Why will we live and not be
glorious
?
Warner - World's Best Literature - v03 - Bag to Ber
German ? French ? Italian ? or English ? All
the same! But nothing mediocre.
I was flushed with pleasure; I gave him my hand. « That
may be said of other things than poetry! ” I said. — “Of all art! ”
he answered. — “Of all that is human! ” we both concluded.
Deplorable indolence which clothes our mind in the first heavy
cloak ready to hand, so that all the sunbeams of the world can-
not persuade us to throw it off, much less to assume another!
The man who is exclusively a nationalist is a snail forever
chained to his house. Psyche had wings given her for a never-
ending, eternal flight. We may not imprison her, be the cage
ever so large.
He considered that Lessing had wronged the great repre-
sentative of the French language; and the remark of Claudius,
Voltaire says he weeps, and Shakespeare does weep,” appeared
to him like the saying, "Much that is new and beautiful has
M. Arouet said; but it is a pity that the beautiful is not new and
the new not beautiful,” - more witty than true. The English
think that Shakespeare, as the Germans think that Lessing, really
weeps; the French think the same of Voltaire. But the first
weeps for the whole world, it is said, the last only for his own
people. What the French call “Le Nord” is, to be sure, rather
a large territory, but not the entire world! France calls «whim-
pering” in one case and “blubbering ” in another what we call
weeping. The general mistake is that we do not understand the
nature of the people and the language, in which and for whom
the weeping is done.
We must be English when we read Shakespeare, German
when we read Klopstock, French when we read Voltaire. The
man whose soul cannot shed its national costume and don that
of other nations ought not to read, much less to judge, their
masterpieces. He will be looking at the moon by day and at the
sun by night, and see the first without lustre and the last not
at all.
## p. 1239 (#29) ############################################
JENS BAGGESEN
1 239
PHILOSOPHY ON THE HEATH
From "The Labyrinth)
C"
AILLARD was a man of experience, taste, and knowledge. He
told me the story of his life from beginning to end, he
confided to me his principles and his affairs, and I took
him to be the happiest man in the world. "I have everything,"
he said, “all that I have wished for or can wish for: health,
riches, domestic peace (being unmarried), a tolerably good con-
science, books — and as much sense as I need to enjoy them. I
experience only one single want, lack only one single pleasure
in this world; but that one is enough to embitter my life and
class me with other unfortunates. ”
I could not guess what might yet be wanting to such a man
under such conditions. "It cannot be liberty,” I said, “for how
can a rich merchant in a free town lack this ? »
“No! Heave'n save me ---I neither would nor could live one
single day without liberty. ”
“You do not happen to be in love with some cruel or unhappy
princess ? »
“That is still less the case. ”
«Ah? - now I have it, no doubt. your soul is consumed with
a thirst for truth, for a satisfactory answer to the many questions
which are but philosophic riddles. You are seeking what so
many brave men from Anaxagoras to Spinoza have sought in
vain — the corner-stone of philosophy, the foundation of the struct-
ure of our ideas. ”
He assured me that in this respect he was quite at ease.
“Then, in spite of your good health, you must be subject to that
miserable thing, a cold in the head ? ” I said.
“Uno minor — Jove, dives
Liber, honoratus, pulcher rex denique regum,
Præcipue sanus — nisi cum pituita molesta est. ”
— HORACE.
When he denied this too, I gave up trying to solve the mean-
ing of his dark words.
O happiness! of all earthly chimeras thou art the most
chimerical! I would rather seek dry figs on the bottom of the
sea and fresh ones on this heath,- I would rather seek liberty,
## p. 1240 (#30) ############################################
I 240
JENS BAGGESEN
or truth itself, or the philosopher's stone, than to run after thee,
most deceitful of lights, will-o'-the-wisp of our human life!
I thought that at last I had found a perfectly happy, an
enviable man; and now - behold! though I have not the ten-
thousandth part of his wealth, though I have not the tenth part
of his health, though I may not have a third of his intellect,
although I have all the wants which he has not and the one want
under which he suffers, yet I would not change places with him!
