the goddess of eternal
justice and inexorable retribution that caused the most deadly enemy of
Germanism in Austria, the Archduke Franz Ferdinand, to fall by the very
bullets which he himself had helped to cast. Working from above
downwards, he was the chief patron of the movement to make Austria a
Slav State.

The burdens laid on the shoulders of the German people were enormous and
the sacrifices of money and blood which they had to make were incredibly
heavy.

Yet anybody who was not quite blind must have seen that it was all in
vain. What affected us most bitterly was the consciousness of the fact
that this whole system was morally shielded by the alliance with
Germany, whereby the slow extirpation of Germanism in the old Austrian
Monarchy seemed in some way to be more or less sanctioned by Germany
herself. Habsburg hypocrisy, which endeavoured outwardly to make the
people believe that Austria still remained a German State, increased the
feeling of hatred against the Imperial House and at the same time
aroused a spirit of rebellion and contempt.

But in the German Empire itself those who were then its rulers saw
nothing of what all this meant. As if struck blind, they stood beside a
corpse and in the very symptoms of decomposition they believed that they
recognized the signs of a renewed vitality. In that unhappy alliance
between the young German Empire and the illusory Austrian State lay the
germ of the World War and also of the final collapse.

In the subsequent pages of this book I shall go to the root of the
problem. Suffice it to say here that in the very early years of my youth
I came to certain conclusions which I have never abandoned. Indeed I
became more profoundly convinced of them as the years passed. They were:
That the dissolution of the Austrian Empire is a preliminary condition
for the defence of Germany; further, that national feeling is by no
means identical with dynastic patriotism; finally, and above all, that
the House of Habsburg was destined to bring misfortune to the German
nation.

As a logical consequence of these convictions, there arose in me a
feeling of intense love for my German-Austrian home and a profound
hatred for the Austrian State.

That kind of historical thinking which was developed in me through my
study of history at school never left me afterwards. World history
became more and more an inexhaustible source for the understanding of
contemporary historical events, which means politics. Therefore I will
not "learn" politics but let politics teach me.

A precocious revolutionary in politics I was no less a precocious
revolutionary in art. At that time the provincial capital of Upper
Austria had a theatre which, relatively speaking, was not bad. Almost
everything was played there. When I was twelve years old I saw William
Tell performed. That was my first experience of the theatre. Some months
later I attended a performance of LOHENGRIN, the first opera I had ever
heard. I was fascinated at once. My youthful enthusiasm for the Bayreuth
Master knew no limits. Again and again I was drawn to hear his operas;
and to-day I consider it a great piece of luck that these modest
productions in the little provincial city prepared the way and made it
possible for me to appreciate the better productions later on.

But all this helped to intensify my profound aversion for the career
that my father had chosen for me; and this dislike became especially
strong as the rough corners of youthful boorishness became worn off, a
process which in my case caused a good deal of pain. I became more and
more convinced that I should never be happy as a State official. And now
that the REALSCHULE had recognized and acknowledged my aptitude for
drawing, my own resolution became all the stronger. Imprecations and
threats had no longer any chance of changing it. I wanted to become a
painter and no power in the world could force me to become a civil
servant. The only peculiar feature of the situation now was that as I
grew bigger I became more and more interested in architecture. I
considered this fact as a natural development of my flair for painting
and I rejoiced inwardly that the sphere of my artistic interests was
thus enlarged. I had no notion that one day it would have to be
otherwise.

The question of my career was decided much sooner than I could have
expected.

When I was in my thirteenth year my father was suddenly taken from us.
He was still in robust health when a stroke of apoplexy painlessly ended
his earthly wanderings and left us all deeply bereaved. His most ardent
longing was to be able to help his son to advance in a career and thus
save me from the harsh ordeal that he himself had to go through. But it
appeared to him then as if that longing were all in vain. And yet,
though he himself was not conscious of it, he had sown the seeds of a
future which neither of us foresaw at that time.

At first nothing changed outwardly.

My mother felt it her duty to continue my education in accordance with
my father's wishes, which meant that she would have me study for the
civil service. For my own part I was even more firmly determined than
ever before that under no circumstances would I become an official of
the State. The curriculum and teaching methods followed in the middle
school were so far removed from my ideals that I became profoundly
indifferent. Illness suddenly came to my assistance. Within a few weeks
it decided my future and put an end to the long-standing family
conflict. My lungs became so seriously affected that the doctor advised
my mother very strongly not under any circumstances to allow me to take
up a career which would necessitate working in an office. He ordered
that I should give up attendance at the REALSCHULE for a year at least.
What I had secretly desired for such a long time, and had persistently
fought for, now became a reality almost at one stroke.

Influenced by my illness, my mother agreed that I should leave the
REALSCHULE and attend the Academy.

Those were happy days, which appeared to me almost as a dream; but they
were bound to remain only a dream. Two years later my mother's death put
a brutal end to all my fine projects. She succumbed to a long and
painful illness which from the very beginning permitted little hope of
recovery. Though expected, her death came as a terrible blow to me. I
respected my father, but I loved my mother.

Poverty and stern reality forced me to decide promptly.

The meagre resources of the family had been almost entirely used up
through my mother's severe illness. The allowance which came to me as an
orphan was not enough for the bare necessities of life. Somehow or other
I would have to earn my own bread.

With my clothes and linen packed in a valise and with an indomitable
resolution in my heart, I left for Vienna. I hoped to forestall fate, as
my father had done fifty years before. I was determined to become
'something'--but certainly not a civil servant.

[MajGenl.Meade]

[Scooter]

CHAPTER II



YEARS OF STUDY AND SUFFERING IN VIENNA


When my mother died my fate had already been decided in one respect.
During the last months of her illness I went to Vienna to take the
entrance examination for the Academy of Fine Arts. Armed with a bulky
packet of sketches, I felt convinced that I should pass the examination
quite easily. At the REALSCHULE I was by far the best student in the
drawing class, and since that time I had made more than ordinary
progress in the practice of drawing. Therefore I was pleased with myself
and was proud and happy at the prospect of what I considered an assured
success.

But there was one misgiving: It seemed to me that I was better qualified
for drawing than for painting, especially in the various branches of
architectural drawing. At the same time my interest in architecture was
constantly increasing. And I advanced in this direction at a still more
rapid pace after my first visit to Vienna, which lasted two weeks. I was
not yet sixteen years old. I went to the Hof Museum to study the
paintings in the art gallery there; but the building itself captured
almost all my interest, from early morning until late at night I spent
all my time visiting the various public buildings. And it was the
buildings themselves that were always the principal attraction for me.
For hours and hours I could stand in wonderment before the Opera and the
Parliament. The whole Ring Strasse had a magic effect upon me, as if it
were a scene from the Thousand-and-one-Nights.

And now I was here for the second time in this beautiful city,
impatiently waiting to hear the result of the entrance examination but
proudly confident that I had got through. I was so convinced of my
success that when the news that I had failed to pass was brought to me
it struck me like a bolt from the skies. Yet the fact was that I had
failed. I went to see the Rector and asked him to explain the reasons
why they refused to accept me as a student in the general School of
Painting, which was part of the Academy. He said that the sketches which
I had brought with me unquestionably showed that painting was not what I
was suited for but that the same sketches gave clear indications of my
aptitude for architectural designing. Therefore the School of Painting
did not come into question for me but rather the School of Architecture,
which also formed part of the Academy. At first it was impossible to
understand how this could be so, seeing that I had never been to a
school for architecture and had never received any instruction in
architectural designing.

When I left the Hansen Palace, on the SCHILLER PLATZ, I was quite
crestfallen. I felt out of sorts with myself for the first time in my
young life. For what I had heard about my capabilities now appeared to
me as a lightning flash which clearly revealed a dualism under which I
had been suffering for a long time, but hitherto I could give no clear
account whatsoever of the why and wherefore.

Within a few days I myself also knew that I ought to become an
architect. But of course the way was very difficult. I was now forced
bitterly to rue my former conduct in neglecting and despising certain
subjects at the REALSCHULE. Before taking up the courses at the School
of Architecture in the Academy it was necessary to attend the Technical
Building School; but a necessary qualification for entrance into this
school was a Leaving Certificate from the Middle School. And this I
simply did not have. According to the human measure of things my dream
of following an artistic calling seemed beyond the limits of
possibility.

After the death of my mother I came to Vienna for the third time. This
visit was destined to last several years. Since I had been there before
I had recovered my old calm and resoluteness. The former self-assurance
had come back, and I had my eyes steadily fixed on the goal. I would be
an architect. Obstacles are placed across our path in life, not to be
boggled at but to be surmounted. And I was fully determined to surmount
these obstacles, having the picture of my father constantly before my
mind, who had raised himself by his own efforts to the position of a
civil servant though he was the poor son of a village shoemaker. I had a
better start, and the possibilities of struggling through were better.
At that time my lot in life seemed to me a harsh one; but to-day I see
in it the wise workings of Providence. The Goddess of Fate clutched me
in her hands and often threatened to smash me; but the will grew
stronger as the obstacles increased, and finally the will triumphed.

I am thankful for that period of my life, because it hardened me and
enabled me to be as tough as I now am. And I am even more thankful
because I appreciate the fact that I was thus saved from the emptiness
of a life of ease and that a mother's darling was taken from tender arms
and handed over to Adversity as to a new mother. Though I then rebelled
against it as too hard a fate, I am grateful that I was thrown into a
world of misery and poverty and thus came to know the people for whom I
was afterwards to fight.

It was during this period that my eyes were opened to two perils, the
names of which I scarcely knew hitherto and had no notion whatsoever of
their terrible significance for the existence of the German people.
These two perils were Marxism and Judaism.

For many people the name of Vienna signifies innocent jollity, a festive
place for happy mortals. For me, alas, it is a living memory of the
saddest period in my life. Even to-day the mention of that city arouses
only gloomy thoughts in my mind. Five years of poverty in that Phaecian
(Note 5) town. Five years in which, first as a casual labourer and then as
a painter of little trifles, I had to earn my daily bread. And a meagre
morsel indeed it was, not even sufficient to still the hunger which I
constantly felt. That hunger was the faithful guardian which never left
me but took part in everything I did. Every book that I bought meant
renewed hunger, and every visit I paid to the opera meant the intrusion
of that inalienabl companion during the following days. I was always
struggling with my unsympathic friend. And yet during that time I
learned more than I had ever learned before. Outside my architectural
studies and rare visits to the opera, for which I had to deny myself
food, I had no other pleasure in life except my books.

[Note 5. The Phaecians were a legendary people, mentioned in Homer's
Odyssey. They were supposed to live on some unknown island in the Eastern
Mediterranean, sometimes suggested to be Corcyra, the modern Corfu. They
loved good living more than work, and so the name Phaecian has come to be
a synonym for parasite.]

I read a great deal then, and I pondered deeply over what I read. All
the free time after work was devoted exclusively to study. Thus within a
few years I was able to acquire a stock of knowledge which I find useful
even to-day.

But more than that. During those years a view of life and a definite
outlook on the world took shape in my mind. These became the granite
basis of my conduct at that time. Since then I have extended that
foundation only very little, and I have changed nothing in it.

On the contrary: I am firmly convinced to-day that, generally speaking,
it is in youth that men lay the essential groundwork of their creative
thought, wherever that creative thought exists. I make a distinction
between the wisdom of age--which can only arise from the greater
profundity and foresight that are based on the experiences of a long
life--and the creative genius of youth, which blossoms out in thought
and ideas with inexhaustible fertility, without being able to put these
into practice immediately, because of their very superabundance. These
furnish the building materials and plans for the future; and it is from
them that age takes the stones and builds the edifice, unless the
so-called wisdom of the years may have smothered the creative genius of
youth.

The life which I had hitherto led at home with my parents differed in
little or nothing from that of all the others. I looked forward without
apprehension to the morrow, and there was no such thing as a social
problem to be faced. Those among whom I passed my young days belonged to
the small bourgeois class. Therefore it was a world that had very little
contact with the world of genuine manual labourers. For, though at first
this may appear astonishing, the ditch which separates that class, which
is by no means economically well-off; from the manual labouring class is
often deeper than people think. The reason for this division, which we
may almost call enmity, lies in the fear that dominates a social group
which has only just risen above the level of the manual labourer--a fear
lest it may fall back into its old condition or at least be classed with
the labourers. Moreover, there is something repulsive in remembering the
cultural indigence of that lower class and their rough manners with one
another; so that people who are only on the first rung of the social
ladder find it unbearable to be forced to have any contact with the
cultural level and standard of living out of which they have passed.

And so it happens that very often those who belong to what can really be
called the upper classes find it much easier than do the upstarts to
descend to and intermingle with their fellow beings on the lowest social
level. For by the word upstart I mean everyone who has raised himself
through his own efforts to a social level higher than that to which he
formerly belonged. In the case of such a person the hard struggle
through which he passes often destroys his normal human sympathy. His
own fight for existence kills his sensibility for the misery of those
who have been left behind.

From this point of view fate had been kind to me. Circumstances forced
me to return to that world of poverty and economic insecurity above
which my father had raised himself in his early days; and thus the
blinkers of a narrow PETIT BOURGEOIS education were torn from my eyes.
Now for the first time I learned to know men and I learned to
distinguish between empty appearances or brutal manners and the real
inner nature of the people who outwardly appeared thus.

At the beginning of the century Vienna had already taken rank among
those cities where social conditions are iniquitous. Dazzling riches and
loathsome destitution were intermingled in violent contrast. In the
centre and in the Inner City one felt the pulse-beat of an Empire which
had a population of fifty-two millions, with all the perilous charm of a
State made up of multiple nationalities. The dazzling splendour of the
Court acted like a magnet on the wealth and intelligence of the whole
Empire. And this attraction was further strengthened by the dynastic
policy of the Habsburg Monarchy in centralizing everything in itself and
for itself.

This centralizing policy was necessary in order to hold together that
hotchpotch of heterogeneous nationalities. But the result of it was an
extraordinary concentration of higher officials in the city, which was
at one and the same time the metropolis and imperial residence.

But Vienna was not merely the political and intellectual centre of the
Danubian Monarchy; it was also the commercial centre. Besides the horde
of military officers of high rank, State officials, artists and
scientists, there was the still vaster horde of workers. Abject poverty
confronted the wealth of the aristocracy and the merchant class face to
face. Thousands of unemployed loitered in front of the palaces on the
Ring Strasse; and below that VIA TRIUMPHALIS of the old Austria the
homeless huddled together in the murk and filth of the canals.

There was hardly any other German city in which the social problem could
be studied better than in Vienna. But here I must utter a warning
against the illusion that this problem can be 'studied' from above
downwards. The man who has never been in the clutches of that crushing
viper can never know what its poison is. An attempt to study it in any
other way will result only in superficial talk and sentimental
delusions. Both are harmful. The first because it can never go to the
root of the question, the second because it evades the question
entirely. I do not know which is the more nefarious: to ignore social
distress, as do the majority of those who have been favoured by fortune
and those who have risen in the social scale through their own routine
labour, or the equally supercilious and often tactless but always
genteel condescension displayed by people who make a fad of being
charitable and who plume themselves on 'sympathising with the people.'
Of course such persons sin more than they can imagine from lack of
instinctive understanding. And thus they are astonished to find that the
'social conscience' on which they pride themselves never produces any
results, but often causes their good intentions to be resented; and then
they talk of the ingratitude of the people.

Such persons are slow to learn that here there is no place for merely
social activities and that there can be no expectation of gratitude; for
in this connection there is no question at all of distributing favours
but essentially a matter of retributive justice. I was protected against
the temptation to study the social question in the way just mentioned,
for the simple reason that I was forced to live in the midst of
poverty-stricken people. Therefore it was not a question of studying the
problem objectively, but rather one of testing its effects on myself.
Though the rabbit came through the ordeal of the experiment, this must
not be taken as evidence of its harmlessness.

When I try to-day to recall the succession of impressions received
during that time I find that I can do so only with approximate
completeness. Here I shall describe only the more essential impressions
and those which personally affected me and often staggered me. And I
shall mention the few lessons I then learned from this experience.

At that time it was for the most part not very difficult to find work,
because I had to seek work not as a skilled tradesman but as a so-called
extra-hand ready to take any job that turned up by chance, just for the
sake of earning my daily bread.

Thus I found myself in the same situation as all those emigrants who
shake the dust of Europe from their feet, with the cast-iron
determination to lay the foundations of a new existence in the New World
and acquire for themselves a new home. Liberated from all the paralysing
prejudices of class and calling, environment and tradition, they enter
any service that opens its doors to them, accepting any work that comes
their way, filled more and more with the idea that honest work never
disgraced anybody, no matter what kind it may be. And so I was resolved
to set both feet in what was for me a new world and push forward on my
own road.

I soon found out that there was some kind of work always to be got, but
I also learned that it could just as quickly and easily be lost. The
uncertainty of being able to earn a regular daily livelihood soon
appeared to me as the gloomiest feature in this new life that I had
entered.

Although the skilled worker was not so frequently thrown idle on the
streets as the unskilled worker, yet the former was by no means
protected against the same fate; because though he may not have to face
hunger as a result of unemployment due to the lack of demand in the
labour market, the lock-out and the strike deprived the skilled worker
of the chance to earn his bread. Here the element of uncertainty in
steadily earning one's daily bread was the bitterest feature of the
whole social-economic system itself.

The country lad who migrates to the big city feels attracted by what has
been described as easy work--which it may be in reality--and few working
hours. He is especially entranced by the magic glimmer spread over the
big cities. Accustomed in the country to earn a steady wage, he has been
taught not to quit his former post until a new one is at least in sight.
As there is a great scarcity of agricultural labour, the probability of
long unemployment in the country has been very small. It is a mistake to
presume that the lad who leaves the countryside for the town is not made
of such sound material as those who remain at home to work on the land.
On the contrary, experience shows that it is the more healthy and more
vigorous that emigrate, and not the reverse. Among these emigrants I
include not merely those who emigrate to America, but also the servant
boy in the country who decides to leave his native village and migrate
to the big city where he will be a stranger. He is ready to take the
risk of an uncertain fate. In most cases he comes to town with a little
money in his pocket and for the first few days he is not discouraged if
he should not have the good fortune to find work. But if he finds a job
and then loses it in a little while, the case is much worse. To find
work anew, especially in winter, is often difficult and indeed sometimes
impossible. For the first few weeks life is still bearable He receives
his out-of-work money from his trade union and is thus enabled to carry
on. But when the last of his own money is gone and his trade union
ceases to pay out because of the prolonged unemployment, then comes the
real distress. He now loiters about and is hungry. Often he pawns or
sells the last of his belongings. His clothes begin to get shabby and
with the increasing poverty of his outward appearance he descends to a
lower social level and mixes up with a class of human beings through
whom his mind is now poisoned, in addition to his physical misery. Then
he has nowhere to sleep and if that happens in winter, which is very
often the case, he is in dire distress. Finally he gets work. But the
old story repeats itself. A second time the same thing happens. Then a
third time; and now it is probably much worse. Little by little he
becomes indifferent to this everlasting insecurity. Finally he grows
used to the repetition. Thus even a man who is normally of industrious
habits grows careless in his whole attitude towards life and gradually
becomes an instrument in the hands of unscrupulous people who exploit
him for the sake of their own ignoble aims. He has been so often thrown
out of employment through no fault of his own that he is now more or
less indifferent whether the strike in which he takes part be for the
purpose of securing his economic rights or be aimed at the destruction
of the State, the whole social order and even civilization itself.
Though the idea of going on strike may not be to his natural liking, yet
he joins in it out of sheer indifference.

I saw this process exemplified before my eyes in thousands of cases. And
the longer I observed it the greater became my dislike for that mammoth
city which greedily attracts men to its bosom, in order to break them
mercilessly in the end. When they came they still felt themselves in
communion with their own people at home; if they remained that tie was
broken.

I was thrown about so much in the life of the metropolis that I
experienced the workings of this fate in my own person and felt the
effects of it in my own soul. One thing stood out clearly before my
eyes: It was the sudden changes from work to idleness and vice versa; so
that the constant fluctuations thus caused by earnings and expenditure
finally destroyed the 'sense of thrift for many people and also the
habit of regulating expenditure in an intelligent way. The body appeared
to grow accustomed to the vicissitudes of food and hunger, eating
heartily in good times and going hungry in bad. Indeed hunger shatters
all plans for rationing expenditure on a regular scale in better times
when employment is again found. The reason for this is that the
deprivations which the unemployed worker has to endure must be
compensated for psychologically by a persistent mental mirage in which
he imagines himself eating heartily once again. And this dream develops
into such a longing that it turns into a morbid impulse to cast off all
self-restraint when work and wages turn up again. Therefore the moment
work is found anew he forgets to regulate the expenditure of his
earnings but spends them to the full without thinking of to-morrow. This
leads to confusion in the little weekly housekeeping budget, because the
expenditure is not rationally planned. When the phenomenon which I have
mentioned first happens, the earnings will last perhaps for five days
instead of seven; on subsequent occasions they will last only for three
days; as the habit recurs, the earnings will last scarcely for a day;
and finally they will disappear in one night of feasting.

