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| Birch Hollow Photos by Suzanne Currie |
THE UNSUNG HERO OF GRAVENHURST - OR THE UNSUNG WRITER WE NEVER KNEW
WHY WE SHOULD GET TO KNOW WILLIAM HENRY SMITH
A GENTLE AND KIND MAN, WHO CHALLENGED HIS READERS TO THINK CRITICALLY
By Ted and Suzanne Currie, Part 3 of 3
The creek that runs through the bog, across the lane, still babbles away through the day. The county crows still break the silence with their protestations, possibly a territorial issue in the tree tops. We just saw a mole, and indeed a toad, and if we were to witness a water rat, a badger and an otter, we might well believe we have found Kenneth Graham’s “Wild Woods,” as a sort of living version of his popular “Wind in the Willows.” I’ve only recently finished reading his book so I’m still in the mood for our own wild woods.
We drove uptown to our shop today and found that vandals had felt the need to validate their immaturity, with tables upturned, a sign knocked over, and new words made from marquis letters to also make their public statement to the society they will hopefully never lead. They probably will publish the acts of vandalism online as they most often do, in order to score points with their equals, who will undoubtedly have to best them in the coming weeks. Uptown there is the sounds associated with a busy summer weekend, honking horns, revving engines with ridiculous mufflers, mixed with the sound of children laughing while enjoying ice cream cones, while dogs bark, flip-flops slap onto the concrete, and somewhere overhead a jet departs the airport, as a float plane comes in for a landing on Muskoka Bay. How then does the work of a British Poet of long, long ago, and a Canadian historian, and postal meddler, from another century, fit into this contemporary commonplace. The vandalism isn’t new, and the little creek has been babbling along for probably as long as the town has had its name. Gravenhurst. Crows still caw, feet shuffled along the main street, a little more sophisticated with concrete instead of board walks, and good things happen as do bad, and it is as if the cycle of life and times has made yet another revolution. We know time hasn’t stood still. I am twenty one years older now, since I first presented the story of William Henry Smith, the British poet who provided the namesake for our community, based on his book, “Gravenhurst; or Thoughts on Good and Evil.” Not too much has changed in the social / cultural dynamic of the town in those 21 years. Despite many attempts to sell the community on this largely unknown relationship between our town, and the poet, I can’t honestly report that a single thing has changed to improve the relationship these past two decades. First, however, acceptance would have to come first, and it never has, which is unfortunate by not unexpected. Just as William Dawson LeSueur’s name doesn’t ring a bell for most folks here, although for the sake of civic pride it should be known, because he is the postal-fellow who borrowed the title of Smith’s book when it came time to naming the hamlet’s new post office. You can read back in this series to find out more about Dr. LeSueur, but suffice to say he was an important Canadian, and our community was afforded a literary honor, back in August of 1862. One hundred and fifty-nine years later, well, we still have the name in place, the history is well inked into local history texts, and when all is said and done, we have lived with the name Gravenhurst rather capably ever since. We just don’t wish to dwell on the fact that a rough hewn pioneer community, known for its logging industry and sawmills, steamboats and robust hockey chronicle, is somehow related to the work of a poet, and a non Canadian one at that; but as they say, often with a toast to the summer day, “it is what it is!”
The title of the book includes “or Thoughts on Good and Evil.” Smith delved into a long debated philosophical issue of how one, anyone, knows what “good” is, without knowing the full weight of what is in contrast, “evil.” If you’ve experienced “evil” how do you then distinguish what is truly “good,” and how is that both good and evil play out in a community’s “commonplace.” The book gives an interesting overview of the advantages of “commonplace,” and how a balance is achieved through the general art of living, and adjusting to living conditions. I am not a scholar of such philosophies, but I get the gist. We will have citizens die this week. We will undoubtedly have births announced. We will hear of accidents and misadventures, and we will also get word that achievements were made, that will help our community in the future. A few squirrels will be run-over on district roads, but a number of predators will be fed off the remains. A balance will be achieved even without our intervention, because it is the commonplace in which we live.