From this moment he was the object of my sincerest pity.
But what did this awful curse prove to be ? Listen and tremble!
« Of what use is it all to me? ” he said: “coffee, which I love
more than all the wines of this earth and more than all the
women of this earth, coffee which I love madly — coffee is for-
bidden me! ”
Laugh who lists! Inasmuch as everything in this world,
viewed in a certain light, is tragic, it would be excusable to
weep: but inasmuch as everything viewed in another light is
comic, a little laughter could not be taken amiss; only beware of
laughing at the sigh with which my happy man pronounced these
words, for it might be that in laughing at him you laugh at
yourself, your father, your grandfather, your great-grandfather,
your great-great-grandfather, and so on, including your entire
family as far back as Adam.
If, in laughing at such discontent, you laugh in advance at
your son, your son's son's son, and so forth to the last descend-
ant of your entire family, this is a matter which I do not decide.
It will depend upon the road humanity chooses to take. If it
continues as it is going, some coffee-want or other will forever
strew it with thorns.
Had he said, “Chocolate is forbidden me," or tea, or English
ale, or madeira, or strawberries, you would have found his mis-
ery equally absurd.
The great Alexander is said to have wept because he found
no more worlds to conquer. The man who bemoans the loss of
a world and the man who bemoans the loss of coffee are to my
mind equally unbalanced and equally in need of forgiveness.
The desire for a cup of coffee and the desire for a crown, the
hankering after the flavor or even the fragrance of the drink and
the hankering after fame, are equally mad and equally — human.
If history is to be believed, Adam possessed all the advantages
and comforts, all the necessities and luxuries a first man could
## p. 1241 (#31) ############################################
JENS BAGGESEN
I 241
reasonably demand.
Lord of all living things, and
sharing his dominion with his beloved, what did he lack?
Among ten thousand pleasures, the fruit of one single tree
was forbidden him. Good-by content and peace! Good-by for-
ever all his bliss!
I acknowledge that I should have yielded to the same tempta-
tion; and he who does not see that this fate would have over-
taken his entire family, past and to come, may have studied all
things from the Milky Way in the sky to the milky way in his
kitchen, may have studied all stones, plants, and animals, and
all folios and quartos dealing therewith, but never himself or
man.
As we do not know the nature of the fruit which Adam
could not do without, it may as well have been coffee as any
other. That it was pleasant to the eyes means no more than
that it was forbidden. Every forbidden thing is pleasant to the
eyes.
“Of what use is it all to me? ” said Adam, looking around
him in Eden, at the rising sun, the blushing hills, the light-
green forest, the glorious waterfall, the laden fruit-trees, and,
most beautiful of all, the smiling woman of what use is it all
to me, when I dare not taste this - coffee bean?
“And of what use is it all to me ? ” said Mr. Caillard, and
looked around him on the Lüneburg heath: "coffee is forbidden
me; one single cup of coffee would kill me. ”
“If it will be any comfort to you,” I said, "I may tell you
that I am in the same case. ” “And you do not despair at
times ? » "No," I replied, for it is not my only want. If like
you I had everything else in life, I also might despair. ”
## p. 1242 (#32) ############################################
1 242
JENS BAGGESEN
THERE WAS A TIME WHEN I WAS VERY LITTLE
T"
HERE was a time, when I, an urchin slender,
Could hardly boast of having any height.
Oft I recall those days with feelings tender:
With smiles, and yet the tear-drops dim my sight.
Within my tender mother's arms I sported,
I played at horse upon my grandsire's knee;
Sorrow and care and anger, ill-reported,
As little known as gold or Greek, to me.
The world was little to my childish thinking,
And innocent of sin and sinful things;
I saw the stars above me flashing, winking -
To fly and catch them, how I longed for wings!
I saw the moon behind the hills declining,
And thought, O were I on yon lofty ground,
I'd learn the truth; for here there's no divining
How large it is, how beautiful, how round!