Often there are wife and children at home. And in many cases it happens
that these become infected by such a way of living, especially if the
husband is good to them and wants to do the best he can for them and
loves them in his own way and according to his own lights. Then the
week's earnings are spent in common at home within two or three days.
The family eat and drink together as long as the money lasts and at the
end of the week they hunger together. Then the wife wanders about
furtively in the neighbourhood, borrows a little, and runs up small
debts with the shopkeepers in an effort to pull through the lean days
towards the end of the week. They sit down together to the midday meal
with only meagre fare on the table, and often even nothing to eat. They
wait for the coming payday, talking of it and making plans; and while
they are thus hungry they dream of the plenty that is to come. And so
the little children become acquainted with misery in their early years.

But the evil culminates when the husband goes his own way from the
beginning of the week and the wife protests, simply out of love for the
children. Then there are quarrels and bad feeling and the husband takes
to drink according as he becomes estranged from his wife. He now becomes
drunk every Saturday. Fighting for her own existence and that of the
children, the wife has to hound him along the road from the factory to
the tavern in order to get a few shillings from him on payday. Then when
he finally comes home, maybe on the Sunday or the Monday, having parted
with his last shillings and pence, pitiable scenes follow, scenes that
cry out for God's mercy.

I have had actual experience of all this in hundreds of cases. At first
I was disgusted and indignant; but later on I came to recognize the
whole tragedy of their misfortune and to understand the profound causes
of it. They were the unhappy victims of evil circumstances.

Housing conditions were very bad at that time. The Vienna manual
labourers lived in surroundings of appalling misery. I shudder even
to-day when I think of the woeful dens in which people dwelt, the night
shelters and the slums, and all the tenebrous spectacles of ordure,
loathsome filth and wickedness.

What will happen one day when hordes of emancipated slaves come forth
from these dens of misery to swoop down on their unsuspecting fellow
men? For this other world does not think about such a possibility. They
have allowed these things to go on without caring and even without
suspecting--in their total lack of instinctive understanding--that
sooner or later destiny will take its vengeance unless it will have been
appeased in time.

To-day I fervidly thank Providence for having sent me to such a school.
There I could not refuse to take an interest in matters that did not
please me. This school soon taught me a profound lesson.

In order not to despair completely of the people among whom I then lived
I had to set on one side the outward appearances of their lives and on
the other the reasons why they had developed in that way. Then I could
hear everything without discouragement; for those who emerged from all
this misfortune and misery, from this filth and outward degradation,
were not human beings as such but rather lamentable results of
lamentable laws. In my own life similar hardships prevented me from
giving way to a pitying sentimentality at the sight of these degraded
products which had finally resulted from the pressure of circumstances.
No, the sentimental attitude would be the wrong one to adopt.

Even in those days I already saw that there was a two-fold method by
which alone it would be possible to bring about an amelioration of these
conditions. This method is: first, to create better fundamental
conditions of social development by establishing a profound feeling for
social responsibilities among the public; second, to combine this
feeling for social responsibilities with a ruthless determination to
prune away all excrescences which are incapable of being improved.

Just as Nature concentrates its greatest attention, not to the
maintenance of what already exists but on the selective breeding of
offspring in order to carry on the species, so in human life also it is
less a matter of artificially improving the existing generation--which,
owing to human characteristics, is impossible in ninety-nine cases out
of a hundred--and more a matter of securing from the very start a better
road for future development.

During my struggle for existence in Vienna I perceived very clearly that
the aim of all social activity must never be merely charitable relief,
which is ridiculous and useless, but it must rather be a means to find a
way of eliminating the fundamental deficiencies in our economic and
cultural life--deficiencies which necessarily bring about the
degradation of the individual or at least lead him towards such
degradation. The difficulty of employing every means, even the most
drastic, to eradicate the hostility prevailing among the working classes
towards the State is largely due to an attitude of uncertainty in
deciding upon the inner motives and causes of this contemporary
phenomenon. The grounds of this uncertainty are to be found exclusively
in the sense of guilt which each individual feels for having permitted
this tragedy of degradation. For that feeling paralyses every effort at
making a serious and firm decision to act. And thus because the people
whom it concerns are vacillating they are timid and half-hearted in
putting into effect even the measures which are indispensable for
self-preservation. When the individual is no longer burdened with his
own consciousness of blame in this regard, then and only then will he
have that inner tranquillity and outer force to cut off drastically and
ruthlessly all the parasite growth and root out the weeds.

But because the Austrian State had almost no sense of social rights or
social legislation its inability to abolish those evil excrescences was
manifest.

I do not know what it was that appalled me most at that time: the
economic misery of those who were then my companions, their crude
customs and morals, or the low level of their intellectual culture.

How often our bourgeoisie rises up in moral indignation on hearing from
the mouth of some pitiable tramp that it is all the same to him whether
he be a German or not and that he will find himself at home wherever he
can get enough to keep body and soul together. They protest sternly
against such a lack of 'national pride' and strongly express their
horror at such sentiments.

But how many people really ask themselves why it is that their own
sentiments are better? How many of them understand that their natural
pride in being members of so favoured a nation arises from the
innumerable succession of instances they have encountered which remind
them of the greatness of the Fatherland and the Nation in all spheres of
artistic and cultural life? How many of them realize that pride in the
Fatherland is largely dependent on knowledge of its greatness in all
those spheres? Do our bourgeois circles ever think what a ridiculously
meagre share the people have in that knowledge which is a necessary
prerequisite for the feeling of pride in one's fatherland?

It cannot be objected here that in other countries similar conditions
exist and that nevertheless the working classes in those countries have
remained patriotic. Even if that were so, it would be no excuse for our
negligent attitude. But it is not so. What we call chauvinistic
education--in the case of the French people, for example--is only the
excessive exaltation of the greatness of France in all spheres of
culture or, as the French say, civilization. The French boy is not
educated on purely objective principles. Wherever the importance of the
political and cultural greatness of his country is concerned he is
taught in the most subjective way that one can imagine.

This education will always have to be confined to general ideas in a
large perspective and these ought to be deeply engraven, by constant
repetition if necessary, on the memories and feelings of the people.

In our case, however, we are not merely guilty of negative sins of
omission but also of positively perverting the little which some
individuals had the luck to learn at school. The rats that poison our
body-politic gnaw from the hearts and memories of the broad masses even
that little which distress and misery have left.

Let the reader try to picture the following:

There is a lodging in a cellar and this lodging consists of two damp
rooms. In these rooms a workman and his family live--seven people in
all. Let us assume that one of the children is a boy of three years.
That is the age at which children first become conscious of the
impressions which they receive. In the case of highly gifted people
traces of the impressions received in those early years last in the
memory up to an advanced age. Now the narrowness and congestion of those
living quarters do not conduce to pleasant inter-relations. Thus
quarrels and fits of mutual anger arise. These people can hardly be said
to live with one another, but rather down on top of one another. The
small misunderstandings which disappear of themselves in a home where
there is enough space for people to go apart from one another for a
while, here become the source of chronic disputes. As far as the
children are concerned the situation is tolerable from this point of
view. In such conditions they are constantly quarrelling with one
another, but the quarrels are quickly and entirely forgotten. But when
the parents fall out with one another these daily bickerings often
descend to rudeness such as cannot be adequately imagined. The results
of such experiences must become apparent later on in the children. One
must have practical experience of such a MILIEU so as to be able to
picture the state of affairs that arises from these mutual
recriminations when the father physically assaults the mother and
maltreats her in a fit of drunken rage. At the age of six the child can
no longer ignore those sordid details which even an adult would find
revolting. Infected with moral poison, bodily undernourished, and the
poor little head filled with vermin, the young 'citizen' goes to the
primary school. With difficulty he barely learns to read and write.
There is no possibility of learning any lessons at home. Quite the
contrary. The father and mother themselves talk before the children in
the most disparaging way about the teacher and the school and they are
much more inclined to insult the teachers than to put their offspring
across the knee and knock sound reason into him. What the little fellow
hears at home does not tend to increase respect for his human
surroundings. Here nothing good is said of human nature as a whole and
every institution, from the school to the government, is reviled.
Whether religion and morals are concerned or the State and the social
order, it is all the same; they are all scoffed at. When the young lad
leaves school, at the age of fourteen, it would be difficult to say what
are the most striking features of his character, incredible ignorance in
so far as real knowledge is concerned or cynical impudence combined with
an attitude towards morality which is really startling at so young an
age.

What station in life can such a person fill, to whom nothing is sacred,
who has never experienced anything noble but, on the contrary, has been
intimately acquainted with the lowest kind of human existence? This
child of three has got into the habit of reviling all authority by the
time he is fifteen. He has been acquainted only with moral filth and
vileness, everything being excluded that might stimulate his thought
towards higher things. And now this young specimen of humanity enters
the school of life.

He leads the same kind of life which was exemplified for him by his
father during his childhood. He loiters about and comes home at all
hours. He now even black-guards that broken-hearted being who gave him
birth. He curses God and the world and finally ends up in a House of
Correction for young people. There he gets the final polish.

And his bourgeois contemporaries are astonished at the lack of
'patriotic enthusiasm' which this young 'citizen' manifests.

Day after day the bourgeois world are witnesses to the phenomenon of
spreading poison among the people through the instrumentality of the
theatre and the cinema, gutter journalism and obscene books; and yet
they are astonished at the deplorable 'moral standards' and 'national
indifference' of the masses. As if the cinema bilge and the gutter press
and suchlike could inculcate knowledge of the greatness of one's
country, apart entirely from the earlier education of the individual.

I then came to understand, quickly and thoroughly, what I had never been
aware of before. It was the following:

The question of 'nationalizing' a people is first and foremost one of
establishing healthy social conditions which will furnish the grounds
that are necessary for the education of the individual. For only when
family upbringing and school education have inculcated in the individual
a knowledge of the cultural and economic and, above all, the political
greatness of his own country--then, and then only, will it be possible
for him to feel proud of being a citizen of such a country. I can fight
only for something that I love. I can love only what I respect. And in
order to respect a thing I must at least have some knowledge of it.

As soon as my interest in social questions was once awakened I began to
study them in a fundamental way. A new and hitherto unknown world was
thus revealed to me.

In the years 1909-10 I had so far improved my, position that I no longer
had to earn my daily bread as a manual labourer. I was now working
independently as draughtsman, and painter in water colours. This MÉTIER
was a poor one indeed as far as earnings were concerned; for these were
only sufficient to meet the bare exigencies of life. Yet it had an
interest for me in view of the profession to which I aspired. Moreover,
when I came home in the evenings I was now no longer dead-tired as
formerly, when I used to be unable to look into a book without falling
asleep almost immediately. My present occupation therefore was in line
with the profession I aimed at for the future. Moreover, I was master of
my own time and could distribute my working-hours now better than
formerly. I painted in order to earn my bread, and I studied because I
liked it.

Thus I was able to acquire that theoretical knowledge of the social
problem which was a necessary complement to what I was learning through
actual experience. I studied all the books which I could find that dealt
with this question and I thought deeply on what I read. I think that the
MILIEU in which I then lived considered me an eccentric person.

Besides my interest in the social question I naturally devoted myself
with enthusiasm to the study of architecture. Side by side with music, I
considered it queen of the arts. To study it was for me not work but
pleasure. I could read or draw until the small hours of the morning
without ever getting tired. And I became more and more confident that my
dream of a brilliant future would become true, even though I should have
to wait long years for its fulfilment. I was firmly convinced that one
day I should make a name for myself as an architect.

The fact that, side by side with my professional studies, I took the
greatest interest in everything that had to do with politics did not
seem to me to signify anything of great importance. On the contrary: I
looked upon this practical interest in politics merely as part of an
elementary obligation that devolves on every thinking man. Those who
have no understanding of the political world around them have no right
to criticize or complain. On political questions therefore I still
continued to read and study a great deal. But reading had probably a
different significance for me from that which it has for the average run
of our so-called 'intellectuals'.

I know people who read interminably, book after book, from page to page,
and yet I should not call them 'well-read people'. Of course they 'know'
an immense amount; but their brain seems incapable of assorting and
classifying the material which they have gathered from books. They have
not the faculty of distinguishing between what is useful and useless in
a book; so that they may retain the former in their minds and if
possible skip over the latter while reading it, if that be not possible,
then--when once read--throw it overboard as useless ballast. Reading is
not an end in itself, but a means to an end. Its chief purpose is to
help towards filling in the framework which is made up of the talents
and capabilities that each individual possesses. Thus each one procures
for himself the implements and materials necessary for the fulfilment of
his calling in life, no matter whether this be the elementary task of
earning one's daily bread or a calling that responds to higher human
aspirations. Such is the first purpose of reading. And the second
purpose is to give a general knowledge of the world in which we live. In
both cases, however, the material which one has acquired through reading
must not be stored up in the memory on a plan that corresponds to the
successive chapters of the book; but each little piece of knowledge thus
gained must be treated as if it were a little stone to be inserted into
a mosaic, so that it finds its proper place among all the other pieces
and particles that help to form a general world-picture in the brain of
the reader. Otherwise only a confused jumble of chaotic notions will
result from all this reading. That jumble is not merely useless, but it
also tends to make the unfortunate possessor of it conceited. For he
seriously considers himself a well-educated person and thinks that he
understands something of life. He believes that he has acquired
knowledge, whereas the truth is that every increase in such 'knowledge'
draws him more and more away from real life, until he finally ends up in
some sanatorium or takes to politics and becomes a parliamentary deputy.

Such a person never succeeds in turning his knowledge to practical
account when the opportune moment arrives; for his mental equipment is
not ordered with a view to meeting the demands of everyday life. His
knowledge is stored in his brain as a literal transcript of the books he
has read and the order of succession in which he has read them. And if
Fate should one day call upon him to use some of his book-knowledge for
certain practical ends in life that very call will have to name the book
and give the number of the page; for the poor noodle himself would never
be able to find the spot where he gathered the information now called
for. But if the page is not mentioned at the critical moment the
widely-read intellectual will find himself in a state of hopeless
embarrassment. In a high state of agitation he searches for analogous
cases and it is almost a dead certainty that he will finally deliver the
wrong prescription.

If that is not a correct description, then how can we explain the
political achievements of our Parliamentary heroes who hold the highest
positions in the government of the country? Otherwise we should have to
attribute the doings of such political leaders, not to pathological
conditions but simply to malice and chicanery.

On the other hand, one who has cultivated the art of reading will
instantly discern, in a book or journal or pamphlet, what ought to be
remembered because it meets one's personal needs or is of value as
general knowledge. What he thus learns is incorporated in his mental
analogue of this or that problem or thing, further correcting the mental
picture or enlarging it so that it becomes more exact and precise.
Should some practical problem suddenly demand examination or solution,
memory will immediately select the opportune information from the mass
that has been acquired through years of reading and will place this
information at the service of one's powers of judgment so as to get a
new and clearer view of the problem in question or produce a definitive
solution.

Only thus can reading have any meaning or be worth while.

The speaker, for example, who has not the sources of information ready
to hand which are necessary to a proper treatment of his subject is
unable to defend his opinions against an opponent, even though those
opinions be perfectly sound and true. In every discussion his memory
will leave him shamefully in the lurch. He cannot summon up arguments to
support his statements or to refute his opponent. So long as the speaker
has only to defend himself on his own personal account, the situation is
not serious; but the evil comes when Chance places at the head of public
affairs such a soi-disant know-it-all, who in reality knows nothing.

From early youth I endeavoured to read books in the right way and I was
fortunate in having a good memory and intelligence to assist me. From
that point of view my sojourn in Vienna was particularly useful and
profitable. My experiences of everyday life there were a constant
stimulus to study the most diverse problems from new angles. Inasmuch as
I was in a position to put theory to the test of reality and reality to
the test of theory, I was safe from the danger of pedantic theorizing on
the one hand and, on the other, from being too impressed by the
superficial aspects of reality.

The experience of everyday life at that time determined me to make a
fundamental theoretical study of two most important questions outside of
the social question.

It is impossible to say when I might have started to make a thorough
study of the doctrine and characteristics of Marxism were it not for the
fact that I then literally ran head foremost into the problem.

What I knew of Social Democracy in my youth was precious little and that
little was for the most part wrong. The fact that it led the struggle
for universal suffrage and the secret ballot gave me an inner
satisfaction; for my reason then told me that this would weaken the
Habsburg regime, which I so thoroughly detested. I was convinced that
even if it should sacrifice the German element the Danubian State could
not continue to exist. Even at the price of a long and slow Slaviz-ation
of the Austrian Germans the State would secure no guarantee of a really
durable Empire; because it was very questionable if and how far the
Slavs possessed the necessary capacity for constructive politics.
Therefore I welcomed every movement that might lead towards the final
disruption of that impossible State which had decreed that it would
stamp out the German character in ten millions of people. The more this
babel of tongues wrought discord and disruption, even in the Parliament,
the nearer the hour approached for the dissolution of this Babylonian
Empire. That would mean the liberation of my German Austrian people, and
only then would it become possible for them to be re-united to the
Motherland.

Accordingly I had no feelings of antipathy towards the actual policy of
the Social Democrats. That its avowed purpose was to raise the level of
the working classes--which in my ignorance I then foolishly
believed--was a further reason why I should speak in favour of Social
Democracy rather than against it. But the features that contributed most
to estrange me from the Social Democratic movement was its hostile
attitude towards the struggle for the conservation of Germanism in
Austria, its lamentable cocotting with the Slav 'comrades', who received
these approaches favourably as long as any practical advantages were
forthcoming but otherwise maintained a haughty reserve, thus giving the
importunate mendicants the sort of answer their behaviour deserved.

And so at the age of seventeen the word 'Marxism' was very little known
to me, while I looked on 'Social Democracy' and 'Socialism' as
synonymous expressions. It was only as the result of a sudden blow from
the rough hand of Fate that my eyes were opened to the nature of this
unparalleled system for duping the public.

Hitherto my acquaintance with the Social Democratic Party was only that
of a mere spectator at some of their mass meetings. I had not the
slightest idea of the social-democratic teaching or the mentality of its
partisans. All of a sudden I was brought face to face with the products
of their teaching and what they called their WELTANSCHAUUNG. In this
way a few months sufficed for me to learn something which under other
circumstances might have necessitated decades of study--namely, that
under the cloak of social virtue and love of one's neighbour a veritable
pestilence was spreading abroad and that if this pestilence be not
stamped out of the world without delay it may eventually succeed in
exterminating the human race.

I first came into contact with the Social Democrats while working in the
building trade.

From the very time that I started work the situation was not very
pleasant for me. My clothes were still rather decent. I was careful of
my speech and I was reserved in manner. I was so occupied with thinking
of my own present lot and future possibilities that I did not take much
of an interest in my immediate surroundings. I had sought work so that I
shouldn't starve and at the same time so as to be able to make further
headway with my studies, though this headway might be slow. Possibly I
should not have bothered to be interested in my companions were it not
that on the third or fourth day an event occurred which forced me to
take a definite stand. I was ordered to join the trade union.

At that time I knew nothing about the trades unions. I had had no
opportunity of forming an opinion on their utility or inutility, as the
case might be. But when I was told that I must join the union I refused.
The grounds which I gave for my refusal were simply that I knew nothing
about the matter and that anyhow I would not allow myself to be forced
into anything. Probably the former reason saved me from being thrown out
right away. They probably thought that within a few days I might be
converted' and become more docile. But if they thought that they were
profoundly mistaken. After two weeks I found it utterly impossible for
me to take such a step, even if I had been willing to take it at first.
During those fourteen days I came to know my fellow workmen better, and
no power in the world could have moved me to join an organization whose
representatives had meanwhile shown themselves in a light which I found
so unfavourable.

During the first days my resentment was aroused.

At midday some of my fellow workers used to adjourn to the nearest
tavern, while the others remained on the building premises and there ate
their midday meal, which in most cases was a very scanty one. These were
married men. Their wives brought them the midday soup in dilapidated
vessels. Towards the end of the week there was a gradual increase in the
number of those who remained to eat their midday meal on the building
premises. I understood the reason for this afterwards. They now talked
politics.

I drank my bottle of milk and ate my morsel of bread somewhere on the
outskirts, while I circumspectly studied my environment or else fell to
meditating on my own harsh lot. Yet I heard more than enough. And I
often thought that some of what they said was meant for my ears, in the
hope of bringing me to a decision. But all that I heard had the effect
of arousing the strongest antagonism in me. Everything was
disparaged--the nation, because it was held to be an invention of the
'capitalist' class (how often I had to listen to that phrase!); the
Fatherland, because it was held to be an instrument in the hands of the
bourgeoisie for the exploitation of' the working masses; the authority
of the law, because that was a means of holding down the proletariat;
religion, as a means of doping the people, so as to exploit them
afterwards; morality, as a badge of stupid and sheepish docility. There
was nothing that they did not drag in the mud.