I am writing this preface while our dogs Pooh Bear and Muffin bask in the cool air from my desk-top fan, and Suzanne will come through the door of the office any moment now, with a twinkle of light catching a teardrop in her eye, and I won’t have to ask her if she had just been out at the wee grave we dug, earlier this week, for our dear kitty, Chutney; the second of our elder cats to pass-on this summer. She will sit down and edit this tome, and when she gets to this place in the editorial, she will pause on the keyboard, look over at me on the couch, and sniffle acknowledgement that life at times, well, “sucks.” But it is what the good Mr. Smith has written, and proven with some poignancy in our own daily lives. Life is precious. Time is fleeting. Love endures. The life-spring of the Bog trickles forth, and it pays not reverence to the fact, that right this moment, there are emergency vehicles being dispatched somewhere, to someone, who is in a bad way. The sun will set, and it will rise again tomorrow morning. The provenance we have with this long deceased poet, William Henry Smith will endure for all the centuries this community exists on this planet earth. I will get pleasure from it, obviously in my own way, until I too, slip away into the nether realm, possibly while my fingers still rest on these lettered keys I have cherished for a lifetime. Please enjoy our conclusion of the three part series on our British poet friend, who I dare say, would have very much enjoyed a respite here in South Muskoka, had he in live, been given the opportunity.
(A small section repeated from yesterday for context) "A visit paid to a poor woman in distress, and a conversation held with a dear friend, who keeps alive in me the habit of philosophical discussion, had led my thoughts in this direction. It was the hour of sunset. As I paused upon the parapet of our little bridge, the distant Welsh hills were glowing in their purple splendour; the river ran gold at my feet; every branch of every graceful tree that hung silently in the air received and reflected a new beauty from that entire scene of enchantment, to which also it brought its own contribution. Such harmony there is in nature. The whole which is formed itself of separate parts, gives to each part its meaning and charm," writes Mr. Smith.
"Yet even here, in this scene of enchantment, I was compelled to recall to my imagination that poor woman whose desolate hearth I had lately visited - I was compelled to revive those discordant scenes of war, of carnage, of treachery, of famine, which my friend, an old Indian general, had been dilating upon. No harmony then, and little peace, in this other world of humanity. Is there truly some diabolic element amongst us? Has the beneficient harmony which human nature should disclose, been invaded, broken up, irrecoverably destroyed by some tyrannous spirit of evil? It seems so."
Smith responds to his own question, answering that, "I reflected within myself - since wherever science has penetrated, disorder and confusion disappear, and a harmonious whole is presented to us, it may happen that this sense of diabolic confusion in the arena of human life would vanish before light of a wider and clearer knowledge."
The passage above would have appealed to William Dawson LeSueur's philosophy of critical thought, and found the historical sensibility of attaining a "the light of a wider and clearer knowledge." LeSueur, a huge advocate of using as many resources as possible, to ascertain the truth of situations, and the stability of historic fact, would have had possession of Smith's book, in 1862, as he was a well known literary critic, and author of reviews, when not working as a federal civil service with the Post Office Department. It was in 1862 that LeSueur borrowed the name of Smith's book, and awarded it to the hamlet post office of the former McCabe's Landing. As LeSueur was not a practical joker, it must be assumed he found it an honor to the book, the author, and the community, when he selected this title, from a newly released, scholarly book, that by the way, is still in print and considerable demand to this day. You can read the entire book by visiting Google Books, and typing in the author's name and the title of the book.
"And now let me say a word or two of the Village of Gravenhurst, near to which I sit and write, and of the friends whose conversations I have here reported," writes Smith. "But, afterall, I cannot describe this Gravenhurst except by expressions which would serve equally well for hundreds of villages in England. (For Smith, the name is fictitious, even though there is an actual village of Gravenhurst in Bedfordshire). "It is a commonplace ordinary village. So much the better, perhaps, for me who have to treat what is common and general amongst mankind. It is well to have under my eye a specimen easily examined of our ordinary pleasures, afffections, miseries, errors and truths; and I think that the more carefully such a specimen were examined the more marvellous would human life appear. I think too, that such an examination would kindle in us a rational love of this human life."
He suggests, "Here is this village of Gravenhurst - now growing fast into a town - with its long straggling street, its church, its chapel, its bridge over the river, its green fields through which that river flows - what could be more commonplace? The country, we the inhabitants, think beautiful, but it boasts nothing to invite the stranger or tourist, and the villagers are certainly of a quite ordinary stamp. It has its outlying gentry, its clergy, its doctor, and here and there an exceptional character - a curiosity, as we say. If it had do curiosities of this kind it would not be an ordinary village, but a most rare and unexampled one. But this village of Gravenhurst - seated amongst its fields and its pastures, with its sky and the moving clouds above it, and its infinite horizon, and its births, marriages, and deaths of most ordinary people, would be an endless theme for poet or philosopher. To the man of genius this commonplace of nature and of man is inexhaustible.
