I could not discover
which; but here at least he was out on the adventure, and still one
of the bravest and most youthful men on board.
'Now, I suppose, I must put my old bones to work again,' said he;
'but I can do a turn yet.'
And the son to whom he was going, I asked, was he not able to
support him?
'Oh yes,' he replied. 'But I'm never happy without a job on hand.
And I'm stout; I can eat a'most anything. You see no craze about
me.'
This tale of a drunken wife was paralleled on board by another of a
drunken father. He was a capable man, with a good chance in life;
but he had drunk up two thriving businesses like a bottle of
sherry, and involved his sons along with him in ruin. Now they
were on board with us, fleeing his disastrous neighbourhood.
Total abstinence, like all ascetical conclusions, is unfriendly to
the most generous, cheerful, and human parts of man; but it could
have adduced many instances and arguments from among our ship's
company. I was, one day conversing with a kind and happy Scotsman,
running to fat and perspiration in the physical, but with a taste
for poetry and a genial sense of fun. I had asked him his hopes in
emigrating. They were like those of so many others, vague and
unfounded; times were bad at home; they were said to have a turn
for the better in the States; a man could get on anywhere, he
thought. That was precisely the weak point of his position; for if
he could get on in America, why could he not do the same in
Scotland? But I never had the courage to use that argument, though
it was often on the tip of my tongue, and instead I agreed with him
heartily adding, with reckless originality, 'If the man stuck to
his work, and kept away from drink.'
'Ah!' said he slowly, 'the drink! You see, that's just my
trouble.'
He spoke with a simplicity that was touching, looking at me at the
same time with something strange and timid in his eye, half-
ashamed, half-sorry, like a good child who knows he should be
beaten. You would have said he recognised a destiny to which he
was born, and accepted the consequences mildly. Like the merchant
Abudah, he was at the same time fleeing from his destiny and
carrying it along with him, the whole at an expense of six guineas.
As far as I saw, drink, idleness, and incompetency were the three
great causes of emigration, and for all of them, and drink first
and foremost, this trick of getting transported overseas appears to
me the silliest means of cure. You cannot run away from a
weakness; you must some time fight it out or perish; and if that be
so, why not now, and where you stand? Coelum non animam. Change
Glenlivet for Bourbon, and it is still whisky, only not so good. A
sea-voyage will not give a man the nerve to put aside cheap
pleasure; emigration has to be done before we climb the vessel; an
aim in life is the only fortune worth the finding; and it is not to
be found in foreign lands, but in the heart itself.
Speaking generally, there is no vice of this kind more contemptible
than another; for each is but a result and outward sign of a soul
tragically ship-wrecked. In the majority of cases, cheap pleasure
is resorted to by way of anodyne. The pleasure-seeker sets forth
upon life with high and difficult ambitions; he meant to be nobly
good and nobly happy, though at as little pains as possible to
himself; and it is because all has failed in his celestial
enterprise that you now behold him rolling in the garbage. Hence
the comparative success of the teetotal pledge; because to a man
who had nothing it sets at least a negative aim in life. Somewhat
as prisoners beguile their days by taming a spider, the reformed
drunkard makes an interest out of abstaining from intoxicating
drinks, and may live for that negation. There is something, at
least, NOT TO BE DONE each day; and a cold triumph awaits him every
evening.
We had one on board with us, whom I have already referred to under
the name Mackay, who seemed to me not only a good instance of this
failure in life of which we have been speaking, but a good type of
the intelligence which here surrounded me. Physically he was a
small Scotsman, standing a little back as though he were already
carrying the elements of a corporation, and his looks somewhat
marred by the smallness of his eyes. Mentally, he was endowed
above the average. There were but few subjects on which he could
not converse with understanding and a dash of wit; delivering
himself slowly and with gusto like a man who enjoyed his own
sententiousness. He was a dry, quick, pertinent debater, speaking
with a small voice, and swinging on his heels to launch and
emphasise an argument. When he began a discussion, he could not
bear to leave it off, but would pick the subject to the bone,
without once relinquishing a point. An engineer by trade, Mackay
believed in the unlimited perfectibility of all machines except the
human machine. The latter he gave up with ridicule for a compound
of carrion and perverse gases. He had an appetite for disconnected
facts which I can only compare to the savage taste for beads. What
is called information was indeed a passion with the man, and he not
only delighted to receive it, but could pay you back in kind.
With all these capabilities, here was Mackay, already no longer
young, on his way to a new country, with no prospects, no money,
and but little hope.