At first I remained silent; but that could not last very long. Then I
began to take part in the discussion and to reply to their statements. I
had to recognize, however, that this was bound to be entirely fruitless,
as long as I did not have at least a certain amount of definite
information about the questions that were discussed. So I decided to
consult the source from which my interlocutors claimed to have drawn
their so-called wisdom. I devoured book after book, pamphlet after
pamphlet.

Meanwhile, we argued with one another on the building premises. From day
to day I was becoming better informed than my companions in the subjects
on which they claimed to be experts. Then a day came when the more
redoubtable of my adversaries resorted to the most effective weapon they
had to replace the force of reason. This was intimidation and physical
force. Some of the leaders among my adversaries ordered me to leave the
building or else get flung down from the scaffolding. As I was quite
alone I could not put up any physical resistance; so I chose the first
alternative and departed, richer however by an experience.

I went away full of disgust; but at the same time so deeply moved that
it was quite impossible for me to turn my back on the whole situation
and think no more about it. When my anger began to calm down the spirit
of obstinacy got the upper hand and I decided that at all costs I would
get back to work again in the building trade. This decision became all
the stronger a few weeks later, when my little savings had entirely run
out and hunger clutched me once again in its merciless arms. No
alternative was left to me. I got work again and had to leave it for the
same reasons as before.

Then I asked myself: Are these men worthy of belonging to a great
people? The question was profoundly disturbing; for if the answer were
'Yes', then the struggle to defend one's nationality is no longer worth
all the trouble and sacrifice we demand of our best elements if it be in
the interests of such a rabble. On the other hand, if the answer had to
be 'No--these men are not worthy of the nation', then our nation is poor
indeed in men. During those days of mental anguish and deep meditation I
saw before my mind the ever-increasing and menacing army of people who
could no longer be reckoned as belonging to their own nation.

It was with quite a different feeling, some days later, that I gazed on
the interminable ranks, four abreast, of Viennese workmen parading at a
mass demonstration. I stood dumbfounded for almost two hours, watching
that enormous human dragon which slowly uncoiled itself there before me.
When I finally left the square and wandered in the direction of my
lodgings I felt dismayed and depressed. On my way I noticed the
ARBEITERZEITUNG (The Workman's Journal) in a tobacco shop. This was the
chief press-organ of the old Austrian Social Democracy. In a cheap café,
where the common people used to foregather and where I often went to
read the papers, the ARBEITERZEITUNG was also displayed. But hitherto I
could not bring myself to do more than glance at the wretched thing for
a couple of minutes: for its whole tone was a sort of mental vitriol to
me. Under the depressing influence of the demonstration I had witnessed,
some interior voice urged me to buy the paper in that tobacco shop and
read it through. So I brought it home with me and spent the whole
evening reading it, despite the steadily mounting rage provoked by this
ceaseless outpouring of falsehoods.

I now found that in the social democratic daily papers I could study the
inner character of this politico-philosophic system much better than in
all their theoretical literature.

For there was a striking discrepancy between the two. In the literary
effusions which dealt with the theory of Social Democracy there was a
display of high-sounding phraseology about liberty and human dignity and
beauty, all promulgated with an air of profound wisdom and serene
prophetic assurance; a meticulously-woven glitter of words to dazzle and
mislead the reader. On the other hand, the daily Press inculcated this
new doctrine of human redemption in the most brutal fashion. No means
were too base, provided they could be exploited in the campaign of
slander. These journalists were real virtuosos in the art of twisting
facts and presenting them in a deceptive form. The theoretical
literature was intended for the simpletons of the soi-disant
intellectuals belonging to the middle and, naturally, the upper classes.
The newspaper propaganda was intended for the masses.

This probing into books and newspapers and studying the teachings of
Social Democracy reawakened my love for my own people. And thus what at
first seemed an impassable chasm became the occasion of a closer
affection.

Having once understood the working of the colossal system for poisoning
the popular mind, only a fool could blame the victims of it. During the
years that followed I became more independent and, as I did so, I became
better able to understand the inner cause of the success achieved by
this Social Democratic gospel. I now realized the meaning and purpose of
those brutal orders which prohibited the reading of all books and
newspapers that were not 'red' and at the same time demanded that only
the 'red' meetings should be attended. In the clear light of brutal
reality I was able to see what must have been the inevitable
consequences of that intolerant teaching.

The PSYCHE of the broad masses is accessible only to what is strong and
uncompromising. Like a woman whose inner sensibilities are not so much
under the sway of abstract reasoning but are always subject to the
influence of a vague emotional longing for the strength that completes
her being, and who would rather bow to the strong man than dominate the
weakling--in like manner the masses of the people prefer the ruler to
the suppliant and are filled with a stronger sense of mental security by
a teaching that brooks no rival than by a teaching which offers them a
liberal choice. They have very little idea of how to make such a choice
and thus they are prone to feel that they have been abandoned. They feel
very little shame at being terrorized intellectually and they are
scarcely conscious of the fact that their freedom as human beings is
impudently abused; and thus they have not the slightest suspicion of the
intrinsic fallacy of the whole doctrine. They see only the ruthless
force and brutality of its determined utterances, to which they always
submit.

IF SOCIAL DEMOCRACY SHOULD BE OPPOSED BY A MORE TRUTHFUL TEACHING, THEN
EVEN, THOUGH THE STRUGGLE BE OF THE BITTEREST KIND, THIS TRUTHFUL
TEACHING WILL FINALLY PREVAIL PROVIDED IT BE ENFORCED WITH EQUAL
RUTHLESSNESS.

Within less than two years I had gained a clear understanding of Social
Democracy, in its teaching and the technique of its operations.

I recognized the infamy of that technique whereby the movement carried
on a campaign of mental terrorism against the bourgeoisie, who are
neither morally nor spiritually equipped to withstand such attacks. The
tactics of Social Democracy consisted in opening, at a given signal, a
veritable drum-fire of lies and calumnies against the man whom they
believed to be the most redoubtable of their adversaries, until the
nerves of the latter gave way and they sacrificed the man who was
attacked, simply in the hope of being allowed to live in peace. But the
hope proved always to be a foolish one, for they were never left in
peace.

The same tactics are repeated again and again, until fear of these mad
dogs exercises, through suggestion, a paralysing effect on their
Victims.

Through its own experience Social Democracy learned the value of
strength, and for that reason it attacks mostly those in whom it scents
stuff of the more stalwart kind, which is indeed a very rare possession.
On the other hand it praises every weakling among its adversaries, more
or less cautiously, according to the measure of his mental qualities
known or presumed. They have less fear of a man of genius who lacks
will-power than of a vigorous character with mediocre intelligence and
at the same time they highly commend those who are devoid of
intelligence and will-power.

The Social Democrats know how to create the impression that they alone
are the protectors of peace. In this way, acting very circumspectly but
never losing sight of their ultimate goal, they conquer one position
after another, at one time by methods of quiet intimidation and at
another time by sheer daylight robbery, employing these latter tactics
at those moments when public attention is turned towards other matters
from which it does not wish to be diverted, or when the public considers
an incident too trivial to create a scandal about it and thus provoke
the anger of a malignant opponent.

[Scooter]

These tactics are based on an accurate estimation of human frailties and
must lead to success, with almost mathematical certainty, unless the
other side also learns how to fight poison gas with poison gas. The
weaker natures must be told that here it is a case of to be or not to
be.

I also came to understand that physical intimidation has its
significance for the mass as well as for the individual. Here again the
Socialists had calculated accurately on the psychological effect.

Intimidation in workshops and in factories, in assembly halls and at
mass demonstrations, will always meet with success as long as it does
not have to encounter the same kind of terror in a stronger form.

Then of course the Party will raise a horrified outcry, yelling blue
murder and appealing to the authority of the State, which they have just
repudiated. In doing this their aim generally is to add to the general
confusion, so that they may have a better opportunity of reaching their
own goal unobserved. Their idea is to find among the higher government
officials some bovine creature who, in the stupid hope that he may win
the good graces of these awe-inspiring opponents so that they may
remember him in case of future eventualities, will help them now to
break all those who may oppose this world pest.

The impression which such successful tactics make on the minds of the
broad masses, whether they be adherents or opponents, can be estimated
only by one who knows the popular mind, not from books but from
practical life. For the successes which are thus obtained are taken by
the adherents of Social Democracy as a triumphant symbol of the
righteousness of their own cause; on the other hand the beaten opponent
very often loses faith in the effectiveness of any further resistance.

The more I understood the methods of physical intimidation that were
employed, the more sympathy I had for the multitude that had succumbed
to it.

I am thankful now for the ordeal which I had to go through at that time;
for it was the means of bringing me to think kindly again of my own
people, inasmuch as the experience enabled me to distinguish between the
false leaders and the victims who have been led astray.

We must look upon the latter simply as victims. I have just now tried to
depict a few traits which express the mentality of those on the lowest
rung of the social ladder; but my picture would be disproportionate if I
do not add that amid the social depths I still found light; for I
experienced a rare spirit of self-sacrifice and loyal comradeship among
those men, who demanded little from life and were content amid their
modest surroundings. This was true especially of the older generation of
workmen. And although these qualities were disappearing more and more in
the younger generation, owing to the all-pervading influence of the big
city, yet among the younger generation also there were many who were
sound at the core and who were able to maintain themselves
uncontaminated amid the sordid surroundings of their everyday existence.
If these men, who in many cases meant well and were upright in
themselves, gave the support to the political activities carried on by
the common enemies of our people, that was because those decent
workpeople did not and could not grasp the downright infamy of the
doctrine taught by the socialist agitators. Furthermore, it was because
no other section of the community bothered itself about the lot of the
working classes. Finally, the social conditions became such that men who
otherwise would have acted differently were forced to submit to them,
even though unwillingly at first. A day came when poverty gained the
upper hand and drove those workmen into the Social Democratic ranks.

On innumerable occasions the bourgeoisie took a definite stand against
even the most legitimate human demands of the working classes. That
conduct was ill-judged and indeed immoral and could bring no gain
whatsoever to the bourgeois class. The result was that the honest
workman abandoned the original concept of the trades union organization
and was dragged into politics.

There were millions and millions of workmen who began by being hostile
to the Social Democratic Party; but their defences were repeatedly
stormed and finally they had to surrender. Yet this defeat was due to
the stupidity of the bourgeois parties, who had opposed every social
demand put forward by the working class. The short-sighted refusal to
make an effort towards improving labour conditions, the refusal to adopt
measures which would insure the workman in case of accidents in the
factories, the refusal to forbid child labour, the refusal to consider
protective measures for female workers, especially expectant
mothers--all this was of assistance to the Social Democratic leaders,
who were thankful for every opportunity which they could exploit for
forcing the masses into their net. Our bourgeois parties can never
repair the damage that resulted from the mistake they then made. For
they sowed the seeds of hatred when they opposed all efforts at social
reform. And thus they gave, at least, apparent grounds to justify the
claim put forward by the Social Democrats--namely, that they alone stand
up for the interests of the working class.

And this became the principal ground for the moral justification of the
actual existence of the Trades Unions, so that the labour organization
became from that time onwards the chief political recruiting ground to
swell the ranks of the Social Democratic Party.

While thus studying the social conditions around me I was forced,
whether I liked it or not, to decide on the attitude I should take
towards the Trades Unions. Because I looked upon them as inseparable
from the Social Democratic Party, my decision was hasty--and mistaken. I
repudiated them as a matter of course. But on this essential question
also Fate intervened and gave me a lesson, with the result that I
changed the opinion which I had first formed.

When I was twenty years old I had learned to distinguish between the
Trades Union as a means of defending the social rights of the employees
and fighting for better living conditions for them and, on the other
hand, the Trades Union as a political instrument used by the Party in
the class struggle.

The Social Democrats understood the enormous importance of the Trades
Union movement. They appropriated it as an instrument and used it with
success, while the bourgeois parties failed to understand it and thus
lost their political prestige. They thought that their own arrogant VETO
would arrest the logical development of the movement and force it into
an illogical position. But it is absurd and also untrue to say that the
Trades Union movement is in itself hostile to the nation. The opposite
is the more correct view. If the activities of the Trades Union are
directed towards improving the condition of a class, and succeed in
doing so, such activities are not against the Fatherland or the State
but are, in the truest sense of the word, national. In that way the
trades union organization helps to create the social conditions which
are indispensable in a general system of national education. It deserves
high recognition when it destroys the psychological and physical germs
of social disease and thus fosters the general welfare of the nation.

It is superfluous to ask whether the Trades Union is indispensable.

So long as there are employers who attack social understanding and have
wrong ideas of justice and fair play it is not only the right but also
the duty of their employees--who are, after all, an integral part of our
people--to protect the general interests against the greed and unreason
of the individual. For to safeguard the loyalty and confidence of the
people is as much in the interests of the nation as to safeguard public
health.

Both are seriously menaced by dishonourable employers who are not
conscious of their duty as members of the national community. Their
personal avidity or irresponsibility sows the seeds of future trouble.
To eliminate the causes of such a development is an action that surely
deserves well of the country.

It must not be answered here that the individual workman is free at any
time to escape from the consequences of an injustice which he has
actually suffered at the hands of an employer, or which he thinks he has
suffered--in other words, he can leave. No. That argument is only a ruse
to detract attention from the question at issue. Is it, or is it not, in
the interests of the nation to remove the causes of social unrest? If it
is, then the fight must be carried on with the only weapons that promise
success. But the individual workman is never in a position to stand up
against the might of the big employer; for the question here is not one
that concerns the triumph of right. If in such a relation right had been
recognized as the guiding principle, then the conflict could not have
arisen at all. But here it is a question of who is the stronger. If the
case were otherwise, the sentiment of justice alone would solve the
dispute in an honourable way; or, to put the case more correctly,
matters would not have come to such a dispute at all.

No. If unsocial and dishonourable treatment of men provokes resistance,
then the stronger party can impose its decision in the conflict until
the constitutional legislative authorities do away with the evil through
legislation. Therefore it is evident that if the individual workman is
to have any chance at all of winning through in the struggle he must be
grouped with his fellow workmen and present a united front before the
individual employer, who incorporates in his own person the massed
strength of the vested interests in the industrial or commercial
undertaking which he conducts.

Thus the trades unions can hope to inculcate and strengthen a sense of
social responsibility in workaday life and open the road to practical
results. In doing this they tend to remove those causes of friction
which are a continual source of discontent and complaint.

Blame for the fact that the trades unions do not fulfil this
much-desired function must be laid at the doors of those who barred the
road to legislative social reform, or rendered such a reform ineffective
by sabotaging it through their political influence.

The political bourgeoisie failed to understand--or, rather, they did not
wish to understand--the importance of the trades union movement. The
Social Democrats accordingly seized the advantage offered them by this
mistaken policy and took the labour movement under their exclusive
protection, without any protest from the other side. In this way they
established for themselves a solid bulwark behind which they could
safely retire whenever the struggle assumed a critical aspect. Thus the
genuine purpose of the movement gradually fell into oblivion, and was
replaced by new objectives. For the Social Democrats never troubled
themselves to respect and uphold the original purpose for which the
trade unionist movement was founded. They simply took over the Movement,
lock, stock and barrel, to serve their own political ends.

Within a few decades the Trades Union Movement was transformed, by the
expert hand of Social Democracy, from an instrument which had been
originally fashioned for the defence of human rights into an instrument
for the destruction of the national economic structure. The interests of
the working class were not allowed for a moment to cross the path of
this purpose; for in politics the application of economic pressure is
always possible if the one side be sufficiently unscrupulous and the
other sufficiently inert and docile. In this case both conditions were
fulfilled.

By the beginning of the present century the Trades Unionist Movement had
already ceased to recognize the purpose for which it had been founded.
From year to year it fell more and more under the political control of
the Social Democrats, until it finally came to be used as a
battering-ram in the class struggle. The plan was to shatter, by means
of constantly repeated blows, the economic edifice in the building of
which so much time and care had been expended. Once this objective had
been reached, the destruction of the State would become a matter of
course, because the State would already have been deprived of its
economic foundations. Attention to the real interests of the
working-classes, on the part of the Social Democrats, steadily decreased
until the cunning leaders saw that it would be in their immediate
political interests if the social and cultural demands of the broad
masses remained unheeded; for there was a danger that if these masses
once felt content they could no longer be employed as mere passive
material in the political struggle.

The gloomy prospect which presented itself to the eyes of the
CONDOTTIERI of the class warfare, if the discontent of the masses were
no longer available as a war weapon, created so much anxiety among them
that they suppressed and opposed even the most elementary measures of
social reform. And conditions were such that those leaders did not have
to trouble about attempting to justify such an illogical policy.

As the masses were taught to increase and heighten their demands the
possibility of satisfying them dwindled and whatever ameliorative
measures were taken became less and less significant; so that it was at
that time possible to persuade the masses that this ridiculous measure
in which the most sacred claims of the working-classes were being
granted represented a diabolical plan to weaken their fighting power in
this easy way and, if possible, to paralyse it. One will not be
astonished at the success of these allegations if one remembers what a
small measure of thinking power the broad masses possess.

In the bourgeois camp there was high indignation over the bad faith of
the Social Democratic tactics; but nothing was done to draw a practical
conclusion and organize a counter attack from the bourgeois side. The
fear of the Social Democrats, to improve the miserable conditions of the
working-classes ought to have induced the bourgeois parties to make the
most energetic efforts in this direction and thus snatch from the hands
of the class-warfare leaders their most important weapon; but nothing of
this kind happened.

Instead of attacking the position of their adversaries the bourgeoisie
allowed itself to be pressed and harried. Finally it adopted means that
were so tardy and so insignificant that they were ineffective and were
repudiated. So the whole situation remained just as it had been before
the bourgeois intervention; but the discontent had thereby become more
serious.

Like a threatening storm, the 'Free Trades Union' hovered above the
political horizon and above the life of each individual. It was one of
the most frightful instruments of terror that threatened the security
and independence of the national economic structure, the foundations of
the State and the liberty of the individual. Above all, it was the 'Free
Trades Union' that turned democracy into a ridiculous and scorned
phrase, insulted the ideal of liberty and stigmatized that of fraternity
with the slogan 'If you will not become our comrade we shall crack your
skull'.

It was thus that I then came to know this friend of humanity. During the
years that followed my knowledge of it became wider and deeper; but I
have never changed anything in that regard.

The more I became acquainted with the external forms of Social
Democracy, the greater became my desire to understand the inner nature
of its doctrines.

For this purpose the official literature of the Party could not help
very much. In discussing economic questions its statements were false
and its proofs unsound. In treating of political aims its attitude was
insincere. Furthermore, its modern methods of chicanery in the
presentation of its arguments were profoundly repugnant to me. Its
flamboyant sentences, its obscure and incomprehensible phrases,
pretended to contain great thoughts, but they were devoid of thought,
and meaningless. One would have to be a decadent Bohemian in one of our
modern cities in order to feel at home in that labyrinth of mental
aberration, so that he might discover 'intimate experiences' amid the
stinking fumes of this literary Dadism. These writers were obviously
counting on the proverbial humility of a certain section of our people,
who believe that a person who is incomprehensible must be profoundly
wise.

In confronting the theoretical falsity and absurdity of that doctrine
with the reality of its external manifestations, I gradually came to
have a clear idea of the ends at which it aimed.

During such moments I had dark presentiments and feared something evil.
I had before me a teaching inspired by egoism and hatred, mathematically
calculated to win its victory, but the triumph of which would be a
mortal blow to humanity.

Meanwhile I had discovered the relations existing between this
destructive teaching and the specific character of a people, who up to
that time had been to me almost unknown.

Knowledge of the Jews is the only key whereby one may understand the
inner nature and therefore the real aims of Social Democracy.

The man who has come to know this race has succeeded in removing from
his eyes the veil through which he had seen the aims and meaning of his
Party in a false light; and then, out of the murk and fog of social
phrases rises the grimacing figure of Marxism.

To-day it is hard and almost impossible for me to say when the word
'Jew' first began to raise any particular thought in my mind. I do not
remember even having heard the word at home during my father's lifetime.
If this name were mentioned in a derogatory sense I think the old
gentleman would just have considered those who used it in this way as
being uneducated reactionaries. In the course of his career he had come
to be more or less a cosmopolitan, with strong views on nationalism,
which had its effect on me as well. In school, too, I found no reason to
alter the picture of things I had formed at home.

At the REALSCHULE I knew one Jewish boy. We were all on our guard in our
relations with him, but only because his reticence and certain actions
of his warned us to be discreet. Beyond that my companions and myself
formed no particular opinions in regard to him.

It was not until I was fourteen or fifteen years old that I frequently
ran up against the word 'Jew', partly in connection with political
controversies. These references aroused a slight aversion in me, and I
could not avoid an uncomfortable feeling which always came over me when
I had to listen to religious disputes. But at that time I had no other
feelings about the Jewish question.