"The poet wants nothing else; and of the philosopher the frequency or generality of a fact, or a passion, or a thought, augments its value incalculably. I only wish I had the power given me to represent this commonplace in the glory and the novelty it sometimes reveals itself to me. I wish I had the power given me to teach some men whom I could name - strong headed men perchance, but prone to ponder on the mere dust and dross of humanity - to look abroad with their hearts in their eyes, and note the beauty and wonder there is in the daily spectacle, and the daily passion of our lives."
"Commonplace! Look up! What is that apparition of dazzling brightness rising softly upon the blue sky from behind the those tall and massive elms? If you saw it for the first time in your life you would say it must be some celestial visitant. Is it light itself from heaven taking shape, and just softened and subdued to the endurance of mortal vision. It is nothing but a cloud! Mere vapour that the unseen wind moves and moulds, and that the sun shines on for a little time. And now it has risen above the massive and lofty tree, and throws light upward to the sky, and throws its pleasant shadow down upon the earth - pleasant shadow that paces along the meadows, leaving behind a greater brilliancy on tree and grass, and hedge, and flower, than what, for a moment it had eclipsed. It is all commonplace. Light and shadow, and the river, the meadow with its clover blossoms and childish buttercups," writes Smith so eloquently, of these taken-for-granted country scenes, we might observe in passing, but seldom spend much time contemplating, for the intracacies of their nature.
"That must have been a happy home at North End, Hammersmith, into which, during the January of 1808, William Henry Smith was born, the youngest of a large family," wrote his wife Lucy, in 1873, a year after the author's death in England. "His father, a man of strong natural intelligence, having early made a fortune sufficient for his wants, early retired from business, in consequence mainly of an asthmatic tendency, which had harnessed him from the age of 30. The impression I gained of him from his son's description was that of one peculiarly fond of quiet and books, but whose will gave law to his household, and was uniformly seconded by the loving loyalty of his wife.
"Here is another glimpse of the enjoyments of those early days. The cheerful drawing room in the Hammersmith home had a window at both ends. Round the one that looked into the garden clustered the white blossoms or hung the luscious - a swan egg - the life of which was never met in later years. From the other window the children could watch the following spectacle, which my husband evidently enjoyed recalling in a notice of 'Mr. Knight's Reminiscences, published in 1864." In the words of William Smith, from his vantage point as a child, recalled:
"Very pleasant is this looking back over a period of history through which we have too lived. Give a boy a telescope, and if he is far enough away from home, the first or the greatest delight he has in the use of it, is to point it back, to the house he lives in. To see the pailings of his own garden, to see his father at work in it, or a younger brother playing in it, is a far greater treat than if you were to show him the coast of France or any other distant object. And so it is with the past in time. If the telescope of the historian brings back to us events through which we have lived, and which were already fading away in the memory, he gives us quite a peculair pleasure"
One of Smith's favorite childhood memories, addressed the matter of changing modes of transportation in England, and the wheels of progress that had brought forth, the steaming train engine, winding through the countryside on those silver rails.
"This great revolution in our mode of travelling, the substitution of the steam engine for the horse, will soon be matter of history, and older men will begin to record, with that peculiar zest which belongs to the recollection of youth, the aspect which the highway roads leading out of London presented in their time. The railway-train rushing by you at its full speed is sublime - it deserves no timid epithet. You stand perhaps in the country, on one of those little bridges thrown over the line for the convenience of the farmer, who would else find his fields hopelessly bisected. A jet of steam is seen on the horizon, a whir of a thousand wheels grows louder and louder on the ear, and there rushes under your feet the very realization of Milton's dream, who saw the chariot of God, instinct with motion, self-impelled, thundering over the plains of heaven. You look round, and already in the distant landscape the triumphal train is bearing its beautiful standard of ever-rising clouds, white as the highest that rest stationary in the sky, and of exquisitely involved movement.
