[Original Size] -- [Medium-Size]
CHAPTER III. GEORGE CRUIKSHANK AS A TEETOTALER.
George Cruikshank was an enthusiast in all things to which he gave his mind. He did nothing in a halfhearted way. Whether preparing to address a great Exeter Hall audience on the evils of drunkenness, or marching at the head of his riflemen, or arraying himself in a table-cover to enact the part of Lord Bateman; in small things as in great, he was ever at fever-heat. He would have made a good actor, had he not been incapable of a moment’s repose; he would have been an admirable Temperance advocate, had it been in him to give himself pause in order to think over the heads of his discourse; he would have been a good volunteer officer, had it been possible for him to sit quiet in his saddle. But he seemed to be troubled with an excess of life. Life at fever-heat is the dominant characteristic of all his work. The “quiet spaces” in his etchings are rare.
Having been converted by his own “Bottle” to total abstinence from fermented liquors, he could be nothing less than an earnest and a vehement worker in the cause. He threw himself heart and soul into it; and during the thirty remaining years of his life his zeal never slackened, and he had never made sacrifices enough in it. His impulsive advocacy often took ludicrous forms. He sometimes offended people by his denunciations of even the most moderate drinkers, but he never made an enemy by his gaucherie or his downright phrases imported into quiet circles, because the parity of his motive and the well-known impetuosity of his nature excused him. I can remember, in the first year of his total abstinence, meeting him at a ball given in Fitzroy Square, by Mr. Joshua Mayhew, the father of Horace and the Brothers Mayhew. He danced and was light-hearted with the youngest; but when at supper the wine began to circulate, he stole round to the head of the table, and, laying his hand upon the shoulder of the venerable host (who was a very haughty and quick-tempered old gentleman), said, in a deep, warning voice, “Sir, you are a dangerous man.” Mr. Mayhew had a glass of wine in his hand, and was about to drink a toast to the health of one of his sons, when Cruikshank’s hand fell upon his shoulder. “I look upon every wine-drinker,” Cruikshank added firmly, “as a dangerous man, sir.” The company, knowing the hot temper of their host, expected an explosion of rage; but it was staunched by Horace Mayhew, who burst into a hearty laugh, and told his father to go on, for “it was only dear old George.”
In the same way, when dining at the Mansion House, Cruikshank, at the passing of the loving-cup, would go through an extraordinary pantomime before all the company, expressive of his horror of strong drinks. He would shake his hand angrily at the Lord Mayor, and raise his arms with horror while his neighbour quaffed of the cup. The company humoured the eccentric old gentleman; for, in their hearts, they could not but respect his downright earnestness. He lost no opportunity. Returning home at the head of his volunteer corps, he showed his jaded officers, who had freely taken beer, how fresh he was—on two oranges.
“Ah! you may laugh,” he would say, when his friends bantered him about his aggressive protests in society; “you may laugh, but I can tell you this——the presence of the old jackdaw checked the drinking, if didn’t stop it, and I am very grateful to feel sure of that.” * As Mr. Sala has observed, “the veteran sticks bravely to his text.” And well he might, for his temperance renewed his youth. “He neither smoked tobacco nor drank fermented liquors in his old age; but he was a hearty eater, an early riser, and a vigorous walker and his reward was that which, according to Gray, is only felt by boys at school—a perpetual ‘sunshine of the breast.’” He was fond of showing this vigour renewed by temperance, at every possible opportunity; for he very wisely regarded it as his most forcible argument. It enabled him, in his old age, to capture a burglar on his own premises. The story runs that when he was following the burglar to the station, with the police, he drew him under a lamp, and told him that he could see drink had brought him to this—adding that he himself drank nothing but water. “I wish I’d ha’ known that,” said the ruffian, “I’d ha’ broken your head for you.” Cruikshank delighted to show an audience how he could hold a tumbler full of water steady upon the palm of his outstretched hand. At eighty, he was seen in costume at a fancy dress ball at Willis’s Rooms, joining heartily in the dance, and letting everybody know that it was “water that did it.”