There were very few Jews in Linz. In the course of centuries the Jews
who lived there had become Europeanized in external appearance and were
so much like other human beings that I even looked upon them as Germans.
The reason why I did not then perceive the absurdity of such an illusion
was that the only external mark which I recognized as distinguishing
them from us was the practice of their strange religion. As I thought
that they were persecuted on account of their Faith my aversion to
hearing remarks against them grew almost into a feeling of abhorrence. I
did not in the least suspect that there could be such a thing as a
systematic anti-Semitism.

Then I came to Vienna.

Confused by the mass of impressions I received from the architectural
surroundings and depressed by my own troubles, I did not at first
distinguish between the different social strata of which the population
of that mammoth city was composed. Although Vienna then had about two
hundred thousand Jews among its population of two millions, I did not
notice them. During the first weeks of my sojourn my eyes and my mind
were unable to cope with the onrush of new ideas and values. Not until I
gradually settled down to my surroundings, and the confused picture
began to grow clearer, did I acquire a more discriminating view of my
new world. And with that I came up against the Jewish problem.

I will not say that the manner in which I first became acquainted with
it was particularly unpleasant for me. In the Jew I still saw only a man
who was of a different religion, and therefore, on grounds of human
tolerance, I was against the idea that he should be attacked because he
had a different faith. And so I considered that the tone adopted by the
anti-Semitic Press in Vienna was unworthy of the cultural traditions of
a great people. The memory of certain events which happened in the
middle ages came into my mind, and I felt that I should not like to see
them repeated. Generally speaking, these anti-Semitic newspapers did not
belong to the first rank--but I did not then understand the reason of
this--and so I regarded them more as the products of jealousy and envy
rather than the expression of a sincere, though wrong-headed, feeling.

My own opinions were confirmed by what I considered to be the infinitely
more dignified manner in which the really great Press replied to those
attacks or simply ignored them, which latter seemed to me the most
respectable way.

I diligently read what was generally called the World Press--NEUE FREIE
PRESSE, WIENER TAGEBLATT, etc.--and I was astonished by the abundance of
information they gave their readers and the impartial way in which they
presented particular problems. I appreciated their dignified tone; but
sometimes the flamboyancy of the style was unconvincing, and I did not
like it. But I attributed all this to the overpowering influence of the
world metropolis.

Since I considered Vienna at that time as such a world metropolis, I
thought this constituted sufficient grounds to excuse these shortcomings
of the Press. But I was frequently disgusted by the grovelling way in
which the Vienna Press played lackey to the Court. Scarcely a move took
place at the Hofburg which was not presented in glorified colours to the
readers. It was a foolish practice, which, especially when it had to do
with 'The Wisest Monarch of all Times', reminded one almost of the dance
which the mountain cock performs at pairing time to woo his mate. It was
all empty nonsense. And I thought that such a policy was a stain on the
ideal of liberal democracy. I thought that this way of currying favour
at the Court was unworthy of the people. And that was the first blot
that fell on my appreciation of the great Vienna Press.

While in Vienna I continued to follow with a vivid interest all the
events that were taking place in Germany, whether connected with
political or cultural question. I had a feeling of pride and admiration
when I compared the rise of the young German Empire with the decline of
the Austrian State. But, although the foreign policy of that Empire was
a source of real pleasure on the whole, the internal political
happenings were not always so satisfactory. I did not approve of the
campaign which at that time was being carried on against William II. I
looked upon him not only as the German Emperor but, above all, as the
creator of the German Navy. The fact that the Emperor was prohibited
from speaking in the Reichstag made me very angry, because the
prohibition came from a side which in my eyes had no authority to make
it. For at a single sitting those same parliamentary ganders did more
cackling together than the whole dynasty of Emperors, comprising even
the weakest, had done in the course of centuries.

It annoyed me to have to acknowledge that in a nation where any
half-witted fellow could claim for himself the right to criticize and
might even be let loose on the people as a 'Legislator' in the
Reichstag, the bearer of the Imperial Crown could be the subject of a
'reprimand' on the part of the most miserable assembly of drivellers
that had ever existed.

I was even more disgusted at the way in which this same Vienna Press
salaamed obsequiously before the meanest steed belonging to the Habsburg
royal equipage and went off into wild ecstacies of delight if the nag
wagged its tail in response. And at the same time these newspapers took
up an attitude of anxiety in matters that concerned the German Emperor,
trying to cloak their enmity by the serious air they gave themselves.
But in my eyes that enmity appeared to be only poorly cloaked. Naturally
they protested that they had no intention of mixing in Germany's
internal affairs--God forbid! They pretended that by touching a delicate
spot in such a friendly way they were fulfilling a duty that devolved
upon them by reason of the mutual alliance between the two countries and
at the same time discharging their obligations of journalistic
truthfulness. Having thus excused themselves about tenderly touching a
sore spot, they bored with the finger ruthlessly into the wound.

That sort of thing made my blood boil. And now I began to be more and
more on my guard when reading the great Vienna Press.

I had to acknowledge, however, that on such subjects one of the
anti-Semitic papers--the DEUTSCHE VOLKSBLATT--acted more decently.

What got still more on my nerves was the repugnant manner in which the
big newspapers cultivated admiration for France. One really had to feel
ashamed of being a German when confronted by those mellifluous hymns of
praise for 'the great culture-nation'. This wretched Gallomania more
often than once made me throw away one of those 'world newspapers'. I
now often turned to the VOLKSBLATT, which was much smaller in size but
which treated such subjects more decently. I was not in accord with its
sharp anti-Semitic tone; but again and again I found that its arguments
gave me grounds for serious thought.

Anyhow, it was as a result of such reading that I came to know the man
and the movement which then determined the fate of Vienna. These were
Dr. Karl Lueger and the Christian Socialist Movement. At the time I came
to Vienna I felt opposed to both. I looked on the man and the movement
as 'reactionary'.

But even an elementary sense of justice enforced me to change my opinion
when I had the opportunity of knowing the man and his work, and slowly
that opinion grew into outspoken admiration when I had better grounds
for forming a judgment. To-day, as well as then, I hold Dr. Karl Lueger
as the most eminent type of German Burgermeister. How many prejudices
were thrown over through such a change in my attitude towards the
Christian-Socialist Movement!

My ideas about anti-Semitism changed also in the course of time, but
that was the change which I found most difficult. It cost me a greater
internal conflict with myself, and it was only after a struggle between
reason and sentiment that victory began to be decided in favour of the
former. Two years later sentiment rallied to the side of reasons and
became a faithful guardian and counsellor.

At the time of this bitter struggle, between calm reason and the
sentiments in which I had been brought up, the lessons that I learned on
the streets of Vienna rendered me invaluable assistance. A time came
when I no longer passed blindly along the street of the mighty city, as
I had done in the early days, but now with my eyes open not only to
study the buildings but also the human beings.

Once, when passing through the inner City, I suddenly encountered a
phenomenon in a long caftan and wearing black side-locks. My first
thought was: Is this a Jew? They certainly did not have this appearance
in Linz. I watched the man stealthily and cautiously; but the longer I
gazed at the strange countenance and examined it feature by feature, the
more the question shaped itself in my brain: Is this a German?

As was always my habit with such experiences, I turned to books for help
in removing my doubts. For the first time in my life I bought myself
some anti-Semitic pamphlets for a few pence. But unfortunately they all
began with the assumption that in principle the reader had at least a
certain degree of information on the Jewish question or was even
familiar with it. Moreover, the tone of most of these pamphlets was such
that I became doubtful again, because the statements made were partly
superficial and the proofs extraordinarily unscientific. For weeks, and
indeed for months, I returned to my old way of thinking. The subject
appeared so enormous and the accusations were so far-reaching that I was
afraid of dealing with it unjustly and so I became again anxious and
uncertain.

Naturally I could no longer doubt that here there was not a question of
Germans who happened to be of a different religion but rather that there
was question of an entirely different people. For as soon as I began to
investigate the matter and observe the Jews, then Vienna appeared to me
in a different light. Wherever I now went I saw Jews, and the more I saw
of them the more strikingly and clearly they stood out as a different
people from the other citizens. Especially the Inner City and the
district northwards from the Danube Canal swarmed with a people who,
even in outer appearance, bore no similarity to the Germans.

But any indecision which I may still have felt about that point was
finally removed by the activities of a certain section of the Jews
themselves. A great movement, called Zionism, arose among them. Its aim
was to assert the national character of Judaism, and the movement was
strongly represented in Vienna.

To outward appearances it seemed as if only one group of Jews championed
this movement, while the great majority disapproved of it, or even
repudiated it. But an investigation of the situation showed that those
outward appearances were purposely misleading. These outward appearances
emerged from a mist of theories which had been produced for reasons of
expediency, if not for purposes of downright deception. For that part of
Jewry which was styled Liberal did not disown the Zionists as if they
were not members of their race but rather as brother Jews who publicly
professed their faith in an unpractical way, so as to create a danger
for Jewry itself.

Thus there was no real rift in their internal solidarity.

This fictitious conflict between the Zionists and the Liberal Jews soon
disgusted me; for it was false through and through and in direct
contradiction to the moral dignity and immaculate character on which
that race had always prided itself.

Cleanliness, whether moral or of another kind, had its own peculiar
meaning for these people. That they were water-shy was obvious on
looking at them and, unfortunately, very often also when not looking at
them at all. The odour of those people in caftans often used to make me
feel ill. Beyond that there were the unkempt clothes and the ignoble
exterior.

All these details were certainly not attractive; but the revolting
feature was that beneath their unclean exterior one suddenly perceived
the moral mildew of the chosen race.

What soon gave me cause for very serious consideration were the
activities of the Jews in certain branches of life, into the mystery of
which I penetrated little by little. Was there any shady undertaking,
any form of foulness, especially in cultural life, in which at least one
Jew did not participate? On putting the probing knife carefully to that
kind of abscess one immediately discovered, like a maggot in a
putrescent body, a little Jew who was often blinded by the sudden light.

In my eyes the charge against Judaism became a grave one the moment I
discovered the Jewish activities in the Press, in art, in literature and
the theatre. All unctuous protests were now more or less futile. One
needed only to look at the posters announcing the hideous productions of
the cinema and theatre, and study the names of the authors who were
highly lauded there in order to become permanently adamant on Jewish
questions. Here was a pestilence, a moral pestilence, with which the
public was being infected. It was worse than the Black Plague of long
ago. And in what mighty doses this poison was manufactured and
distributed. Naturally, the lower the moral and intellectual level of
such an author of artistic products the more inexhaustible his
fecundity. Sometimes it went so far that one of these fellows, acting
like a sewage pump, would shoot his filth directly in the face of other
members of the human race. In this connection we must remember there is
no limit to the number of such people. One ought to realize that for
one, Goethe, Nature may bring into existence ten thousand such
despoilers who act as the worst kind of germ-carriers in poisoning human
souls. It was a terrible thought, and yet it could not be avoided, that
the greater number of the Jews seemed specially destined by Nature to
play this shameful part.

And is it for this reason that they can be called the chosen people?

I began then to investigate carefully the names of all the fabricators
of these unclean products in public cultural life. The result of that
inquiry was still more disfavourable to the attitude which I had
hitherto held in regard to the Jews. Though my feelings might rebel a
thousand time, reason now had to draw its own conclusions.

The fact that nine-tenths of all the smutty literature, artistic tripe
and theatrical banalities, had to be charged to the account of people
who formed scarcely one per cent. of the nation--that fact could not be
gainsaid. It was there, and had to be admitted. Then I began to examine
my favourite 'World Press', with that fact before my mind.

The deeper my soundings went the lesser grew my respect for that Press
which I formerly admired. Its style became still more repellent and I
was forced to reject its ideas as entirely shallow and superficial. To
claim that in the presentation of facts and views its attitude was
impartial seemed to me to contain more falsehood than truth. The writers
were--Jews.

Thousands of details that I had scarcely noticed before seemed to me now
to deserve attention. I began to grasp and understand things which I had
formerly looked at in a different light.

I saw the Liberal policy of that Press in another light. Its dignified
tone in replying to the attacks of its adversaries and its dead silence
in other cases now became clear to me as part of a cunning and
despicable way of deceiving the readers. Its brilliant theatrical
criticisms always praised the Jewish authors and its adverse, criticism
was reserved exclusively for the Germans.

The light pin-pricks against William II showed the persistency of its
policy, just as did its systematic commendation of French culture and
civilization. The subject matter of the feuilletons was trivial and
often pornographic. The language of this Press as a whole had the accent
of a foreign people. The general tone was openly derogatory to the
Germans and this must have been definitely intentional.

What were the interests that urged the Vienna Press to adopt such a
policy? Or did they do so merely by chance? In attempting to find an
answer to those questions I gradually became more and more dubious.

Then something happened which helped me to come to an early decision. I
began to see through the meaning of a whole series of events that were
taking place in other branches of Viennese life. All these were inspired
by a general concept of manners and morals which was openly put into
practice by a large section of the Jews and could be established as
attributable to them. Here, again, the life which I observed on the
streets taught me what evil really is.

The part which the Jews played in the social phenomenon of prostitution,
and more especially in the white slave traffic, could be studied here
better than in any other West-European city, with the possible exception
of certain ports in Southern France. Walking by night along the streets
of the Leopoldstadt, almost at every turn whether one wished it or not,
one witnessed certain happenings of whose existence the Germans knew
nothing until the War made it possible and indeed inevitable for the
soldiers to see such things on the Eastern front.

A cold shiver ran down my spine when I first ascertained that it was the
same kind of cold-blooded, thick-skinned and shameless Jew who showed
his consummate skill in conducting that revolting exploitation of the
dregs of the big city. Then I became fired with wrath.

I had now no more hesitation about bringing the Jewish problem to light
in all its details. No. Henceforth I was determined to do so. But as I
learned to track down the Jew in all the different spheres of cultural
and artistic life, and in the various manifestations of this life
everywhere, I suddenly came upon him in a position where I had least
expected to find him. I now realized that the Jews were the leaders of
Social Democracy. In face of that revelation the scales fell from my
eyes. My long inner struggle was at an end.

In my relations with my fellow workmen I was often astonished to find
how easily and often they changed their opinions on the same questions,
sometimes within a few days and sometimes even within the course of a
few hours. I found it difficult to understand how men who always had
reasonable ideas when they spoke as individuals with one another
suddenly lost this reasonableness the moment they acted in the mass.
That phenomenon often tempted one almost to despair. I used to dispute
with them for hours and when I succeeded in bringing them to what I
considered a reasonable way of thinking I rejoiced at my success. But
next day I would find that it had been all in vain. It was saddening to
think I had to begin it all over again. Like a pendulum in its eternal
sway, they would fall back into their absurd opinions.

I was able to understand their position fully. They were dissatisfied
with their lot and cursed the fate which had hit them so hard. They
hated their employers, whom they looked upon as the heartless
administrators of their cruel destiny. Often they used abusive language
against the public officials, whom they accused of having no sympathy
with the situation of the working people. They made public protests
against the cost of living and paraded through the streets in defence of
their claims. At least all this could be explained on reasonable
grounds. But what was impossible to understand was the boundless hatred
they expressed against their own fellow citizens, how they disparaged
their own nation, mocked at its greatness, reviled its history and
dragged the names of its most illustrious men in the gutter.

This hostility towards their own kith and kin, their own native land and
home was as irrational as it was incomprehensible. It was against
Nature.

One could cure that malady temporarily, but only for some days or at
least some weeks. But on meeting those whom one believed to have been
converted one found that they had become as they were before. That
malady against Nature held them once again in its clutches.

I gradually discovered that the Social Democratic Press was
predominantly controlled by Jews. But I did not attach special
importance to this circumstance, for the same state of affairs existed
also in other newspapers. But there was one striking fact in this
connection. It was that there was not a single newspaper with which Jews
were connected that could be spoken of as National, in the meaning that
my education and convictions attached to that word.

Making an effort to overcome my natural reluctance, I tried to read
articles of this nature published in the Marxist Press; but in doing so
my aversion increased all the more. And then I set about learning
something of the people who wrote and published this mischievous stuff.
From the publisher downwards, all of them were Jews. I recalled to mind
the names of the public leaders of Marxism, and then I realized that
most of them belonged to the Chosen Race--the Social Democratic
representatives in the Imperial Cabinet as well as the secretaries of
the Trades Unions and the street agitators. Everywhere the same sinister
picture presented itself. I shall never forget the row of
names--Austerlitz, David, Adler, Ellenbogen, and others. One fact became
quite evident to me. It was that this alien race held in its hands the
leadership of that Social Democratic Party with whose minor
representatives I had been disputing for months past. I was happy at
last to know for certain that the Jew is not a German.

Thus I finally discovered who were the evil spirits leading our people
astray. The sojourn in Vienna for one year had proved long enough to
convince me that no worker is so rooted in his preconceived notions that
he will not surrender them in face of better and clearer arguments and
explanations. Gradually I became an expert in the doctrine of the
Marxists and used this knowledge as an instrument to drive home my own
firm convictions. I was successful in nearly every case. The great
masses can be rescued, but a lot of time and a large share of human
patience must be devoted to such work.

But a Jew can never be rescued from his fixed notions.

It was then simple enough to attempt to show them the absurdity of their
teaching. Within my small circle I talked to them until my throat ached
and my voice grew hoarse. I believed that I could finally convince them
of the danger inherent in the Marxist follies. But I only achieved the
contrary result. It seemed to me that immediately the disastrous effects
of the Marxist Theory and its application in practice became evident,
the stronger became their obstinacy.

The more I debated with them the more familiar I became with their
argumentative tactics. At the outset they counted upon the stupidity of
their opponents, but when they got so entangled that they could not find
a way out they played the trick of acting as innocent simpletons. Should
they fail, in spite of their tricks of logic, they acted as if they
could not understand the counter arguments and bolted away to another
field of discussion. They would lay down truisms and platitudes; and, if
you accepted these, then they were applied to other problems and matters
of an essentially different nature from the original theme. If you faced
them with this point they would escape again, and you could not bring
them to make any precise statement. Whenever one tried to get a firm
grip on any of these apostles one's hand grasped only jelly and slime
which slipped through the fingers and combined again into a solid mass a
moment afterwards. If your adversary felt forced to give in to your
argument, on account of the observers present, and if you then thought
that at last you had gained ground, a surprise was in store for you on
the following day. The Jew would be utterly oblivious to what had
happened the day before, and he would start once again by repeating his
former absurdities, as if nothing had happened. Should you become
indignant and remind him of yesterday's defeat, he pretended
astonishment and could not remember anything, except that on the
previous day he had proved that his statements were correct. Sometimes I
was dumbfounded. I do not know what amazed me the more--the abundance of
their verbiage or the artful way in which they dressed up their
falsehoods. I gradually came to hate them.

Yet all this had its good side; because the more I came to know the
individual leaders, or at least the propagandists, of Social Democracy,
my love for my own people increased correspondingly. Considering the
Satanic skill which these evil counsellors displayed, how could their
unfortunate victims be blamed? Indeed, I found it extremely difficult
myself to be a match for the dialectical perfidy of that race. How
futile it was to try to win over such people with argument, seeing that
their very mouths distorted the truth, disowning the very words they had
just used and adopting them again a few moments afterwards to serve
their own ends in the argument! No. The more I came to know the Jew, the
easier it was to excuse the workers.

In my opinion the most culpable were not to be found among the workers
but rather among those who did not think it worth while to take the
trouble to sympathize with their own kinsfolk and give to the
hard-working son of the national family what was his by the iron logic
of justice, while at the same time placing his seducer and corrupter
against the wall.

Urged by my own daily experiences, I now began to investigate more
thoroughly the sources of the Marxist teaching itself. Its effects were
well known to me in detail. As a result of careful observation, its
daily progress had become obvious to me. And one needed only a little
imagination in order to be able to forecast the consequences which must
result from it. The only question now was: Did the founders foresee the
effects of their work in the form which those effects have shown
themselves to-day, or were the founders themselves the victims of an
error? To my mind both alternatives were possible.

If the second question must be answered in the affirmative, then it was
the duty of every thinking person to oppose this sinister movement with
a view to preventing it from producing its worst results. But if the
first question must be answered in the affirmative, then it must be
admitted that the original authors of this evil which has infected the
nations were devils incarnate. For only in the brain of a monster, and
not that of a man, could the plan of this organization take shape whose
workings must finally bring about the collapse of human civilization and
turn this world into a desert waste.

Such being the case the only alternative left was to fight, and in that
fight to employ all the weapons which the human spirit and intellect and
will could furnish leaving it to Fate to decide in whose favour the
balance should fall.

And so I began to gather information about the authors of this teaching,
with a view to studying the principles of the movement. The fact that I
attained my object sooner than I could have anticipated was due to the
deeper insight into the Jewish question which I then gained, my
knowledge of this question being hitherto rather superficial. This newly
acquired knowledge alone enabled me to make a practical comparison
between the real content and the theoretical pretentiousness of the
teaching laid down by the apostolic founders of Social Democracy;
because I now understood the language of the Jew. I realized that the
Jew uses language for the purpose of dissimulating his thought or at
least veiling it, so that his real aim cannot be discovered by what he
says but rather by reading between the lines. This knowledge was the
occasion of the greatest inner revolution that I had yet experienced.
From being a soft-hearted cosmopolitan I became an out-and-out
anti-Semite.