In wonder, too, I saw God's sun pursuing
His westward course, to ocean's lap of gold;
And yet at morn the East he was renewing
With wide-spread, rosy tints, this artist old.
Then turned my thoughts to God the Father gracious,
Who fashioned me and that great orb on high,
And the night's jewels, decking heaven spacious;
From pole to pole its arch to glorify.
With childish piety my lips repeated
The prayer learned at my pious mother's knee:
Help me remember, Jesus, I entreated,
That I must grow up good and true to Thee!
Then for the household did I make petition,
For kindred, friends, and for the town's folk, last;
The unknown King, the outcast, whose condition
Darkened my childish joy, as he slunk past.
All lost, all vanished, childhood's days so eager!
My peace, my joy with them have fled away;
I've only memory left: possession meagre;
Oh, never may that leave me, Lord, I pray.
## p. 1243 (#33) ############################################
I 243
PHILIP JAMES BAILEY
(1816-)
N BAILEY we have a striking instance of the man whose rep-
utation is made suddenly by a single work, which obtains
an amazing popularity, and which is presently almost for-
gotten except as a name. When in 1839 the long poem (Festus
appeared, its author was an unknown youth, who had hardly reached
his majority. Within a few months he was a celebrity.
That so
dignified and suggestive a performance should have come from so
young a poet was considered a marvel of precocity by the literary
world, both English and American.
The author of Festus) was born at
Basford, Nottinghamshire, England, April
22d, 1816. Educated at the public schools
of Nottingham, and at Glasgow University,
he studied law, and at nineteen entered
Lincoln's Inn. In 1840 he was admitted
to the bar. But his vocation in life
appears to have been metaphysical and
spiritual rather than legal.
His "Festus: a Poem,' containing fifty-
five episodes or successive scenes, - some
thirty-five thousand lines, — was begun in
his twentieth year. Three years later it
PHILIP JAMES BAILEY
was in the hands of the English reading
public. Like Goethe's (Faustin pursuing the course of a human
soul through influences emanating from the Supreme Good and the
Supreme Evil; in having Heaven and the World as its scene; in its
inclusion of God and the Devil, the Archangels and Angels, the
Powers of Perdition, and withal many earthly types in its action,
it is by no means a mere imitation of the great German. Its plan is
wider. It incorporates even more impressive spiritual material than
Faust' offers. Not only is its mortal hero, Festus, conducted
through an amazing pilgrimage, spiritual and redeemed by divine
Love, but we have in the poem a conception of close association
with Christianity, profound ethical suggestions, a flood of theology
and philosophy, metaphysics and science, picturing Good and Evil,
love and hate, peace and war, the past, the present, and the future,
earth, heaven, and hell, heights and depths, dominions, principalities,
and powers, God and man, the whole of being and of not-being,— all
## p. 1244 (#34) ############################################
1
1
1
1 244
PHILIP JAMES BAILEY
in an effort to unmask the last and greatest secrets of Infinity. And
more than all this, Festus' strives to portray the sufficiency of
Divine Love and of the Divine Atonement to dissipate, even to anni-
hilate, Evil. For even Lucifer and the hosts of darkness are restored
to purity and to peace among the Sons of God, the Children of
Light! The Love of God is set forth as limitless. We have before
us the birth of matter at the Almighty's fiat; and we close the work
with the salvation and ecstasy — described as decreed from the Begin-
ning — of whatever creature hath been given a spiritual existence,
and made a spiritual subject and agency. There is in the doctrine
of Festus? no such thing as the “Son of Perdition” who shall be
an ultimate castaway.
Few English poems have attracted more general notice from all
intelligent classes of readers than did Festus) on its advent. Ortho-
doxy was not a little aghast at its theologic suggestions. Criticism
of it as a literary production was hampered not a little by religious
sensitiveness. The London Literary Gazette said of it:–«It is an
extraordinary production, out-Heroding Kant in some of its phi-
losophy, and out-Goetheing Goethe in the introduction of the Three
Persons of the Trinity as interlocutors in its wild plot. Most objec-
tionable as it is on this account, it yet contains so many exquisite
passages of genuine poetry, that our admiration of the author's
genius overpowers the feeling of mortification at its being misap-
plied, and meddling with such dangerous topics. ” The advance of
liberal ideas within the churches has diminished such criticism, but
the work is still a stumbling-block to the less speculative of sec-
taries.
