Life in the Clearings versus the Bush

by Susanna Moodie

S.M.

Toronto was all bustle and excitement, preparing for the Provincial Agricultural Show; no other subject was thought of or talked about. The ladies, too, taking advantage of the great influx of strangers to the city, were to hold a bazaar for the benefit of St. George's Church; the sum which they hoped to realise by the sale of their fancy wares to be appropriated to paying off the remaining debt contracted for the said saint, in erecting this handsome edifice dedicated to his name--let us hope not to his service. Yet the idea of erecting a temple for the worship of God, and calling it the church of a saint of very doubtful sanctity, is one of those laughable absurdities that we would gladly see banished in this enlightened age. Truly, there are many things in which our wisdom does not exceed the wisdom of our forefathers. The weather during the two first days of the exhibition was very unpropitious; a succession of drenching thunder showers, succeeded by warm bursts of sunshine, promising better things, and giving rise to hopes in the expectant visitants to the show, which were as often doomed to be disappointed by returns of blackness, storm, and pouring rain.

I was very anxious to hear the opening address, and I must confess that I was among those who felt this annihilation of hope very severely; and, being an invalid, I dared not venture upon the grounds before Wednesday morning, when this most interesting part of the performance was over. Wednesday, however, was as beautiful a September day as the most sanguine of the agricultural exhibitors could desire, and the fine space allotted for the display of the various objects of industry was crowded to overflowing.

It was a glorious scene for those who had the interest of the colony at heart. Every district of the Upper Province had contributed its portion of labour, talent, and ingenuity, to furnish forth the show. The products of the soil, the anvil, and the loom, met the eye at every turn. The genius of the mechanic was displayed in the effective articles of machinery, invented to assist the toils and shorten the labour of human hands, and were many and excellent in their kind. Improvements in old implements, and others entirely new, were shown or put into active operation by the inventors,--those real benefactors to the human race, to whom the exploits of conquerors, however startling and brilliant, are very inferior in every sense.

Mechanical genius, which ought to be regarded as the first and greatest effort of human intellect, is only now beginning to be recognised as such. The statesman, warrior, poet, painter, orator, and man of letters, all have their niche in the temple of fame--all have had their worshippers and admirers; but who among them has celebrated in song and tale the grand creative power which can make inanimate metals move, and act, and almost live, in the wondrous machinery of the present day! It is the mind that conceived, the hand that reduced to practical usefulness these miraculous instruments, with all their complicated works moving in harmony, and performing their appointed office, that comes nearest to the sublime Intelligence that framed the universe, and gave life and motion to that astonishing piece of mechanism, the human form.

In watching the movements of the steam-engine, one can hardly divest one's self of the idea that it possesses life and consciousness. True, the metal is but a dead agent, but the spirit of the originator still lives in it, and sways it to the gigantic will that first gave it motion and power. And, oh, what wonders has it not achieved! what obstacles has it not overcome! how has it brought near things that were far off, and crumbled into dust difficulties which, at first sight, appeared insurmountable. Honour to the clear-sighted, deep-thinking child of springs and wheels, at whose head stands the great Founder of the world, the grandest humanity that ever trode the earth! Rejoice, and shout for joy, ye sons of the rule and line! for was he not one of you? Did he not condescend to bow that God-like form over the carpenter's bench, and handle the plane and saw? Yours should be termed the Divine craft, and those who follow it truly noble. Your great Master was above the little things of earth; he knew the true dignity of man--that virtue conferred the same majesty upon its possessor in the workshop or the palace--that the soul's title to rank as a son of God required neither high birth, nor the adventitious claims of wealth--that the simple name of a good man was a more abiding honour, even in this world, than that of kings or emperors.

Oh! ye sons of labour, seek to attain this true dignity inherent in your nature, and cease to envy the possessors of those ephemeral honours that perish with the perishing things of this world. The time is coming--is now even at the doors--when education shall give you a truer standing in society, and good men throughout the whole world shall recognise each other as brothers.

"An' o'er the earth gude sense an' worth

Shall bear the gree an' a' that."

Carried away from my subject by an impetuous current of thought, I must step back to the show from which I derived a great deal of satisfaction and pleasure. The space in which it was exhibited contained, I am told, about sixteen acres. The rear of this, where the animals were shown, was a large grove covered with tall spreading trees, beneath the shade of which, reposing or standing in the most picturesque attitudes, were to be seen the finest breeds of cattle, horses, and sheep, in the province. This inclosure was surrounded by a high boarded fence, against which pens were erected for the accommodation of plethoric-looking pigs, fat sleepy lambs, and wild mischievous goats; while noble horses were led to and fro by their owners or their servants, snorting and curveting in all the conscious pride of strength and beauty. These handsome, proud-looking creatures, might be considered the aristocracy of the animal department; yet, in spite of their prancing hoofs, arched necks, and glances of fire, they had to labour in their vocation as well as the poorest pig that grunted and panted in its close pen. There was a donkey there--a solitary ass--the first of his kind I ever beheld in the province. Unused to such a stir and bustle, he lifted up his voice, and made the grove ring with his discordant notes. The horses bounded and reared, and glanced down upon him in such mad disdain, that they could scarcely be controlled by their keepers. I can imagine the astonishment they must have felt on hearing the first bray of an ass; they could not have appeared more startled at a lion's roar. Whoever exhibited Mr. Braham was a brave man. A gentleman, who settled in the neighbourhood of Peterboro twenty years ago, brought out a donkey with him to Canada, and until the day of his death he went by no other name than the undignified one of Donkey.