Only on one further occasion, and that for the last time, did I give way
to oppressing thoughts which caused me some moments of profound anxiety.

As I critically reviewed the activities of the Jewish people throughout
long periods of history I became anxious and asked myself whether for
some inscrutable reasons beyond the comprehension of poor mortals such
as ourselves, Destiny may not have irrevocably decreed that the final
victory must go to this small nation? May it not be that this people
which has lived only for the earth has been promised the earth as a
recompense? is our right to struggle for our own self-preservation based
on reality, or is it a merely subjective thing? Fate answered the
question for me inasmuch as it led me to make a detached and exhaustive
inquiry into the Marxist teaching and the activities of the Jewish
people in connection with it.

The Jewish doctrine of Marxism repudiates the aristocratic principle of
Nature and substitutes for it the eternal privilege of force and energy,
numerical mass and its dead weight. Thus it denies the individual worth
of the human personality, impugns the teaching that nationhood and race
have a primary significance, and by doing this it takes away the very
foundations of human existence and human civilization. If the Marxist
teaching were to be accepted as the foundation of the life of the
universe, it would lead to the disappearance of all order that is
conceivable to the human mind. And thus the adoption of such a law would
provoke chaos in the structure of the greatest organism that we know,
with the result that the inhabitants of this earthly planet would
finally disappear.

Should the Jew, with the aid of his Marxist creed, triumph over the
people of this world, his Crown will be the funeral wreath of mankind,
and this planet will once again follow its orbit through ether, without
any human life on its surface, as it did millions of years ago.

And so I believe to-day that my conduct is in accordance with the will
of the Almighty Creator. In standing guard against the Jew I am
defending the handiwork of the Lord.

[Scooter]

CHAPTER III



POLITICAL REFLECTIONS ARISING OUT OF MY SOJOURN IN VIENNA


Generally speaking a man should not publicly take part in politics
before he has reached the age of thirty, though, of course, exceptions
must be made in the case of those who are naturally gifted with
extraordinary political abilities. That at least is my opinion to-day.
And the reason for it is that until he reaches his thirtieth year or
thereabouts a man's mental development will mostly consist in acquiring
and sifting such knowledge as is necessary for the groundwork of a
general platform from which he can examine the different political
problems that arise from day to day and be able to adopt a definite
attitude towards each. A man must first acquire a fund of general ideas
and fit them together so as to form an organic structure of personal
thought or outlook on life--a WELTANSCHAUUNG. Then he will have that
mental equipment without which he cannot form his own judgments on
particular questions of the day, and he will have acquired those
qualities that are necessary for consistency and steadfastness in the
formation of political opinions. Such a man is now qualified, at least
subjectively, to take his part in the political conduct of public
affairs.

If these pre-requisite conditions are not fulfilled, and if a man should
enter political life without this equipment, he will run a twofold risk.
In the first place, he may find during the course of events that the
stand which he originally took in regard to some essential question was
wrong. He will now have to abandon his former position or else stick to
it against his better knowledge and riper wisdom and after his reason
and convictions have already proved it untenable. If he adopt the former
line of action he will find himself in a difficult personal situation;
because in giving up a position hitherto maintained he will appear
inconsistent and will have no right to expect his followers to remain as
loyal to his leadership as they were before. And, as regards the
followers themselves, they may easily look upon their leader's change of
policy as showing a lack of judgment inherent in his character.
Moreover, the change must cause in them a certain feeling of
discomfiture VIS-À-VIS those whom the leader formerly opposed.

If he adopts the second alternative--which so very frequently happens
to-day--then public pronouncements of the leader have no longer his
personal persuasion to support them. And the more that is the case the
defence of his cause will be all the more hollow and superficial. He now
descends to the adoption of vulgar means in his defence. While he
himself no longer dreams seriously of standing by his political
protestations to the last--for no man will die in defence of something
in which he does not believe--he makes increasing demands on his
followers. Indeed, the greater be the measure of his own insincerity,
the more unfortunate and inconsiderate become his claims on his party
adherents. Finally, he throws aside the last vestiges of true leadership
and begins to play politics. This means that he becomes one of those
whose only consistency is their inconsistency, associated with
overbearing insolence and oftentimes an artful mendacity developed to a
shamelessly high degree.

Should such a person, to the misfortune of all decent people, succeed in
becoming a parliamentary deputy it will be clear from the outset that
for him the essence of political activity consists in a heroic struggle
to keep permanent hold on this milk-bottle as a source of livelihood for
himself and his family. The more his wife and children are dependent on
him, the more stubbornly will he fight to maintain for himself the
representation of his parliamentary constituency. For that reason any
other person who gives evidence of political capacity is his personal
enemy. In every new movement he will apprehend the possible beginning of
his own downfall. And everyone who is a better man than himself will
appear to him in the light of a menace.

I shall subsequently deal more fully with the problem to which this kind
of parliamentary vermin give rise.

When a man has reached his thirtieth year he has still a great deal to
learn. That is obvious. But henceforward what he learns will principally
be an amplification of his basic ideas; it will be fitted in with them
organically so as to fill up the framework of the fundamental
WELTANSCHAUUNG which he already possesses. What he learns anew will not
imply the abandonment of principles already held, but rather a deeper
knowledge of those principles. And thus his colleagues will never have
the discomforting feeling that they have been hitherto falsely led by
him. On the contrary, their confidence is increased when they perceive
that their leader's qualities are steadily developing along the lines of
an organic growth which results from the constant assimilation of new
ideas; so that the followers look upon this process as signifying an
enrichment of the doctrines in which they themselves believe, in their
eyes every such development is a new witness to the correctness of that
whole body of opinion which has hitherto been held.

A leader who has to abandon the platform founded on his general
principles, because he recognizes the foundation as false, can act with
honour only when he declares his readiness to accept the final
consequences of his erroneous views. In such a case he ought to refrain
from taking public part in any further political activity. Having once
gone astray on essential things he may possibly go astray a second time.
But, anyhow, he has no right whatsoever to expect or demand that his
fellow citizens should continue to give him their support.

How little such a line of conduct commends itself to our public leaders
nowadays is proved by the general corruption prevalent among the cabal
which at the present moment feels itself called to political leadership.
In the whole cabal there is scarcely one who is properly equipped for
this task.

Although in those days I used to give more time than most others to the
consideration of political question, yet I carefully refrained from
taking an open part in politics. Only to a small circle did I speak of
those things which agitated my mind or were the cause of constant
preoccupation for me. The habit of discussing matters within such a
restricted group had many advantages in itself. Rather than talk at
them, I learned to feel my way into the modes of thought and views of
those men around me. Oftentimes such ways of thinking and such views
were quite primitive. Thus I took every possible occasion to increase my
knowledge of men.

Nowhere among the German people was the opportunity for making such a
study so favourable as in Vienna.

In the old Danubian Monarchy political thought was wider in its range
and had a richer variety of interests than in the Germany of that
epoch--excepting certain parts of Prussia, Hamburg and the districts
bordering on the North Sea. When I speak of Austria here I mean that
part of the great Habsburg Empire which, by reason of its German
population, furnished not only the historic basis for the formation of
this State but whose population was for several centuries also the
exclusive source of cultural life in that political system whose
structure was so artificial. As time went on the stability of the
Austrian State and the guarantee of its continued existence depended
more and more on the maintenance of this germ-cell of that Habsburg
Empire.

The hereditary imperial provinces constituted the heart of the Empire.
And it was this heart that constantly sent the blood of life pulsating
through the whole political and cultural system. Corresponding to the
heart of the Empire, Vienna signified the brain and the will. At that
time Vienna presented an appearance which made one think of her as an
enthroned queen whose authoritative sway united the conglomeration of
heterogenous nationalities that lived under the Habsburg sceptre. The
radiant beauty of the capital city made one forget the sad symptoms of
senile decay which the State manifested as a whole.

Though the Empire was internally rickety because of the terrific
conflict going on between the various nationalities, the outside
world--and Germany in particular--saw only that lovely picture of the
city. The illusion was all the greater because at that time Vienna
seemed to have risen to its highest pitch of splendour. Under a Mayor,
who had the true stamp of administrative genius, the venerable
residential City of the Emperors of the old Empire seemed to have the
glory of its youth renewed. The last great German who sprang from the
ranks of the people that had colonized the East Mark was not a
'statesman', in the official sense. This Dr. Luegar, however, in his
rôle as Mayor of 'the Imperial Capital and Residential City', had
achieved so much in almost all spheres of municipal activity, whether
economic or cultural, that the heart of the whole Empire throbbed with
renewed vigour. He thus proved himself a much greater statesman than the
so-called 'diplomats' of that period.

The fact that this political system of heterogeneous races called
AUSTRIA, finally broke down is no evidence whatsoever of political
incapacity on the part of the German element in the old East Mark. The
collapse was the inevitable result of an impossible situation. Ten
million people cannot permanently hold together a State of fifty
millions, composed of different and convicting nationalities, unless
certain definite pre-requisite conditions are at hand while there is
still time to avail of them.

The German-Austrian had very big ways of thinking. Accustomed to live in
a great Empire, he had a keen sense of the obligations incumbent on him
in such a situation. He was the only member of the Austrian State who
looked beyond the borders of the narrow lands belonging to the Crown and
took in all the frontiers of the Empire in the sweep of his mind. Indeed
when destiny severed him from the common Fatherland he tried to master
the tremendous task which was set before him as a consequence. This task
was to maintain for the German-Austrians that patrimony which, through
innumerable struggles, their ancestors had originally wrested from the
East. It must be remembered that the German-Austrians could not put
their undivided strength into this effort, because the hearts and minds
of the best among them were constantly turning back towards their
kinsfolk in the Motherland, so that only a fraction of their energy
remained to be employed at home.

The mental horizon of the German-Austrian was comparatively broad. His
commercial interests comprised almost every section of the heterogeneous
Empire. The conduct of almost all important undertakings was in his
hands. He provided the State, for the most part, with its leading
technical experts and civil servants. He was responsible for carrying on
the foreign trade of the country, as far as that sphere of activity was
not under Jewish control, The German-Austrian exclusively represented
the political cement that held the State together. His military duties
carried him far beyond the narrow frontiers of his homeland. Though the
recruit might join a regiment made up of the German element, the
regiment itself might be stationed in Herzegovina as well as in Vienna
or Galicia. The officers in the Habsburg armies were still Germans and
so was the predominating element in the higher branches of the civil
service. Art and science were in German hands. Apart from the new
artistic trash, which might easily have been produced by a negro tribe,
all genuine artistic inspiration came from the German section of the
population. In music, architecture, sculpture and painting, Vienna
abundantly supplied the entire Dual Monarchy. And the source never
seemed to show signs of a possible exhaustion. Finally, it was the
German element that determined the conduct of foreign policy, though a
small number of Hungarians were also active in that field.

All efforts, however, to save the unity of the State were doomed to end
in failure, because the essential pre-requisites were missing.

There was only one possible way to control and hold in check the
centrifugal forces of the different and differing nationalities. This
way was: to govern the Austrian State and organize it internally on the
principle of centralization. In no other way imaginable could the
existence of that State be assured.

Now and again there were lucid intervals in the higher ruling quarters
when this truth was recognized. But it was soon forgotten again, or else
deliberately ignored, because of the difficulties to be overcome in
putting it into practice. Every project which aimed at giving the Empire
a more federal shape was bound to be ineffective because there was no
strong central authority which could exercise sufficient power within
the State to hold the federal elements together. It must be remembered
in this connection that conditions in Austria were quite different from
those which characterized the German State as founded by Bismarck.
Germany was faced with only one difficulty, which was that of
transforming the purely political traditions, because throughout the
whole of Bismarck's Germany there was a common cultural basis. The
German Empire contained only members of one and the same racial or
national stock, with the exception of a few minor foreign fragments.

Demographic conditions in Austria were quite the reverse. With the
exception of Hungary there was no political tradition, coming down from
a great past, in any of the various affiliated countries. If there had
been, time had either wiped out all traces of it, or at least, rendered
them obscure. Moreover, this was the epoch when the principle of
nationality began to be in ascendant; and that phenomenon awakened the
national instincts in the various countries affiliated under the
Habsburg sceptre. It was difficult to control the action of these newly
awakened national forces; because, adjacent to the frontiers of the Dual
Monarchy, new national States were springing up whose people were of the
same or kindred racial stock as the respective nationalities that
constituted the Habsburg Empire. These new States were able to exercise
a greater influence than the German element.

Even Vienna could not hold out for a lengthy period in this conflict.
When Budapest had developed into a metropolis a rival had grown up whose
mission was, not to help in holding together the various divergent parts
of the Empire, but rather to strengthen one part. Within a short time
Prague followed the example of Budapest; and later on came Lemberg,
Laibach and others. By raising these places which had formerly been
provincial towns to the rank of national cities, rallying centres were
provided for an independent cultural life. Through this the local
national instincts acquired a spiritual foundation and therewith gained
a more profound hold on the people. The time was bound to come when the
particularist interests of those various countries would become stronger
than their common imperial interests. Once that stage had been reached,
Austria's doom was sealed.

The course of this development was clearly perceptible since the death
of Joseph II. Its rapidity depended on a number of factors, some of
which had their source in the Monarchy itself; while others resulted
from the position which the Empire had taken in foreign politics.

It was impossible to make anything like a successful effort for the
permanent consolidation of the Austrian State unless a firm and
persistent policy of centralization were put into force. Before
everything else the principle should have been adopted that only one
common language could be used as the official language of the State.
Thus it would be possible to emphasize the formal unity of that imperial
commonwealth. And thus the administration would have in its hands a
technical instrument without which the State could not endure as a
political unity. In the same way the school and other forms of education
should have been used to inculcate a feeling of common citizenship. Such
an objective could not be reached within ten or twenty years. The effort
would have to be envisaged in terms of centuries; just as in all
problems of colonization, steady perseverance is a far more important
element than the output of energetic effort at the moment.

It goes without saying that in such circumstances the country must be
governed and administered by strictly adhering to the principle of
uniformity.

For me it was quite instructive to discover why this did not take place,
or rather why it was not done. Those who were guilty of the omission
must be held responsible for the break-up of the Habsburg Empire.

More than any other State, the existence of the old Austria depended on
a strong and capable Government. The Habsburg Empire lacked ethnical
uniformity, which constitutes the fundamental basis of a national State
and will preserve the existence of such a State even though the ruling
power should be grossly inefficient. When a State is composed of a
homogeneous population, the natural inertia of such a population will
hold the Stage together and maintain its existence through astonishingly
long periods of misgovernment and maladministration. It may often seem
as if the principle of life had died out in such a body-politic; but a
time comes when the apparent corpse rises up and displays before the
world an astonishing manifestation of its indestructible vitality.

But the situation is utterly different in a country where the population
is not homogeneous, where there is no bond of common blood but only that
of one ruling hand. Should the ruling hand show signs of weakness in
such a State the result will not be to cause a kind of hibernation of
the State but rather to awaken the individualist instincts which are
slumbering in the ethnological groups. These instincts do not make
themselves felt as long as these groups are dominated by a strong
central will-to-govern. The danger which exists in these slumbering
separatist instincts can be rendered more or less innocuous only through
centuries of common education, common traditions and common interests.
The younger such States are, the more their existence will depend on the
ability and strength of the central government. If their foundation was
due only to the work of a strong personality or a leader who is a man of
genius, in many cases they will break up as soon as the founder
disappears; because, though great, he stood alone. But even after
centuries of a common education and experiences these separatist
instincts I have spoken of are not always completely overcome. They may
be only dormant and may suddenly awaken when the central government
shows weakness and the force of a common education as well as the
prestige of a common tradition prove unable to withstand the vital
energies of separatist nationalities forging ahead towards the shaping
of their own individual existence.

The failure to see the truth of all this constituted what may be called
the tragic crime of the Habsburg rulers.

Only before the eyes of one Habsburg ruler, and that for the last time,
did the hand of Destiny hold aloft the torch that threw light on the
future of his country. But the torch was then extinguished for ever.

Joseph II, Roman Emperor of the German nation, was filled with a growing
anxiety when he realized the fact that his House was removed to an
outlying frontier of his Empire and that the time would soon be at hand
when it would be overturned and engulfed in the whirlpool caused by that
Babylon of nationalities, unless something was done at the eleventh hour
to overcome the dire consequences resulting from the negligence of his
ancestors. With superhuman energy this 'Friend of Mankind' made every
possible effort to counteract the effects of the carelessness and
thoughtlessness of his predecessors. Within one decade he strove to
repair the damage that had been done through centuries. If Destiny had
only granted him forty years for his labours, and if only two
generations had carried on the work which he had started, the miracle
might have been performed. But when he died, broken in body and spirit
after ten years of rulership, his work sank with him into the grave and
rests with him there in the Capucin Crypt, sleeping its eternal sleep,
having never again showed signs of awakening.

His successors had neither the ability nor the will-power necessary for
the task they had to face.

When the first signs of a new revolutionary epoch appeared in Europe
they gradually scattered the fire throughout Austria. And when the fire
began to glow steadily it was fed and fanned not by the social or
political conditions but by forces that had their origin in the
nationalist yearnings of the various ethnic groups.

The European revolutionary movement of 1848 primarily took the form of a
class conflict in almost every other country, but in Austria it took the
form of a new racial struggle. In so far as the German-Austrians there
forgot the origins of the movement, or perhaps had failed to recognize
them at the start and consequently took part in the revolutionary
uprising, they sealed their own fate. For they thus helped to awaken the
spirit of Western Democracy which, within a short while, shattered the
foundations of their own existence.

The setting up of a representative parliamentary body, without insisting
on the preliminary that only one language should be used in all public
intercourse under the State, was the first great blow to the
predominance of the German element in the Dual Monarchy. From that
moment the State was also doomed to collapse sooner or later. All that
followed was nothing but the historical liquidation of an Empire.

To watch that process of progressive disintegration was a tragic and at
the same time an instructive experience. The execution of history's
decree was carried out in thousands of details. The fact that great
numbers of people went about blindfolded amid the manifest signs of
dissolution only proves that the gods had decreed the destruction of
Austria.

I do not wish to dwell on details because that would lie outside the
scope of this book. I want to treat in detail only those events which
are typical among the causes that lead to the decline of nations and
States and which are therefore of importance to our present age.
Moreover, the study of these events helped to furnish the basis of my
own political outlook.

Among the institutions which most clearly manifested unmistakable signs
of decay, even to the weak-sighted Philistine, was that which, of all
the institutions of State, ought to have been the most firmly founded--I
mean the Parliament, or the Reichsrat (Imperial Council) as it was
called in Austria.

The pattern for this corporate body was obviously that which existed in
England, the land of classic democracy. The whole of that excellent
organization was bodily transferred to Austria with as little alteration
as possible.

As the Austrian counterpart to the British two-chamber system a Chamber
of Deputies and a House of Lords (HERRENHAUS) were established in
Vienna. The Houses themselves, considered as buildings were somewhat
different. When Barry built his palaces, or, as we say the Houses of
Parliament, on the shore of the Thames, he could look to the history of
the British Empire for the inspiration of his work. In that history he
found sufficient material to fill and decorate the 1,200 niches,
brackets, and pillars of his magnificent edifice. His statues and
paintings made the House of Lords and the House of Commons temples
dedicated to the glory of the nation.

There it was that Vienna encountered the first difficulty. When Hansen,
the Danish architect, had completed the last gable of the marble palace
in which the new body of popular representatives was to be housed he had
to turn to the ancient classical world for subjects to fill out his
decorative plan. This theatrical shrine of 'Western Democracy' was
adorned with the statues and portraits of Greek and Roman statesmen and
philosophers. As if it were meant for a symbol of irony, the horses of
the quadriga that surmounts the two Houses are pulling apart from one
another towards all four quarters of the globe. There could be no better
symbol for the kind of activity going on within the walls of that same
building.

The 'nationalities' were opposed to any kind of glorification of
Austrian history in the decoration of this building, insisting that such
would constitute an offence to them and a provocation. Much the same
happened in Germany, where the Reich-stag, built by Wallot, was not
dedicated to the German people until the cannons were thundering in the
World War. And then it was dedicated by an inscription.

I was not yet twenty years of age when I first entered the Palace on the
Franzens-ring to watch and listen in the Chamber of Deputies. That first
experience aroused in me a profound feeling of repugnance.

I had always hated the Parliament, but not as an institution in itself.
Quite the contrary. As one who cherished ideals of political freedom I
could not even imagine any other form of government. In the light of my
attitude towards the House of Habsburg I should then have considered it
a crime against liberty and reason to think of any kind of dictatorship
as a possible form of government.

