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By Root 1136 0

to see her name in print again (although she was never paid). Publication in a New York paper, then as now, meant that Canadians noticed the talent in their own backyard. R.D. Chatterton, editor of the Cobourg Star, suddenly decided that he wanted to reprint her poems. Alongside the “chaste and beautiful Songs,” Chatterton extolled the “racy, and pure English style of the fair authoress.” But he bristled at Susanna’s disparaging comments about Canadians and complaints that her muse had received “little respect … in the wilds of Canada.” The editor of Cobourg’s main newspaper was not prepared to admit that his town lacked class. “This apathy must arise from other causes than those she somewhat captiously alludes to, for our experience has convinced us that a want of taste can by no means be imputed to the inhabitants of this province.” There was, however, a grim truth in Susanna’s complaint. She had found no soul-mates amongst the vulgar “Yankees” or monosyllabic hunters of Hamilton Township. She hungered for the kind of female companionship that she had enjoyed with her own sisters, particularly Catharine. She was suffering an emigrant’s most bitter complaint: the only kind of readers with whom she felt in tune were in the land she had left behind.

It was her sister Agnes who, with her usual bluntness, brought Susanna’s predicament home to her. Early in the summer of 1833 a long letter arrived from London, in Agnes’s sloping, rapid scrawl, which began: “You would like to hear my literary news, you say.” Agnes then proceeded to reel off various triumphs. “I had a poem in the Souvenirs: ‘Uncle Gregory’s Will’ and the ‘Insect Travellers’ were in the Offering, and I had a religious poem in the [journal of the] Missionary Council.” Agnes’s cheerful bragging reminded Susanna of everything she had once enjoyed, now so far away—new books, intellectual gossip, the company of fellow writers. The titles of all those annuals, eagerly publishing Agnes’s stories, made Susanna’s practical achievements in the bush look like hard slog for little reward. Susanna knew that Agnes would dismiss all her newfound pioneer skills as “servants’ work.” Agnes was obviously well on her way to high eminence in the literary world, while Susanna had spun into oblivion. Agnes was winning their sisterly competition for recognition.

Agnes had some inkling of Susanna’s misery at finding herself in “a land of strangers,” so, with the bossy benevolence Susanna remembered so well, she went on to offer some unasked-for advice on how her emigrant sisters could occupy their “free time.” “Penny magazines are all the rage. They are very nice publications made up of selections of a useful nature from various authors on subjects of history, natural history, letters or novels, and I think you or Kate might edit a Canadian penny magazine on the same plan and make a good income if you could enter into an agreement with an honest bookseller. The Penny Magazine which started this time twelvemonth [ago] now pays the enormous income of 200,000 pounds, but if you could make but five pounds a week it would be worthwhile trying and you could put in poetry from your books and mine.”

As Susanna sat in her chilly wooden cabin, far from anything her English sisters would consider “civilization,” she didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. Agnes obviously had no idea of her sisters’ circumstances. As if Susanna and Katie, living two days’ journey from each other, could find enough material “of a useful nature” for a magazine, or even a single honest bookseller who could help them! Susanna couldn’t even imagine which of her fellow Upper Canadians would buy it. Moreover, Susanna had no interest in producing a how-to book for settlers. She wanted to write the kinds of religious poems and romantic stories that Agnes was so successfully getting into print. Susanna would much rather be writing about “a noble deer” pursued by a pack of wolves “like so many black devils” than transcribe the recipe for venison pie.

As the Moodies’ second year in the colony began, their prospects grew bleaker.