"For an instant the whole country is animated as if by the stir of battle: when the spectacle has quite passed how inexpressibly flat and desolate and still, have our familiar fields become. Nothing seems to have a right to exist that can be so still and stationary." Smith continues, "Yet grand as this spectacle is, we revert with pleasure to some boyish recollections of the high road and to picturesque effects, produced by quite other means. We are transported in imagination to a bay window, that commanded the great western railroad - The Bath Road, as people at the time often called it. Every evening came, in rapid succession, the earth tingling with the musical thread of their horses, seven mail coaches out of London. The dark-red coach, the scarlet guard standing up in his solitary little dickey behind, the tramp of the horses - can one ever forget them? For some miles out of London, the guard was kept on his feet, blowing his horn, to warn all slower vehicles to make way for his Majesty's mails. There was a turnpike within sight of us; how the horses dashed through it! With not the least abatement of speed.
"If some intolerable blunderer stopped the way, and that royal coachman had to draw up his team, making the splinter bars rattle together, we looked upon it as almost an act of high treason. If the owner of that blockading cart had been immediately led off to execution, we boys should have thought he had but his just deserts. Our mysterious seven were still more exciting to the imagination when, in the dark winter nights, only the two vivid lamps could be seen borne along by the trampling coursers. No darkness checked the speed of the mail; a London fog which brought ordinary vehicles to a standstill, could not altogether subdue our Royal mails. The procession came flaring with torches, men shouting before it, and a man with a huge link at the head of each horse. It was a thrilling and a somewhat fearful scene." Smith, on reflection of what he had seen and witnessed, wrote, "The stream to the tree - I shine, you shade, and so the beauty of the world is made." And he penned the verse, "Rested or moved upon its brow, and lo, it softens into beauty now - Blooms like a flower. With us 'tis much the same, - from man to man, as the deep shadows roll, breaks forth the beauty of the human soul." (Taken from A Tourist's Notebook)
THE AUTHOR'S FINAL CHAPTER
"I was quite alone with my love. I got on the bed behind him, the better to prop him in what seemed an easy sleep -the hands and feet still warm. His head passed gradually from the pillow to my breast and there the cherished head rested firmly; the breathing grew gentler and gentler," wrote Lucy Smith, while caring for her gravely ill husband, in the year 1872.
She writes, "Never shall I forget the great awe, the brooding presence with which the room was filled. My heart leapt wildly with a new sensation, but it was not fear. Only it would have seemed profane to utter even my illimitable love, or to call upon his name. The head grew damp and very heavy; my arms were under him. Then the sleep grew quite quiet, and as the church clock began to strike ten, I caught a little, little sigh as a new-born infant might give in waking - not a tremor, not a thrill of the frame; and then Vi came back with Clara's nurse (who have a peculiar love and admiration for him, I said might come up). I told them he was gone, and I thanked God for the perfect peace in which he passed away. He was buried in the Brighton Cemetery, in a spot at present still secluded, and over which the larks sing joyously. There a plain grey granite headstone rises 'to his pure and cherished memory,' with just his name and two dates, and this one line, long associated with him in my mind, and which all who knew him have felt to be appropriate. 'His soul was like a star, and dwelt apart'."
William Henry Smith once wrote, "There comes a time when neither fear nor hope are necessary to the pious man; but he loves righteousness for righteousness' sake, and love is all in all. It is not joy at escape from future perdition that he now feels; nor is it hope for some untold happiness in the future; it is a present rapture of piety, and resignation, and love - a present that fills eternity. It asks nothing, it fears nothing; it loves and it has no petition to make. God takes back His little child unto Himself - a little child that has no fear, and is all trust."
I truly believe, if such a chance prevailed, William Smith might find our community here, in South Muskoka, to be an interesting, dynamic, and contenting place in which to live, and a friendly place to visit. If his ghost and William Dawson LeSueur's apparition, were found to be walking side by side, along our main street, one tuned to such things, might hear the two writers admit, to "nice place they've got here!" Of this then, we concur.
William Dawson LeSueur intended the name "Gravenhurst" to be a tribute to our town, a good book, and a British author, William Smith, who he had considerable respect and admiration. This is the final line. I can't prove this further than I have, at present, and it is ultimately up to the people of our town, to one day feel the honor and provenance of our shared history with biography......entitling us to use his name proudly, and frequently, when we are asked........"Where did the name Gravenhurst come from?" It would be so nice, to this historian's ears, to hear someone speak up and say, "We were named after a great book and an accomplished author, William Henry Smith, and his book, 'Gravenhurst, or Thoughts on Good and Evil." And oh yes, we were named by a great historian, author, literary critic, by the name of William Dawson LeSueur, a federal civil servant with a little bit extra.
Thanks so much for joining this blog-series commemorating the 150th anniversary of the naming of Gravenhurst, Ontario, Canada. Please join me again soon
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