A certain admiration which I had for the British Parliament contributed
towards the formation of this opinion. I became imbued with that feeling
of admiration almost without my being conscious of the effect of it
through so much reading of newspapers while I was yet quite young. I
could not discard that admiration all in a moment. The dignified way in
which the British House of Commons fulfilled its function impressed me
greatly, thanks largely to the glowing terms in which the Austrian Press
reported these events. I used to ask myself whether there could be any
nobler form of government than self-government by the people.

But these considerations furnished the very motives of my hostility to
the Austrian Parliament. The form in which parliamentary government was
here represented seemed unworthy of its great prototype. The following
considerations also influenced my attitude:

The fate of the German element in the Austrian State depended on its
position in Parliament. Up to the time that universal suffrage by secret
ballot was introduced the German representatives had a majority in the
Parliament, though that majority was not a very substantial one. This
situation gave cause for anxiety because the Social-Democratic fraction
of the German element could not be relied upon when national questions
were at stake. In matters that were of critical concern for the German
element, the Social-Democrats always took up an anti-German stand
because they were afraid of losing their followers among the other
national groups. Already at that time--before the introduction of
universal suffrage--the Social-Democratic Party could no longer be
considered as a German Party. The introduction of universal suffrage put
an end even to the purely numerical predominance of the German element.
The way was now clear for the further 'de-Germanization' of the Austrian
State.

The national instinct of self-preservation made it impossible for me to
welcome a representative system in which the German element was not
really represented as such, but always betrayed by the Social-Democratic
fraction. Yet all these, and many others, were defects which could not
be attributed to the parliamentary system as such, but rather to the
Austrian State in particular. I still believed that if the German
majority could be restored in the representative body there would be no
occasion to oppose such a system as long as the old Austrian State
continued to exist.

Such was my general attitude at the time when I first entered those
sacred and contentious halls. For me they were sacred only because of
the radiant beauty of that majestic edifice. A Greek wonder on German
soil.

But I soon became enraged by the hideous spectacle that met my eyes.
Several hundred representatives were there to discuss a problem of great
economical importance and each representative had the right to have his
say.

That experience of a day was enough to supply me with food for thought
during several weeks afterwards.

The intellectual level of the debate was quite low. Some times the
debaters did not make themselves intelligible at all. Several of those
present did not speak German but only their Slav vernaculars or
dialects. Thus I had the opportunity of hearing with my own ears what I
had been hitherto acquainted with only through reading the newspapers. A
turbulent mass of people, all gesticulating and bawling against one
another, with a pathetic old man shaking his bell and making frantic
efforts to call the House to a sense of its dignity by friendly appeals,
exhortations, and grave warnings.

I could not refrain from laughing.

Several weeks later I paid a second visit. This time the House presented
an entirely different picture, so much so that one could hardly
recognize it as the same place. The hall was practically empty. They
were sleeping in the other rooms below. Only a few deputies were in
their places, yawning in each other's faces. One was speechifying. A
deputy speaker was in the chair. When he looked round it was quite plain
that he felt bored.

Then I began to reflect seriously on the whole thing. I went to the
Parliament whenever I had any time to spare and watched the spectacle
silently but attentively. I listened to the debates, as far as they
could be understood, and I studied the more or less intelligent features
of those 'elect' representatives of the various nationalities which
composed that motley State. Gradually I formed my own ideas about what I
saw.

A year of such quiet observation was sufficient to transform or
completely destroy my former convictions as to the character of this
parliamentary institution. I no longer opposed merely the perverted form
which the principle of parliamentary representation had assumed in
Austria. No. It had become impossible for me to accept the system in
itself. Up to that time I had believed that the disastrous deficiencies
of the Austrian Parliament were due to the lack of a German majority,
but now I recognized that the institution itself was wrong in its very
essence and form.

A number of problems presented themselves before my mind. I studied more
closely the democratic principle of 'decision by the majority vote', and
I scrutinized no less carefully the intellectual and moral worth of the
gentlemen who, as the chosen representatives of the nation, were
entrusted with the task of making this institution function.

Thus it happened that at one and the same time I came to know the
institution itself and those of whom it was composed. And it was thus
that, within the course of a few years, I came to form a clear and vivid
picture of the average type of that most lightly worshipped phenomenon
of our time--the parliamentary deputy. The picture of him which I then
formed became deeply engraved on my mind and I have never altered it
since, at least as far as essentials go.

Once again these object-lessons taken from real life saved me from
getting firmly entangled by a theory which at first sight seems so
alluring to many people, though that theory itself is a symptom of human
decadence.

Democracy, as practised in Western Europe to-day, is the fore-runner of
Marxism. In fact, the latter would not be conceivable without the
former. Democracy is the breeding-ground in which the bacilli of the
Marxist world pest can grow and spread. By the introduction of
parliamentarianism, democracy produced an abortion of filth and fire
(Note 6), the creative fire of which, however, seems to have died out.

[Note 6. SPOTTGEBURT VON DRECK UND FEUER. This is the epithet that Faust
hurls at Mephistopheles as the latter intrudes on the conversation
between Faust and Martha in the garden:

Mephistopheles: Thou, full of sensual, super-sensual desire,
A girl by the nose is leading thee.
Faust: Abortion, thou of filth and fire.]

I am more than grateful to Fate that this problem came to my notice when
I was still in Vienna; for if I had been in Germany at that time I might
easily have found only a superficial solution. If I had been in Berlin
when I first discovered what an illogical thing this institution is
which we call Parliament, I might easily have gone to the other extreme
and believed--as many people believed, and apparently not without good
reason--that the salvation of the people and the Empire could be secured
only by restrengthening the principle of imperial authority. Those who
had this belief did not discern the tendencies of their time and were
blind to the aspirations of the people.

In Austria one could not be so easily misled. There it was impossible to
fall from one error into another. If the Parliament were worthless, the
Habsburgs were worse; or at least not in the slightest degree better.
The problem was not solved by rejecting the parliamentary system.
Immediately the question arose: What then? To repudiate and abolish the
Vienna Parliament would have resulted in leaving all power in the hands
of the Habsburgs. For me, especially, that idea was impossible.

Since this problem was specially difficult in regard to Austria, I was
forced while still quite young to go into the essentials of the whole
question more thoroughly than I otherwise should have done.

The aspect of the situation that first made the most striking impression
on me and gave me grounds for serious reflection was the manifest lack
of any individual responsibility in the representative body.

The parliament passes some acts or decree which may have the most
devastating consequences, yet nobody bears the responsibility for it.
Nobody can be called to account. For surely one cannot say that a
Cabinet discharges its responsibility when it retires after having
brought about a catastrophe. Or can we say that the responsibility is
fully discharged when a new coalition is formed or parliament dissolved?
Can the principle of responsibility mean anything else than the
responsibility of a definite person?

Is it at all possible actually to call to account the leaders of a
parliamentary government for any kind of action which originated in the
wishes of the whole multitude of deputies and was carried out under
their orders or sanction? Instead of developing constructive ideas and
plans, does the business of a statesman consist in the art of making a
whole pack of blockheads understand his projects? Is it his business to
entreat and coach them so that they will grant him their generous
consent?

Is it an indispensable quality in a statesman that he should possess a
gift of persuasion commensurate with the statesman's ability to conceive
great political measures and carry them through into practice?

Does it really prove that a statesman is incompetent if he should fail
to win over a majority of votes to support his policy in an assembly
which has been called together as the chance result of an electoral
system that is not always honestly administered.

Has there ever been a case where such an assembly has worthily appraised
a great political concept before that concept was put into practice and
its greatness openly demonstrated through its success?

In this world is not the creative act of the genius always a protest
against the inertia of the mass?

What shall the statesman do if he does not succeed in coaxing the
parliamentary multitude to give its consent to his policy? Shall he
purchase that consent for some sort of consideration?

Or, when confronted with the obstinate stupidity of his fellow citizens,
should he then refrain from pushing forward the measures which he deems
to be of vital necessity to the life of the nation? Should he retire or
remain in power?

In such circumstances does not a man of character find himself face to
face with an insoluble contradiction between his own political insight
on the one hand and, on the other, his moral integrity, or, better
still, his sense of honesty?

Where can we draw the line between public duty and personal honour?

Must not every genuine leader renounce the idea of degrading himself to
the level of a political jobber?

And, on the other hand, does not every jobber feel the itch to 'play
politics', seeing that the final responsibility will never rest with him
personally but with an anonymous mass which can never be called to
account for their deeds?

Must not our parliamentary principle of government by numerical majority
necessarily lead to the destruction of the principle of leadership?

Does anybody honestly believe that human progress originates in the
composite brain of the majority and not in the brain of the individual
personality?

Or may it be presumed that for the future human civilization will be
able to dispense with this as a condition of its existence?

But may it not be that, to-day, more than ever before, the creative
brain of the individual is indispensable?

The parliamentary principle of vesting legislative power in the decision
of the majority rejects the authority of the individual and puts a
numerical quota of anonymous heads in its place. In doing so it
contradicts the aristrocratic principle, which is a fundamental law of
nature; but, of course, we must remember that in this decadent era of
ours the aristrocratic principle need not be thought of as incorporated
in the upper ten thousand.

The devastating influence of this parliamentary institution might not
easily be recognized by those who read the Jewish Press, unless the
reader has learned how to think independently and examine the facts for
himself. This institution is primarily responsible for the crowded
inrush of mediocre people into the field of politics. Confronted with
such a phenomenon, a man who is endowed with real qualities of
leadership will be tempted to refrain from taking part in political
life; because under these circumstances the situation does not call for
a man who has a capacity for constructive statesmanship but rather for a
man who is capable of bargaining for the favour of the majority. Thus
the situation will appeal to small minds and will attract them
accordingly.

The narrower the mental outlook and the more meagre the amount of
knowledge in a political jobber, the more accurate is his estimate of
his own political stock, and thus he will be all the more inclined to
appreciate a system which does not demand creative genius or even
high-class talent; but rather that crafty kind of sagacity which makes
an efficient town clerk. Indeed, he values this kind of small craftiness
more than the political genius of a Pericles. Such a mediocrity does not
even have to worry about responsibility for what he does. From the
beginning he knows that whatever be the results of his 'statesmanship'
his end is already prescribed by the stars; he will one day have to
clear out and make room for another who is of similar mental calibre.
For it is another sign of our decadent times that the number of eminent
statesmen grows according as the calibre of individual personality
dwindles. That calibre will become smaller and smaller the more the
individual politician has to depend upon parliamentary majorities. A man
of real political ability will refuse to be the beadle for a bevy of
footling cacklers; and they in their turn, being the representatives of
the majority--which means the dunder-headed multitude--hate nothing so
much as a superior brain.

For footling deputies it is always quite a consolation to be led by a
person whose intellectual stature is on a level with their own. Thus
each one may have the opportunity to shine in debate among such compeers
and, above all, each one feels that he may one day rise to the top. If
Peter be boss to-day, then why not Paul tomorrow?

This new invention of democracy is very closely connected with a
peculiar phenomenon which has recently spread to a pernicious extent,
namely the cowardice of a large section of our so-called political
leaders. Whenever important decisions have to be made they always find
themselves fortunate in being able to hide behind the backs of what they
call the majority.

In observing one of these political manipulators one notices how he
wheedles the majority in order to get their sanction for whatever action
he takes. He has to have accomplices in order to be able to shift
responsibility to other shoulders whenever it is opportune to do so.
That is the main reason why this kind of political activity is abhorrent
to men of character and courage, while at the same time it attracts
inferior types; for a person who is not willing to accept responsibility
for his own actions, but is always seeking to be covered by something,
must be classed among the knaves and the rascals. If a national leader
should come from that lower class of politicians the evil consequences
will soon manifest themselves. Nobody will then have the courage to take
a decisive step. They will submit to abuse and defamation rather than
pluck up courage to take a definite stand. And thus nobody is left who
is willing to risk his position and his career, if needs be, in support
of a determined line of policy.

One truth which must always be borne in mind is that the majority can
never replace the man. The majority represents not only ignorance but
also cowardice. And just as a hundred blockheads do not equal one man of
wisdom, so a hundred poltroons are incapable of any political line of
action that requires moral strength and fortitude.

The lighter the burden of responsibility on each individual leader, the
greater will be the number of those who, in spite of their sorry
mediocrity, will feel the call to place their immortal energies at the
disposal of the nation. They are so much on the tip-toe of expectation
that they find it hard to wait their turn. They stand in a long queue,
painfully and sadly counting the number of those ahead of them and
calculating the hours until they may eventually come forward. They watch
every change that takes place in the personnel of the office towards
which their hopes are directed, and they are grateful for every scandal
which removes one of the aspirants waiting ahead of them in the queue.
If somebody sticks too long to his office stool they consider this as
almost a breach of a sacred understanding based on their mutual
solidarity. They grow furious and give no peace until that inconsiderate
person is finally driven out and forced to hand over his cosy berth for
public disposal. After that he will have little chance of getting
another opportunity. Usually those placemen who have been forced to give
up their posts push themselves again into the waiting queue unless they
are hounded away by the protestations of the other aspirants.

The result of all this is that, in such a State, the succession of
sudden changes in public positions and public offices has a very
disquieting effect in general, which may easily lead to disaster when an
adverse crisis arises. It is not only the ignorant and the incompetent
person who may fall victim to those parliamentary conditions, for the
genuine leader may be affected just as much as the others, if not more
so, whenever Fate has chanced to place a capable man in the position of
leader. Let the superior quality of such a leader be once recognized and
the result will be that a joint front will be organized against him,
particularly if that leader, though not coming from their ranks, should
fall into the habit of intermingling with these illustrious nincompoops
on their own level. They want to have only their own company and will
quickly take a hostile attitude towards any man who might show himself
obviously above and beyond them when he mingles in their ranks. Their
instinct, which is so blind in other directions, is very sharp in this
particular.

The inevitable result is that the intellectual level of the ruling class
sinks steadily. One can easily forecast how much the nation and State
are bound to suffer from such a condition of affairs, provided one does
not belong to that same class of 'leaders'.

The parliamentary régime in the old Austria was the very archetype of
the institution as I have described it.

Though the Austrian Prime Minister was appointed by the King-Emperor,
this act of appointment merely gave practical effect to the will of the
parliament. The huckstering and bargaining that went on in regard to
every ministerial position showed all the typical marks of Western
Democracy. The results that followed were in keeping with the principles
applied. The intervals between the replacement of one person by another
gradually became shorter, finally ending up in a wild relay chase. With
each change the quality of the 'statesman' in question deteriorated,
until finally only the petty type of political huckster remained. In
such people the qualities of statesmanship were measured and valued
according to the adroitness with which they pieced together one
coalition after another; in other words, their craftiness in
manipulating the pettiest political transactions, which is the only kind
of practical activity suited to the aptitudes of these representatives.

In this sphere Vienna was the school which offered the most impressive
examples.

Another feature that engaged my attention quite as much as the features
I have already spoken of was the contrast between the talents and
knowledge of these representatives of the people on the one hand and, on
the other, the nature of the tasks they had to face. Willingly or
unwillingly, one could not help thinking seriously of the narrow
intellectual outlook of these chosen representatives of the various
constituent nationalities, and one could not avoid pondering on the
methods through which these noble figures in our public life were first
discovered.

It was worth while to make a thorough study and examination of the way
in which the real talents of these gentlemen were devoted to the service
of their country; in other words, to analyse thoroughly the technical
procedure of their activities.

The whole spectacle of parliamentary life became more and more desolate
the more one penetrated into its intimate structure and studied the
persons and principles of the system in a spirit of ruthless
objectivity. Indeed, it is very necessary to be strictly objective in
the study of the institution whose sponsors talk of 'objectivity' in
every other sentence as the only fair basis of examination and judgment.
If one studied these gentlemen and the laws of their strenuous existence
the results were surprising.

There is no other principle which turns out to be quite so ill-conceived
as the parliamentary principle, if we examine it objectively.

In our examination of it we may pass over the methods according to which
the election of the representatives takes place, as well as the ways
which bring them into office and bestow new titles on them. It is quite
evident that only to a tiny degree are public wishes or public
necessities satisfied by the manner in which an election takes place;
for everybody who properly estimates the political intelligence of the
masses can easily see that this is not sufficiently developed to enable
them to form general political judgments on their own account, or to
select the men who might be competent to carry out their ideas in
practice.

Whatever definition we may give of the term 'public opinion', only a
very small part of it originates from personal experience or individual
insight. The greater portion of it results from the manner in which
public matters have been presented to the people through an
overwhelmingly impressive and persistent system of 'information'.

In the religious sphere the profession of a denominational belief is
largely the result of education, while the religious yearning itself
slumbers in the soul; so too the political opinions of the masses are
the final result of influences systematically operating on human
sentiment and intelligence in virtue of a method which is applied
sometimes with almost-incredible thoroughness and perseverance.

By far the most effective branch of political education, which in this
connection is best expressed by the word 'propaganda', is carried on by
the Press. The Press is the chief means employed in the process of
political 'enlightenment'. It represents a kind of school for adults.
This educational activity, however, is not in the hands of the State but
in the clutches of powers which are partly of a very inferior character.
While still a young man in Vienna I had excellent opportunities for
coming to know the men who owned this machine for mass instruction, as
well as those who supplied it with the ideas it distributed. At first I
was quite surprised when I realized how little time was necessary for
this dangerous Great Power within the State to produce a certain belief
among the public; and in doing so the genuine will and convictions of
the public were often completely misconstrued. It took the Press only a
few days to transform some ridiculously trivial matter into an issue of
national importance, while vital problems were completely ignored or
filched and hidden away from public attention.

The Press succeeded in the magical art of producing names from nowhere
within the course of a few weeks. They made it appear that the great
hopes of the masses were bound up with those names. And so they made
those names more popular than any man of real ability could ever hope to
be in a long lifetime. All this was done, despite the fact that such
names were utterly unknown and indeed had never been heard of even up to
a month before the Press publicly emblazoned them. At the same time old
and tried figures in the political and other spheres of life quickly
faded from the public memory and were forgotten as if they were dead,
though still healthy and in the enjoyment of their full viguour. Or
sometimes such men were so vilely abused that it looked as if their
names would soon stand as permanent symbols of the worst kind of
baseness. In order to estimate properly the really pernicious influence
which the Press can exercise one had to study this infamous Jewish
method whereby honourable and decent people were besmirched with mud and
filth, in the form of low abuse and slander, from hundreds and hundreds
of quarters simultaneously, as if commanded by some magic formula.

These highway robbers would grab at anything which might serve their
evil ends.

They would poke their noses into the most intimate family affairs and
would not rest until they had sniffed out some petty item which could be
used to destroy the reputation of their victim. But if the result of all
this sniffing should be that nothing derogatory was discovered in the
private or public life of the victim, they continued to hurl abuse at
him, in the belief that some of their animadversions would stick even
though refuted a thousand times. In most cases it finally turned out
impossible for the victim to continue his defence, because the accuser
worked together with so many accomplices that his slanders were
re-echoed interminably. But these slanderers would never own that they
were acting from motives which influence the common run of humanity or
are understood by them. Oh, no. The scoundrel who defamed his
contemporaries in this villainous way would crown himself with a halo of
heroic probity fashioned of unctuous phraseology and twaddle about his
'duties as a journalist' and other mouldy nonsense of that kind. When
these cuttle-fishes gathered together in large shoals at meetings and
congresses they would give out a lot of slimy talk about a special kind
of honour which they called the professional honour of the journalist.
Then the assembled species would bow their respects to one another.

These are the kind of beings that fabricate more than two-thirds of what
is called public opinion, from the foam of which the parliamentary
Aphrodite eventually arises.

Several volumes would be needed if one were to give an adequate account
of the whole procedure and fully describe all its hollow fallacies. But
if we pass over the details and look at the product itself while it is
in operation I think this alone will be sufficient to open the eyes of
even the most innocent and credulous person, so that he may recognize
the absurdity of this institution by looking at it objectively.

[Scooter]

In order to realize how this human aberration is as harmful as it is
absurd, the test and easiest method is to compare democratic
parliamentarianism with a genuine German democracy.

The remarkable characteristic of the parliamentary form of democracy is
the fact that a number of persons, let us say five hundred--including,
in recent time, women also--are elected to parliament and invested with
authority to give final judgment on anything and everything. In practice
they alone are the governing body; for although they may appoint a
Cabinet, which seems outwardly to direct the affairs of state, this
Cabinet has not a real existence of its own. In reality the so-called
Government cannot do anything against the will of the assembly. It can
never be called to account for anything, since the right of decision is
not vested in the Cabinet but in the parliamentary majority. The Cabinet
always functions only as the executor of the will of the majority. Its
political ability can be judged only according to how far it succeeds in
adjusting itself to the will of the majority or in persuading the
majority to agree to its proposals. But this means that it must descend
from the level of a real governing power to that of a mendicant who has
to beg the approval of a majority that may be got together for the time
being. Indeed, the chief preoccupation of the Cabinet must be to secure
for itself, in the case of' each individual measure, the favour of the
majority then in power or, failing that, to form a new majority that
will be more favourably disposed. If it should succeed in either of
these efforts it may go on 'governing' for a little while. If it should
fail to win or form a majority it must retire. The question whether its
policy as such has been right or wrong does not matter at all.