The poem is far too long, and its scope too vast for even
genius of much higher and riper gifts than Bailey's. It is turgid,
untechnical in verse, wordy, and involved. Had Bailey written at
fifty instead of at twenty, it might have shown a necessary balance
and felicity of style. But, with all these shortcomings, it is not to
be relegated to the library of things not worth the time to know, to
the list of bulky poetic failures. Its author blossomed and fruited
marvelously early; so early and with such unlooked-for fruit that the
unthinking world, which first received him with exaggerated honor,
presently assailed him with undue dispraise. (Festus' is not mere
solemn and verbose commonplace.
Here and there it has passages
of great force and even of high beauty. The author's whole heart
and brain were poured into it, and neither was
With all its ill-based daring and manifest crudities, it was such a
tour de force for a lad of twenty as the world seldom sees.
Its slug-
gish current bears along remarkable knowledge, great reflection, and
the imagination of a fertile as well as a precocious brain.
It is a
a
a
common
one.
## p. 1245 (#35) ############################################
PHILIP JAMES BAILEY
1 245
stream which carries with it things new and old, and serves to stir
the mind of the onlooker with unwonted thoughts. Were it but one
fourth as long, it would still remain a favorite poem. Even now it
has passed through numerous editions, and been but lately repub-
lished in sumptuous form after fifty years of life; and in the cata-
logue of higher metaphysico-religious poetry it will long maintain
an honorable place. It is cited here among the books whose fame
rather than whose importance demand recognition.
FROM (FESTUS)
LIFE
F
ESTUS —
Men's callings all
Are mean and vain; their wishes more so: oft
The man is bettered by his part or place.
How slight a chance may raise or sink a soul!
Lucifer -- What men call accident is God's own part.
He lets ye work your will — it is his own:
But that ye mean not, know not, do not, he doth.
Festus — What is life worth without a heart to feel
The great and lovely harmonies which time
And nature change responsive, all writ out
By preconcertive hand which swells the strain
To divine fulness; feel the poetry,
The soothing rhythm of life's fore-ordered lay;
The sacredness of things ? — for all things are
Sacred so far, - the worst of them, as seen
By the eye of God, they in the aspect bide
Of holiness: nor shall outlaw sin be slain,
Though rebel banned, within the sceptre's length;
But privileged even for service. Oh! to stand
Soul-raptured, on some lofty mountain-thought,
And feel the spirit expand into a view
Millennial, life-exalting, of a day
When earth shall have all leisure for high ends
Of social culture; ends a liberal law
And common peace of nations, blent with charge
Divine, shall win for man, were joy indeed:
Nor greatly less, to know what might be now,
Worked will for good with power, for one brief hour.
But look at these, these individual souls:
How sadly men show out of joint with man!
There are millions never think a noble thought;
## p. 1246 (#36) ############################################
1246
PHILIP JAMES BAILEY
But with brute hate of brightness bay a mind
Which drives the darkness out of them, like hounds.
Throw but a false glare round them, and in shoals
They rush upon perdition: that's the race.
What charm is in this world-scene to such minds?
Blinded by dust ? What can they do in heaven,
A state of spiritual means and ends ?
Thus must I doubt — perpetually doubt.
Lucifer - Who never doubted never half believed.
Where doubt, there truth is —-'tis her shadow. I
Declare unto thee that the past is not.
I have looked over all life, yet never seen
The age that had been. Why then fear or dream
About the future? Nothing but what is, is;
Else God were not the Maker that he seems,
As constant in creating as in being.
Embrace the present. Let the future pass.
