Sisters in the Wilderness - Charlotte Gray [101]
But there was a larger motive at work, too. If children of dramatically different backgrounds all attended the same common schools, a new cohesion would develop within a fractious society. Public schools would break down class barriers and create a “meritocracy based on education and manners,” Susanna wrote in an early issue of her magazine, “composed of the well-educated, not necessarily of the well born and wealthy.” Class tensions imported from the Old Country would crumble. “The want of education and moral training is the only real barrier that exists between different classes of men,” the Moodies insisted. And it is no coincidence that such a system of common schools would also elevate and guarantee the Moodies’ own position at the top rather than the bottom of the New World’s social scale. By British standards, the Moodies had sunk low—they had scarcely any money, and the genteel accents that gave them status in Britain were worthless in Canada. But if the key to social position in Canada was education, the Moodies—like the cream they always felt themselves to be—would rise to the top. They would be among the most respected and socially established citizens of Belleville.
The Victoria Magazine’s lofty idealism was received warmly. The Cobourg Star described it as “well worth a whole year’s subscription.” The Huron Signal considered that John Moodie possessed “shrewd practical common-sense….We love his manner and the honest goodness of his heart.” The Montreal Weekly Pilot praised the publication as an “excellent journal of polite literature.” But Joseph Wilson quickly realized that he had a major problem: the publication was yawningly polite. Readers found the periodical stuffy and boring, and most did not renew their subscriptions. They wanted the political gossip and polemics that were regularly provided by editors like William Lyon Mackenzie, George Benjamin of Belleville’s Intelligencer and John Edward Barker of Kingston’s British Whig. These gutter polemicists, eager to deploy low blows in defence of high ideals, ripped into opponents with reckless slanders. Susanna abhorred “low and vulgar abuse”—but it sold well. Royalism, romance and sermons about education didn’t. After thirteen issues, The Victoria Magazine was forced to fold.
However, Susanna had learned a lot as the magazine’s editor. The Victoria Magazine was produced for a native Canadian audience, not the distant British audience she knew from her London days, or the upmarket, urban readers of the Literary Garland who liked stories that reminded them of home. Susanna had managed to banish from her imagination the ringing tones of Agnes, her elder sister and literary rival, who insisted that Stricklands were ladies and should act and write accordingly. In her autobiographical contributions to both The Victoria Magazine and the Literary Garland, she had written for her neighbours. Susanna had found a new voice as a writer.
By the time that The Victoria Magazine folded, Susanna Moodie had already published several Canadian sketches within the colony, two in her own magazine and six in the Literary Garland. Now John urged her to publish in England a book about her experiences in the Canadian bush. She had plenty of material; she had kept copious notes.
Her sisters’ achievements undoubtedly spurred her on. After all, Catharine had published her breezy account of her own immigration, The Backwoods of Canada, only three years after setting foot in the New World and was now hard at work on Canadian Crusoes. And in England, Agnes