Thereby all responsibility is abolished in practice. To what
consequences such a state of affairs can lead may easily be understood
from the following simple considerations:

Those five hundred deputies who have been elected by the people come
from various dissimilar callings in life and show very varying degrees
of political capacity, with the result that the whole combination is
disjointed and sometimes presents quite a sorry picture. Surely nobody
believes that these chosen representatives of the nation are the choice
spirits or first-class intellects. Nobody, I hope, is foolish enough to
pretend that hundreds of statesmen can emerge from papers placed in the
ballot box by electors who are anything else but averagely intelligent.
The absurd notion that men of genius are born out of universal suffrage
cannot be too strongly repudiated. In the first place, those times may
be really called blessed when one genuine statesman makes his appearance
among a people. Such statesmen do not appear all at once in hundreds or
more. Secondly, among the broad masses there is instinctively a definite
antipathy towards every outstanding genius. There is a better chance of
seeing a camel pass through the eye of a needle than of seeing a really
great man 'discovered' through an election.

Whatever has happened in history above the level of the average of the
broad public has mostly been due to the driving force of an individual
personality.

But here five hundred persons of less than modest intellectual qualities
pass judgment on the most important problems affecting the nation. They
form governments which in turn learn to win the approval of the
illustrious assembly for every legislative step that may be taken, which
means that the policy to be carried out is actually the policy of the
five hundred.

And indeed, generally speaking, the policy bears the stamp of its
origin.

But let us pass over the intellectual qualities of these representatives
and ask what is the nature of the task set before them. If we consider
the fact that the problems which have to be discussed and solved belong
to the most varied and diverse fields we can very well realize how
inefficient a governing system must be which entrusts the right of
decision to a mass assembly in which only very few possess the knowledge
and experience such as would qualify them to deal with the matters that
have to be settled. The most important economic measures are submitted
to a tribunal in which not more than one-tenth of the members have
studied the elements of economics. This means that final authority is
vested in men who are utterly devoid of any preparatory training which
might make them competent to decide on the questions at issue.

The same holds true of every other problem. It is always a majority of
ignorant and incompetent people who decide on each measure; for the
composition of the institution does not vary, while the problems to be
dealt with come from the most varied spheres of public life. An
intelligent judgment would be possible only if different deputies had
the authority to deal with different issues. It is out of the question
to think that the same people are fitted to decide on transport
questions as well as, let us say, on questions of foreign policy, unless
each of them be a universal genius. But scarcely more than one genius
appears in a century. Here we are scarcely ever dealing with real
brains, but only with dilettanti who are as narrow-minded as they are
conceited and arrogant, intellectual DEMI-MONDES of the worst kind. This
is why these honourable gentlemen show such astonishing levity in
discussing and deciding on matters that would demand the most
painstaking consideration even from great minds. Measures of momentous
importance for the future existence of the State are framed and
discussed in an atmosphere more suited to the card-table. Indeed the
latter suggests a much more fitting occupation for these gentlemen than
that of deciding the destinies of a people.

Of course it would be unfair to assume that each member in such a
parliament was endowed by nature with such a small sense of
responsibility. That is out of the question.

But this system, by forcing the individual to pass judgment on questions
for which he is not competent gradually debases his moral character.
Nobody will have the courage to say: "Gentlemen, I am afraid we know
nothing about what we are talking about. I for one have no competency in
the matter at all." Anyhow if such a declaration were made it would not
change matters very much; for such outspoken honesty would not be
understood. The person who made the declaration would be deemed an
honourable ass who ought not to be allowed to spoil the game. Those who
have a knowledge of human nature know that nobody likes to be considered
a fool among his associates; and in certain circles honesty is taken as
an index of stupidity.

Thus it happens that a naturally upright man, once he finds himself
elected to parliament, may eventually be induced by the force of
circumstances to acquiesce in a general line of conduct which is base in
itself and amounts to a betrayal of the public trust. That feeling that
if the individual refrained from taking part in a certain decision his
attitude would not alter the situation in the least, destroys every real
sense of honour which might occasionally arouse the conscience of one
person or another. Finally, the otherwise upright deputy will succeed in
persuading himself that he is by no means the worst of the lot and that
by taking part in a certain line of action he may prevent something
worse from happening.

A counter argument may be put forward here. It may be said that of
course the individual member may not have the knowledge which is
requisite for the treatment of this or that question, yet his attitude
towards it is taken on the advice of his Party as the guiding authority
in each political matter; and it may further be said that the Party sets
up special committees of experts who have even more than the requisite
knowledge for dealing with the questions placed before them.

At first sight, that argument seems sound. But then another question
arises--namely, why are five hundred persons elected if only a few have
the wisdom which is required to deal with the more important problems?

It is not the aim of our modern democratic parliamentary system to bring
together an assembly of intelligent and well-informed deputies. Not at
all. The aim rather is to bring together a group of nonentities who are
dependent on others for their views and who can be all the more easily
led, the narrower the mental outlook of each individual is. That is the
only way in which a party policy, according to the evil meaning it has
to-day, can be put into effect. And by this method alone it is possible
for the wirepuller, who exercises the real control, to remain in the
dark, so that personally he can never be brought to account for his
actions. For under such circumstances none of the decisions taken, no
matter how disastrous they may turn out for the nation as a whole, can
be laid at the door of the individual whom everybody knows to be the
evil genius responsible for the whole affair. All responsibility is
shifted to the shoulders of the Party as a whole.

In practice no actual responsibility remains. For responsibility arises
only from personal duty and not from the obligations that rest with a
parliamentary assembly of empty talkers.

The parliamentary institution attracts people of the badger type, who do
not like the open light. No upright man, who is ready to accept personal
responsibility for his acts, will be attracted to such an institution.

That is the reason why this brand of democracy has become a tool in the
hand of that race which, because of the inner purposes it wishes to
attain, must shun the open light, as it has always done and always will
do. Only a Jew can praise an institution which is as corrupt and false
as himself.

As a contrast to this kind of democracy we have the German democracy,
which is a true democracy; for here the leader is freely chosen and is
obliged to accept full responsibility for all his actions and omissions.
The problems to be dealt with are not put to the vote of the majority;
but they are decided upon by the individual, and as a guarantee of
responsibility for those decisions he pledges all he has in the world
and even his life.

The objection may be raised here that under such conditions it would be
very difficult to find a man who would be ready to devote himself to so
fateful a task. The answer to that objection is as follows:

We thank God that the inner spirit of our German democracy will of
itself prevent the chance careerist, who may be intellectually worthless
and a moral twister, from coming by devious ways to a position in which
he may govern his fellow-citizens. The fear of undertaking such
far-reaching responsibilities, under German democracy, will scare off
the ignorant and the feckless.

But should it happen that such a person might creep in surreptitiously
it will be easy enough to identify him and apostrophize him ruthlessly.
somewhat thus: "Be off, you scoundrel. Don't soil these steps with your
feet; because these are the steps that lead to the portals of the
Pantheon of History, and they are not meant for place-hunters but for
men of noble character."

Such were the views I formed after two years of attendance at the
sessions of the Viennese Parliament. Then I went there no more.

The parliamentary regime became one of the causes why the strength of
the Habsburg State steadily declined during the last years of its
existence. The more the predominance of the German element was whittled
away through parliamentary procedure, the more prominent became the
system of playing off one of the various constituent nationalities
against the other. In the Imperial Parliament it was always the German
element that suffered through the system, which meant that the results
were detrimental to the Empire as a whole; for at the close of the
century even the most simple-minded people could recognize that the
cohesive forces within the Dual Monarchy no longer sufficed to
counterbalance the separatist tendencies of the provincial
nationalities. On the contrary!

The measures which the State adopted for its own maintenance became more
and more mean spirited and in a like degree the general disrespect for
the State increased. Not only Hungary but also the various Slav
provinces gradually ceased to identify themselves with the monarchy
which embraced them all, and accordingly they did not feel its weakness
as in any way detrimental to themselves. They rather welcomed those
manifestations of senile decay. They looked forward to the final
dissolution of the State, and not to its recovery.

The complete collapse was still forestalled in Parliament by the
humiliating concessions that were made to every kind of importunate
demands, at the cost of the German element. Throughout the country the
defence of the State rested on playing off the various nationalities
against one another. But the general trend of this development was
directed against the Germans. Especially since the right of succession
to the throne conferred certain influence on the Archduke Franz
Ferdinand, the policy of increasing the power of the Czechs was carried
out systematically from the upper grades of the administration down to
the lower. With all the means at his command the heir to the Dual
Monarchy personally furthered the policy that aimed at eliminating the
influence of the German element, or at least he acted as protector of
that policy. By the use of State officials as tools, purely German
districts were gradually but decisively brought within the danger zone
of the mixed languages. Even in Lower Austria this process began to make
headway with a constantly increasing tempo and Vienna was looked upon by
the Czechs as their biggest city.

In the family circle of this new Habsburger the Czech language was
favoured. The wife of the Archduke had formerly been a Czech Countess
and was wedded to the Prince by a morganatic marriage. She came from an
environment where hostility to the Germans had been traditional. The
leading idea in the mind of the Archduke was to establish a Slav State
in Central Europe, which was to be constructed on a purely Catholic
basis, so as to serve as a bulwark against Orthodox Russia.

As had happened often in Habsburg history, religion was thus exploited
to serve a purely political policy, and in this case a fatal policy, at
least as far as German interests were concerned. The result was
lamentable in many respects.

Neither the House of Habsburg nor the Catholic Church received the
reward which they expected. Habsburg lost the throne and the Church lost
a great State. By employing religious motives in the service of
politics, a spirit was aroused which the instigators of that policy had
never thought possible.

From the attempt to exterminate Germanism in the old monarchy by every
available means arose the Pan-German Movement in Austria, as a response.

In the 'eighties of the last century Manchester Liberalism, which was
Jewish in its fundamental ideas, had reached the zenith of its influence
in the Dual Monarchy, or had already passed that point. The reaction
which set in did not arise from social but from nationalistic
tendencies, as was always the case in the old Austria. The instinct of
self-preservation drove the German element to defend itself
energetically. Economic considerations only slowly began to gain an
important influence; but they were of secondary concern. But of the
general political chaos two party organizations emerged. The one was
more of a national, and the other more of a social, character; but both
were highly interesting and instructive for the future.

After the war of 1866, which had resulted in the humiliation of Austria,
the House of Habsburg contemplated a REVANCHE on the battlefield. Only
the tragic end of the Emperor Maximilian of Mexico prevented a still
closer collaboration with France. The chief blame for Maximilian's
disastrous expedition was attributed to Napoleon III and the fact that
the Frenchman left him in the lurch aroused a general feeling of
indignation. Yet the Habsburgs were still lying in wait for their
opportunity. If the war of 1870-71 had not been such a singular triumph,
the Viennese Court might have chanced the game of blood in order to get
its revenge for Sadowa. But when the first reports arrived from the
Franco-German battlefield, which, though true, seemed miraculous and
almost incredible, the 'most wise' of all monarchs recognized that the
moment was inopportune and tried to accept the unfavourable situation
with as good a grace as possible.

The heroic conflict of those two years (1870-71) produced a still
greater miracle; for with the Habsburgs the change of attitude never
came from an inner heartfelt urge but only from the pressure of
circumstances. The German people of the East Mark, however, were
entranced by the triumphant glory of the newly established German Empire
and were profoundly moved when they saw the dream of their fathers
resurgent in a magnificent reality.

For--let us make no mistake about it--the true German-Austrian realized
from this time onward, that Königgrätz was the tragic, though necessary,
pre-condition for the re-establishment of an Empire which should no
longer be burdened with the palsy of the old alliance and which indeed
had no share in that morbid decay. Above all, the German-Austrian had
come to feel in the very depths of his own being that the historical
mission of the House of Habsburg had come to an end and that the new
Empire could choose only an Emperor who was of heroic mould and was
therefore worthy to wear the 'Crown of the Rhine'. It was right and just
that Destiny should be praised for having chosen a scion of that House
of which Frederick the Great had in past times given the nation an
elevated and resplendent symbol for all time to come.

After the great war of 1870-71 the House of Habsburg set to work with
all its determination to exterminate the dangerous German element--about
whose inner feelings and attitude there could be no doubt--slowly but
deliberately. I use the word exterminate, because that alone expresses
what must have been the final result of the Slavophile policy. Then it
was that the fire of rebellion blazed up among the people whose
extermination had been decreed. That fire was such as had never been
witnessed in modern German history.

For the first time nationalists and patriots were transformed into
rebels.

Not rebels against the nation or the State as such but rebels against
that form of government which they were convinced, would inevitably
bring about the ruin of their own people. For the first time in modern
history the traditional dynastic patriotism and national love of
fatherland and people were in open conflict.

It was to the merit of the Pan-German movement in Austria during the
closing decade of the last century that it pointed out clearly and
unequivocally that a State is entitled to demand respect and protection
for its authority only when such authority is administered in accordance
with the interests of the nation, or at least not in a manner
detrimental to those interests.

The authority of the State can never be an end in itself; for, if that
were so, any kind of tyranny would be inviolable and sacred.

If a government uses the instruments of power in its hands for the
purpose of leading a people to ruin, then rebellion is not only the
right but also the duty of every individual citizen.

The question of whether and when such a situation exists cannot be
answered by theoretical dissertations but only by the exercise of force,
and it is success that decides the issue.

Every government, even though it may be the worst possible and even
though it may have betrayed the nation's trust in thousands of ways,
will claim that its duty is to uphold the authority of the State. Its
adversaries, who are fighting for national self-preservation, must use
the same weapons which the government uses if they are to prevail
against such a rule and secure their own freedom and independence.
Therefore the conflict will be fought out with 'legal' means as long as
the power which is to be overthrown uses them; but the insurgents will
not hesitate to apply illegal means if the oppressor himself employs
them.

Generally speaking, we must not forget that the highest aim of human
existence is not the maintenance of a State of Government but rather the
conservation of the race.

If the race is in danger of being oppressed or even exterminated the
question of legality is only of secondary importance. The established
power may in such a case employ only those means which are recognized as
'legal'. yet the instinct of self-preservation on the part of the
oppressed will always justify, to the highest degree, the employment of
all possible resources.

Only on the recognition of this principle was it possible for those
struggles to be carried through, of which history furnishes magnificent
examples in abundance, against foreign bondage or oppression at home.

Human rights are above the rights of the State. But if a people be
defeated in the struggle for its human rights this means that its weight
has proved too light in the scale of Destiny to have the luck of being
able to endure in this terrestrial world.

The world is not there to be possessed by the faint-hearted races.

Austria affords a very clear and striking example of how easy it is for
tyranny to hide its head under the cloak of what is called 'legality'.

The legal exercise of power in the Habsburg State was then based on the
anti-German attitude of the parliament, with its non-German majorities,
and on the dynastic House, which was also hostile to the German element.
The whole authority of the State was incorporated in these two factors.
To attempt to alter the lot of the German element through these two
factors would have been senseless. Those who advised the 'legal' way as
the only possible way, and also obedience to the State authority, could
offer no resistance; because a policy of resistance could not have been
put into effect through legal measures. To follow the advice of the
legalist counsellors would have meant the inevitable ruin of the German
element within the Monarchy, and this disaster would not have taken long
to come. The German element has actually been saved only because the
State as such collapsed.

The spectacled theorist would have given his life for his doctrine
rather than for his people.

Because man has made laws he subsequently comes to think that he exists
for the sake of the laws.

A great service rendered by the pan-German movement then was that it
abolished all such nonsense, though the doctrinaire theorists and other
fetish worshippers were shocked.

When the Habsburgs attempted to come to close quarters with the German
element, by the employment of all the means of attack which they had at
their command, the Pan-German Party hit out ruthlessly against the
'illustrious' dynasty. This Party was the first to probe into and expose
the corrupt condition of the State; and in doing so they opened the eyes
of hundreds of thousands. To have liberated the high ideal of love for
one's country from the embrace of this deplorable dynasty was one of the
great services rendered by the Pan-German movement.

When that Party first made its appearance it secured a large
following--indeed, the movement threatened to become almost an
avalanche. But the first successes were not maintained. At the time I
came to Vienna the pan-German Party had been eclipsed by the
Christian-Socialist Party, which had come into power in the meantime.
Indeed, the Pan-German Party had sunk to a level of almost complete
insignificance.

The rise and decline of the Pan-German movement on the one hand and the
marvellous progress of the Christian-Socialist Party on the other,
became a classic object of study for me, and as such they played an
important part in the development of my own views.

When I came to Vienna all my sympathies were exclusively with the
Pan-German Movement.

I was just as much impressed by the fact that they had the courage to
shout HEIL HOHENZOLLERN as I rejoiced at their determination to consider
themselves an integral part of the German Empire, from which they were
separated only provisionally. They never missed an opportunity to
explain their attitude in public, which raised my enthusiasm and
confidence. To avow one's principles publicly on every problem that
concerned Germanism, and never to make any compromises, seemed to me the
only way of saving our people. What I could not understand was how this
movement broke down so soon after such a magnificent start; and it was
no less incomprehensible that the Christian-Socialists should gain such
tremendous power within such a short time. They had just reached the
pinnacle of their popularity.

When I began to compare those two movements Fate placed before me the
best means of understanding the causes of this puzzling problem. The
action of Fate in this case was hastened by my own straitened
circumstances.

I shall begin my analysis with an account of the two men who must be
regarded as the founders and leaders of the two movements. These were
George von Schönerer and Dr. Karl Lueger.

As far as personality goes, both were far above the level and stature of
the so-called parliamentary figures. They lived lives of immaculate and
irreproachable probity amidst the miasma of all-round political
corruption. Personally I first liked the Pan-German representative,
Schönerer, and it was only afterwards and gradually that I felt an equal
liking for the Christian-Socialist leader.

When I compared their respective abilities Schönerer seemed to me a
better and more profound thinker on fundamental problems. He foresaw the
inevitable downfall of the Austrian State more clearly and accurately
than anyone else. If this warning in regard to the Habsburg Empire had
been heeded in Germany the disastrous world war, which involved Germany
against the whole of Europe, would never have taken place.

But though Schönerer succeeded in penetrating to the essentials of a
problem he was very often much mistaken in his judgment of men.

And herein lay Dr. Lueger's special talent. He had a rare gift of
insight into human nature and he was very careful not to take men as
something better than they were in reality. He based his plans on the
practical possibilities which human life offered him, whereas Schönerer
had only little discrimination in that respect. All ideas that this
Pan-German had were right in the abstract, but he did not have the
forcefulness or understanding necessary to put his ideas across to the
broad masses. He was not able to formulate them so that they could be
easily grasped by the masses, whose powers of comprehension are limited
and will always remain so. Therefore all Schönerer's knowledge was only
the wisdom of a prophet and he never could succeed in having it put into
practice.

This lack of insight into human nature led him to form a wrong estimate
of the forces behind certain movements and the inherent strength of old
institutions.

Schönerer indeed realized that the problems he had to deal with were in
the nature of a WELTANSCHAUUNG; but he did not understand that only the
broad masses of a nation can make such convictions prevail, which are
almost of a religious nature.

Unfortunately he understood only very imperfectly how feeble is the
fighting spirit of the so-called bourgeoisie. That weakness is due to
their business interests, which individuals are too much afraid of
risking and which therefore deter them from taking action. And,
generally speaking, a WELTANSCHAUUNG can have no prospect of success
unless the broad masses declare themselves ready to act as its
standard-bearers and to fight on its behalf wherever and to whatever
extent that may be necessary.

This failure to understand the importance of the lower strata of the
population resulted in a very inadequate concept of the social problem.

In all this Dr. Lueger was the opposite of Schönerer. His profound
knowledge of human nature enabled him to form a correct estimate of the
various social forces and it saved him from under-rating the power of
existing institutions. And it was perhaps this very quality which
enabled him to utilize those institutions as a means to serve the
purposes of his policy.

He saw only too clearly that, in our epoch, the political fighting power
of the upper classes is quite insignificant and not at all capable of
fighting for a great new movement until the triumph of that movement be
secured. Thus he devoted the greatest part of his political activity to
the task of winning over those sections of the population whose
existence was in danger and fostering the militant spirit in them rather
than attempting to paralyse it. He was also quick to adopt all available
means for winning the support of long-established institutions, so as to
be able to derive the greatest possible advantage for his movement from
those old sources of power.

Thus it was that, first of all, he chose as the social basis of his new
Party that middle class which was threatened with extinction. In this
way he secured a solid following which was willing to make great
sacrifices and had good fighting stamina. His extremely wise attitude
towards the Catholic Church rapidly won over the younger clergy in such
large numbers that the old Clerical Party was forced to retire from the
field of action or else, which was the wiser course, join the new Party,
in the hope of gradually winning back one position after another.