Plague not thyself about a future. That
Only which comes direct from God, his spirit,
Is deathless. Nature gravitates without
Effort; and so all mortal natures fall
Deathwards. All aspiration is a toil;
But inspiration cometh from above,
And is no labor. The earth's inborn strength
Could never lift her up to yon stars, whence
She fell; nor human soul, by native worth,
Claim heaven as birthright, more than man may call
Cloudland his home. The soul's inheritance,
Its birth-place, and its death-place, is of earth;
Until God maketh earth and soul anew;
The one like heaven, the other like himself.
So shall the new creation come at once;
Sin, the dead branch upon the tree of life
Shall be cut off forever; and all souls
Concluded in God's boundless amnesty.
Festus — Thou windest and unwindest faith at will.
What am I to believe ?
Lucifer -
Thou mayest believe
But that thou art forced to.
Festus —
Then I feel, perforce,
That instinct of immortal life in me,
Which prompts me to provide for it.
Lucifer --
Perhaps.
Festus — Man hath a knowledge of a time to come —
His most important knowledge: the weight lies
## p. 1247 (#37) ############################################
PHILIP JAMES BAILEY
1 247
Nearest the short end; and the world depends
Upon what is to be.
I would deny
The present, if the future. Oh! there is
A life to come, or all's a dream.
Lucifer -
And all
May be a dream. Thou seest in thine, men, deeds,
Clear, moving, full of speech and order; then
Why may not all this world be but a dream
Of God's? Fear not! Some morning God may waken.
Festus- I would it were. This life's a mystery.
The value of a thought cannot be told;
But it is clearly worth a thousand lives
Like many men's. And yet men love to live
As if mere life were worth their living for.
What but perdition will it be to most ?
Life's more than breath and the quick round of blood;
It is a great spirit and a busy heart.
The coward and the small in soul scarce do live.
One generous feeling —one great thought —one deed
Of good, ere night, would make life longer seem
Than if each year might number a thousand days,
Spent as is this by nations of mankind.
We live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, not breaths;
In feelings, not in figures on a dial.
We should count time by heart-throbs. He most lives
Who thinks most — feels the noblest — acts the best.
Life's but a means unto an end that end
Beginning, mean, and end to all things — God.
The dead have all the glory of the world.
Why will we live and not be glorious ?
We never can be deathless till we die.
It is the dead win battles. And the breath
Of those who through the world drive like a wedge,
Tearing earth's empires up, nears Death so close
It dims his well-worn scythe. But no! the brave
Die never. Being deathless, they but change
Their country's arms for more their country's heart.
Give then the dead their due: it is they who saved us.
The rapid and the deep - the fall, the gulph,
Have likenesses in feeling and in life.
And life, so varied, hath more loveliness
In one day than a creeping century
Of sameness. But youth loves and lives on change,
Till the soul sighs for sameness; which at last
## p. 1248 (#38) ############################################
1248
PHILIP JAMES BAILEY
Becomes variety, and takes its place.
Yet some will last to die out, thought by thought,
And power by power, and limb of mind by limb,
Like lamps upon a gay device of glass,
Till all of soul that's left be dry and dark;
Till even the burden of some ninety years
Hath crashed into them like a rock; shattered
Their system as if ninety suns had rushed
To ruin earth — or heaven had rained its stars;
Till they become like scrolls, unreadable,
Through dust and mold. Can they be cleaned and read ?
Do human spirits wax and wane like moons ?
Lucifer — The eye dims, and the heart gets old and slow;
The lithe limbs stiffen, and the sun-hued locks
Thin themselves off, or whitely wither; still,
Ages not spirit, even in one point,
Immeasurably small; from orb to orb,
Rising in radiance ever like the sun
Shining upon the thousand lands of earth.
THE PASSING-BELL
LARA
C
True prophet mayst thou be. But list: that sound
The passing-bell the spirit should solemnize;
For, while on its emancipate path, the soul
Still waves its upward wings, and we still hear
The warning sound, it is known, we well may pray.
Festus — But pray for whom ?
Clara -
It means not. Pray for all.