But it would be a serious injustice to the man if we were to regard this
as his essential characteristic. For he possessed the qualities of an
able tactician, and had the true genius of a great reformer; but all
these were limited by his exact perception of the possibilities at hand
and also of his own capabilities.

The aims which this really eminent man decided to pursue were intensely
practical. He wished to conquer Vienna, the heart of the Monarchy. It
was from Vienna that the last pulses of life beat through the diseased
and worn-out body of the decrepit Empire. If the heart could be made
healthier the others parts of the body were bound to revive. That idea
was correct in principle; but the time within which it could be applied
in practice was strictly limited. And that was the man's weak point.

His achievements as Burgomaster of the City of Vienna are immortal, in
the best sense of the word. But all that could not save the Monarchy. It
came too late.

His rival, Schönerer, saw this more clearly. What Dr. Lueger undertook
to put into practice turned out marvellously successful. But the results
which he expected to follow these achievements did not come. Schönerer
did not attain the ends he had proposed to himself; but his fears were
realized, alas, in a terrible fashion. Thus both these men failed to
attain their further objectives. Lueger could not save Austria and
Schönerer could not prevent the downfall of the German people in
Austria.

To study the causes of failure in the case of these two parties is to
learn a lesson that is highly instructive for our own epoch. This is
specially useful for my friends, because in many points the
circumstances of our own day are similar to those of that time.
Therefore such a lesson may help us to guard against the mistakes which
brought one of those movements to an end and rendered the other barren
of results.

In my opinion, the wreck of the Pan-German Movement in Austria must be
attributed to three causes.

The first of these consisted in the fact that the leaders did not have a
clear concept of the importance of the social problem, particularly for
a new movement which had an essentially revolutionary character.
Schönerer and his followers directed their attention principally to the
bourgeois classes. For that reason their movement was bound to turn out
mediocre and tame. The German bourgeoisie, especially in its upper
circles, is pacifist even to the point of complete
self-abnegation--though the individual may not be aware of
this--wherever the internal affairs of the nation or State are
concerned. In good times, which in this case means times of good
government, such a psychological attitude makes this social layer
extraordinarily valuable to the State. But when there is a bad
government, such a quality has a destructive effect. In order to assure
the possibility of carrying through a really strenuous struggle, the
Pan-German Movement should have devoted its efforts to winning over the
masses. The failure to do this left the movement from the very beginning
without the elementary impulse which such a wave needs if it is not to
ebb within a short while.

In failing to see the truth of this principle clearly at the very outset
of the movement and in neglecting to put it into practice the new Party
made an initial mistake which could not possibly be rectified
afterwards. For the numerous moderate bourgeois elements admitted into
the movements increasingly determined its internal orientation and thus
forestalled all further prospects of gaining any appreciable support
among the masses of the people. Under such conditions such a movement
could not get beyond mere discussion and criticism. Quasi-religious
faith and the spirit of sacrifice were not to be found in the movement
any more. Their place was taken by the effort towards 'positive'
collaboration, which in this case meant the acknowledgment of the
existing state of affairs, gradually whittling away the rough corners of
the questions in dispute, and ending up with the making of a
dishonourable peace.

Such was the fate of the Pan-German Movement, because at the start the
leaders did not realize that the most important condition of success was
that they should recruit their following from the broad masses of the
people. The Movement thus became bourgeois and respectable and radical
only in moderation.

From this failure resulted the second cause of its rapid decline.

The position of the Germans in Austria was already desperate when
Pan-Germanism arose. Year after year Parliament was being used more and
more as an instrument for the gradual extinction of the German-Austrian
population. The only hope for any eleventh-hour effort to save it lay in
the overthrow of the parliamentary system; but there was very little
prospect of this happening.

Therewith the Pan-German Movement was confronted with a question of
primary importance.

To overthrow the Parliament, should the Pan-Germanists have entered it
'to undermine it from within', as the current phrase was? Or should they
have assailed the institution as such from the outside?

They entered the Parliament and came out defeated. But they had found
themselves obliged to enter.

For in order to wage an effective war against such a power from the
outside, indomitable courage and a ready spirit of sacrifice were
necessary weapons. In such cases the bull must be seized by the horns.
Furious drives may bring the assailant to the ground again and again;
but if he has a stout heart he will stand up, even though some bones may
be broken, and only after a long and tough struggle will he achieve his
triumph. New champions are attracted to a cause by the appeal of great
sacrifices made for its sake, until that indomitable spirit is finally
crowned with success.

For such a result, however, the children of the people from the great
masses are necessary. They alone have the requisite determination and
tenacity to fight a sanguinary issue through to the end. But the
Pan-German Movement did not have these broad masses as its champions,
and so no other means of solution could be tried out except that of
entering Parliamcnt.

It would be a mistake to think that this decision resulted from a long
series of internal hesitations of a moral kind, or that it was the
outcome of careful calculation. No. They did not even think of another
solution. Those who participated in this blunder were actuated by
general considerations and vague notions as to what would be the
significance and effect of taking part in such a special way in that
institution which they had condemned on principle. In general they hoped
that they would thus have the means of expounding their cause to the
great masses of the people, because they would be able to speak before
'the forum of the whole nation'. Also, it seemed reasonable to believe
that by attacking the evil in the root they would be more effective than
if the attack came from outside. They believed that, if protected by the
immunity of Parliament, the position of the individual protagonists
would be strengthened and that thus the force of their attacks would be
enhanced.

In reality everything turned out quite otherwise.

The Forum before which the Pan-German representatives spoke had not
grown greater, but had actually become smaller; for each spoke only to
the circle that was ready to listen to him or could read the report of
his speech in the newspapers.

But the greater forum of immediate listeners is not the parliamentary
auditorium: it is the large public meeting. For here alone will there be
thousands of men who have come simply to hear what a speaker has to say,
whereas in the parliamentary sittings only a few hundred are present;
and for the most part these are there only to earn their daily allowance
for attendance and not to be enlightened by the wisdom of one or other
of the 'representatives of the people'.

The most important consideration is that the same public is always
present and that this public does not wish to learn anything new;
because, setting aside the question of its intelligence, it lacks even
that modest quantum of will-power which is necessary for the effort of
learning.

Not one of the representatives of the people will pay homage to a
superior truth and devote himself to its service. No. Not one of these
gentry will act thus, except he has grounds for hoping that by such a
conversion he may be able to retain the representation of his
constituency in the coming legislature. Therefore, only when it becomes
quite clear that the old party is likely to have a bad time of it at the
forthcoming elections--only then will those models of manly virtue set
out in search of a new party or a new policy which may have better
electoral prospects; but of course this change of position will be
accompanied by a veritable deluge of high moral motives to justify it.
And thus it always happens that when an existing Party has incurred such
general disfavour among the public that it is threatened with the
probability of a crushing defeat, then a great migration commences. The
parliamentary rats leave the Party ship.

All this happens not because the individuals in the case have become
better informed on the questions at issue and have resolved to act
accordingly. These changes of front are evidence only of that gift of
clairvoyance which warns the parliamentary flea at the right moment and
enables him to hop into another warm Party bed.

To speak before such a forum signifies casting pearls before certain
animals.

Verily it does not repay the pains taken; for the result must always be
negative.

And that is actually what happened. The Pan-German representatives might
have talked themselves hoarse, but to no effect whatsoever.

The Press either ignored them totally or so mutilated their speeches
that the logical consistency was destroyed or the meaning twisted round
in such a way that the public got only a very wrong impression regarding
the aims of the new movement. What the individual members said was not
of importance. The important matter was what people read as coming from
them. This consisted of mere extracts which had been torn out of the
context of the speeches and gave an impression of incoherent nonsense,
which indeed was purposely meant. Thus the only public before which they
really spoke consisted merely of five hundred parliamentarians; and that
says enough.

The worst was the following:

The Pan-German Movement could hope for success only if the leaders
realized from the very first moment that here there was no question so
much of a new Party as of a new WELTANSCHAUUNG. This alone could arouse
the inner moral forces that were necessary for such a gigantic struggle.
And for this struggle the leaders must be men of first-class brains and
indomitable courage. If the struggle on behalf of a WELTANSCHAUUNG is
not conducted by men of heroic spirit who are ready to sacrifice,
everything, within a short while it will become impossible to find real
fighting followers who are ready to lay down their lives for the cause.
A man who fights only for his own existence has not much left over for
the service of the community.

In order to secure the conditions that are necessary for success,
everybody concerned must be made to understand that the new movement
looks to posterity for its honour and glory but that it has no
recompense to offer to the present-day members. If a movement should
offer a large number of positions and offices that are easily accessible
the number of unworthy candidates admitted to membership will be
constantly on the increase and eventually a day will come when there
will be such a preponderance of political profiteers among the
membership of a successful Party that the combatants who bore the brunt
of the battle in the earlier stages of the movement can now scarcely
recognize their own Party and may be ejected by the later arrivals as
unwanted ballast. Therewith the movement will no longer have a mission
to fulfil.

Once the Pan-Germanists decided to collaborate with Parliament they were
no longer leaders and combatants in a popular movement, but merely
parliamentarians. Thus the Movement sank to the common political party
level of the day and no longer had the strength to face a hostile fate
and defy the risk of martyrdom. Instead of fighting, the Pan-German
leaders fell into the habit of talking and negotiating. The new
parliamentarians soon found that it was a more satisfactory, because
less risky, way of fulfilling their task if they would defend the new
WELTANSCHAUUNG with the spiritual weapon of parliamentary rhetoric
rather than take up a fight in which they placed their lives in danger,
the outcome of which also was uncertain and even at the best could offer
no prospect of personal gain for themselves.

When they had taken their seats in Parliament their adherents outside
hoped and waited for miracles to happen. Naturally no such miracles
happened or could happen. Whereupon the adherents of the movement soon
grew impatient, because reports they read about their own deputies did
not in the least come up to what had been expected when they voted for
these deputies at the elections. The reason for this was not far to
seek. It was due to the fact that an unfriendly Press refrained from
giving a true account of what the Pan-German representatives of the
people were actually doing.

According as the new deputies got to like this mild form of
'revolutionary' struggle in Parliament and in the provincial diets they
gradually became reluctant to resume the more hazardous work of
expounding the principles of the movement before the broad masses of the
people.

Mass meetings in public became more and more rare, though these are the
only means of exercising a really effective influence on the people;
because here the influence comes from direct personal contact and in
this way the support of large sections of the people can be obtained.

When the tables on which the speakers used to stand in the great
beer-halls, addressing an assembly of thousands, were deserted for the
parliamentary tribune and the speeches were no longer addressed to the
people directly but to the so-called 'chosen' representatives, the
Pan-German Movement lost its popular character and in a little while
degenerated to the level of a more or less serious club where problems
of the day are discussed academically.

The wrong impression created by the Press was no longer corrected by
personal contact with the people through public meetings, whereby the
individual representatives might have given a true account of their
activities. The final result of this neglect was that the word
'Pan-German' came to have an unpleasant sound in the ears of the masses.

The knights of the pen and the literary snobs of to-day should be made
to realize that the great transformations which have taken place in this
world were never conducted by a goosequill. No. The task of the pen must
always be that of presenting the theoretical concepts which motivate
such changes. The force which has ever and always set in motion great
historical avalanches of religious and political movements is the magic
power of the spoken word.

The broad masses of a population are more amenable to the appeal of
rhetoric than to any other force. All great movements are popular
movements. They are the volcanic eruptions of human passions and
emotions, stirred into activity by the ruthless Goddess of Distress or
by the torch of the spoken word cast into the midst of the people. In no
case have great movements been set afoot by the syrupy effusions of
aesthetic littérateurs and drawing-room heroes.

The doom of a nation can be averted only by a storm of glowing passion;
but only those who are passionate themselves can arouse passion in
others. It is only through the capacity for passionate feeling that
chosen leaders can wield the power of the word which, like hammer blows,
will open the door to the hearts of the people.

He who is not capable of passionate feeling and speech was never chosen
by Providence to be the herald of its will. Therefore a writer should
stick to his ink-bottle and busy himself with theoretical questions if
he has the requisite ability and knowledge. He has not been born or
chosen to be a leader.

A movement which has great ends to achieve must carefully guard against
the danger of losing contact with the masses of the people. Every
problem encountered must be examined from this viewpoint first of all
and the decision to be made must always be in harmony with this
principle.

The movement must avoid everything which might lessen or weaken its
power of influencing the masses; not from demagogical motives but
because of the simple fact that no great idea, no matter how sublime and
exalted it may appear, can be realized in practice without the effective
power which resides in the popular masses. Stern reality alone must mark
the way to the goal. To be unwilling to walk the road of hardship means,
only too often in this world, the total renunciation of our aims and
purposes, whether that renunciation be consciously willed or not.

The moment the Pan-German leaders, in virtue of their acceptance of the
parliamentary principle, moved the centre of their activities away from
the people and into Parliament, in that moment they sacrificed the
future for the sake of a cheap momentary success. They chose the easier
way in the struggle and in doing so rendered themselves unworthy of the
final victory.

While in Vienna I used to ponder seriously over these two questions, and
I saw that the main reason for the collapse of the Pan-German Movement
lay in the fact that these very questions were not rightly appreciated.
To my mind at that time the Movement seemed chosen to take in its hands
the leadership of the German element in Austria.

These first two blunders which led to the downfall of the Pan-German
Movement were very closely connected with one another. Faulty
recognition of the inner driving forces that urge great movements
forward led to an inadequate appreciation of the part which the broad
masses play in bringing about such changes. The result was that too
little attention was given to the social problem and that the attempts
made by the movement to capture the minds of the lower classes were too
few and too weak. Another result was the acceptance of the parliamentary
policy, which had a similar effect in regard to the importance of the
masses.

If there had been a proper appreciation of the tremendous powers of
endurance always shown by the masses in revolutionary movements a
different attitude towards the social problem would have been taken, and
also a different policy in the matter of propaganda. Then the centre of
gravity of the movement would not have been transferred to the
Parliament but would have remained in the workshops and in the streets.

There was a third mistake, which also had its roots in the failure to
understand the worth of the masses. The masses are first set in motion,
along a definite direction, by men of superior talents; but then these
masses once in motion are like a flywheel inasmuch as they sustain the
momentum and steady balance of the offensive.

The policy of the Pan-German leaders in deciding to carry through a
difficult fight against the Catholic Church can be explained only by
attributing it to an inadequate understanding of the spiritual character
of the people.

The reasons why the new Party engaged in a violent campaign against Rome
were as follows:

As soon as the House of Habsburg had definitely decided to transform
Austria into a Slav State all sorts of means were adopted which seemed
in any way serviceable for that purpose. The Habsburg rulers had no
scruples of conscience about exploiting even religious institutions in
the service of this new 'State Idea'. One of the many methods thus
employed was the use of Czech parishes and their clergy as instruments
for spreading Slav hegemony throughout Austria. This proceeding was
carried out as follows:

Parish priests of Czech nationality were appointed in purely German
districts. Gradually but steadily pushing forward the interests of the
Czech people before those of the Church, the parishes and their priests
became generative cells in the process of de-Germanization.

Unfortunately the German-Austrian clergy completely failed to counter
this procedure. Not only were they incapable of taking a similar
initiative on the German side, but they showed themselves unable to meet
the Czech offensive with adequate resistance. The German element was
accordingly pushed backwards, slowly but steadily, through the
perversion of religious belief for political ends on the one side, and
the Jack of proper resistance on the other side. Such were the tactics
used in dealing with the smaller problems; but those used in dealing
with the larger problems were not very different.

The anti-German aims pursued by the Habsburgs, especially through the
instrumentality of the higher clergy, did not meet with any vigorous
resistance, while the clerical representatives of the German interests
withdrew completely to the rear. The general impression created could
not be other than that the Catholic clergy as such were grossly
neglecting the rights of the German population.

Therefore it looked as if the Catholic Church was not in sympathy with
the German people but that it unjustly supported their adversaries. The
root of the whole evil, especially according to Schönerer's opinion, lay
in the fact that the leadership of the Catholic Church was not in
Germany, and that this fact alone was sufficient reason for the hostile
attitude of the Church towards the demands of our people.

The so-called cultural problem receded almost completely into the
background, as was generally the case everywhere throughout Austria at
that time. In assuming a hostile attitude towards the Catholic Church,
the Pan-German leaders were influenced not so much by the Church's
position in questions of science but principally by the fact that the
Church did not defend German rights, as it should have done, but always
supported those who encroached on these rights, especially then Slavs.

George Schönerer was not a man who did things by halves. He went into
battle against the Church because he was convinced that this was the
only way in which the German people could be saved. The LOS-VON-ROM
(Away from Rome) Movement seemed the most formidable, but at the same
time most difficult, method of attacking and destroying the adversary's
citadel. Schönerer believed that if this movement could be carried
through successfully the unfortunate division between the two great
religious denominations in Germany would be wiped out and that the inner
forces of the German Empire and Nation would be enormously enhanced by
such a victory.

But the premises as well as the conclusions in this case were both
erroneous.

It was undoubtedly true that the national powers of resistance, in
everything concerning Germanism as such, were much weaker among the
German Catholic clergy than among their non-German confrères, especially
the Czechs. And only an ignorant person could be unaware of the fact
that it scarcely ever entered the mind of the German clergy to take the
offensive on behalf of German interests.

But at the same time everybody who is not blind to facts must admit that
all this should be attributed to a characteristic under which we Germans
have all been doomed to suffer. This characteristic shows itself in our
objective way of regarding our own nationality, as if it were something
that lay outside of us.

While the Czech priest adopted a subjective attitude towards his own
people and only an objective attitude towards the Church, the German
parish priest showed a subjective devotion to his Church and remained
objective in regard to his nation. It is a phenomenon which,
unfortunately for us, can be observed occurring in exactly the same way
in thousands of other cases.

It is by no means a peculiar inheritance from Catholicism; but it is
something in us which does not take long to gnaw the vitals of almost
every institution, especially institutions of State and those which have
ideal aims. Take, for example, the attitude of our State officials in
regard to the efforts made for bringing about a national resurgence and
compare that attitude with the stand which the public officials of any
other nation would have taken in such a case. Or is it to be believed
that the military officers of any other country in the world would
refuse to come forward on behalf of the national aspirations, but would
rather hide behind the phrase 'Authority of the State', as has been the
case in our country during the last five years and has even been deemed
a meritorious attitude? Or let us take another example. In regard to the
Jewish problem, do not the two Christian denominations take up a
standpoint to-day which does not respond to the national exigencies or
even the interests of religion? Consider the attitude of a Jewish Rabbi
towards any question, even one of quite insignificant importance,
concerning the Jews as a race, and compare his attitude with that of the
majority of our clergy, whether Catholic or Protestant.

We observe the same phenomenon wherever it is a matter of standing up
for some abstract idea.

'Authority of the State', 'Democracy', 'Pacifism', 'International
Solidarity', etc., all such notions become rigid, dogmatic concepts with
us; and the more vital the general necessities of the nation, the more
will they be judged exclusively in the light of those concepts.

This unfortunate habit of looking at all national demands from the
viewpoint of a pre-conceived notion makes it impossible for us to see
the subjective side of a thing which objectively contradicts one's own
doctrine. It finally leads to a complete reversion in the relation of
means to an end. Any attempt at a national revival will be opposed if
the preliminary condition of such a revival be that a bad and pernicious
regime must first of all be overthrown; because such an action will be
considered as a violation of the 'Authority of the State'. In the eyes
of those who take that standpoint, the 'Authority of the State' is not a
means which is there to serve an end but rather, to the mind of the
dogmatic believer in objectivity, it is an end in itself; and he looks
upon that as sufficient apology for his own miserable existence. Such
people would raise an outcry, if, for instance, anyone should attempt to
set up a dictatorship, even though the man responsible for it were
Frederick the Great and even though the politicians for the time being,
who constituted the parliamentary majority, were small and incompetent
men or maybe even on a lower grade of inferiority; because to such
sticklers for abstract principles the law of democracy is more sacred
than the welfare of the nation. In accordance with his principles, one
of these gentry will defend the worst kind of tyranny, though it may be
leading a people to ruin, because it is the fleeting embodiment of the
'Authority of the State', and another will reject even a highly
beneficent government if it should happen not to be in accord with his
notion of 'democracy'.

In the same way our German pacifist will remain silent while the nation
is groaning under an oppression which is being exercised by a sanguinary
military power, when this state of affairs gives rise to active
resistance; because such resistance means the employment of physical
force, which is against the spirit of the pacifist associations. The
German International Socialist may be rooked and plundered by his
comrades in all the other countries of the world in the name of
'solidarity', but he responds with fraternal kindness and never thinks
of trying to get his own back, or even of defending himself. And why?
Because he is a--German.

It may be unpleasant to dwell on such truths, but if something is to be
changed we must start by diagnosing the disease.