Pray for the good man's soul:
He is leaving earth for heaven,
And it soothes us to feel that the best
May be forgiven.
Festus — Pray for the sinful soul:
It fleëth, we know not where;
But wherever it be let us hope;
For God is there.
Clara — Pray for the rich man's soul:
Not all be unjust, nor vain;
The wise he consoled; and he saved
The poor from pain.
## p. 1249 (#39) ############################################
PHILIP JAMES BAILEY
I 249
Festus -- Pray for the poor man's soul:
The death of this life of ours
He hath shook from his feet; he is one
Of the heavenly powers.
Pray for the old man's soul:
He hath labored long; through life
It was battle or march. He hath ceased,
Serene, from strife.
Clara — Pray for the infant's soul:
With its spirit crown unsoiled,
He hath won, without war, a realm;
Gained all, nor toiled.
Festus - Pray for the struggling soul:
The mists of the straits of death
Clear off; in some bright star-isle
It anchoreth.
Pray for the soul assured:
Though it wrought in a gloomy mine,
Yet the gems it earned were its own,
That soul's divine.
Clara -- Pray for the simple soul:
For it loved, and therein was wise;
Though itself knew not, but with heaven
Confused the skies.
Festus - Pray for the sage's soul:
’Neath his welkin wide of mind
Lay the central thought of God,
Thought undefined.
Pray for the souls of all
To our God, that all may be
With forgiveness crowned, and joy
Eternally.
Clara - Hush! for the bell hath ceased;
And the spirit's fate is sealed;
To the angels known; to man
Best unrevealed.
II1–79
## p. 1250 (#40) ############################################
1 250
PHILIP JAMES BAILEY
THOUGHTS
- Well, farewell, Mr. Student. May you never
FRegret those hours which make the mind, if they
can
Unmake the body; for the sooner we
Are fit to be all mind, the better. Blessed
Is he whose heart is the home of the great dead,
And their great thoughts. Who mistake great
They seize upon the mind; arrest and search, [thoughts
And shake it; bow the tall soul as by wind;
Rush over it like a river over reeds,
Which quaver in the current; turn us cold,
And pale, and voiceless; leaving in the brain
A rocking and a ringing; glorious,
But momentary, madness might it last,
And close the soul with heaven as with a seal!
In lieu of all these things whose loss thou mournest,
If earnestly or not I know not, use
The great and good and true which ever live;
And are all common to pure eyes and true.
Upon the summit of each mountain-thought
Worship thou God, with heaven-uplifted head
And arms horizon-stretched; for deity is seen
From every elevation of the soul.
Study the light; attempt the high; seek out
The soul's bright path; and since the soul is fire,
Of heat intelligential, turn it aye
To the all-Fatherly source of light and life;
Piety purifies the soul to see
Visions, perpetually, of grace and power,
Which, to their sight who in ignorant sin abide,
Are now as e'er incognizable. Obey
Thy genius, for a minister it is
Unto the throne of Fate. Draw towards thy soul,
And centralize, the rays which are around
Of the divinity. Keep thy spirit pure
From worldly taint, by the repellent strength
Of virtue. Think on noble thoughts and deeds,
Ever. Count o'er the rosary of truth;
And practice precepts which are proven wise,
It matters not then what thou fearest. Walk
Boldly and wisely in that light thou hast;
There is a hand above will help thee on.
I am an omnist, and believe in all
Religions; fragments of one golden world
To be relit yet, and take its place in heaven,
## p. 1251 (#41) ############################################
PHILIP JAMES BAILEY
1251
Where is the whole, sole truth, in deity.
Meanwhile, his word, his law, writ soulwise here,
Study; its truths love; practice its behests -
They will be with thee when all else have gone.
Mind, body, passion all wear out; not faith
Nor truth. Keep thy heart cool, or rule its heat
To fixed ends; waste it not upon itself.
Not all the agony maybe of the damned
Fused in one pang, vies with that earthquake throb
Which wakens soul from life-waste, to let see
The world rolled by for aye, and we must wait
For our next chance the nigh eternity;
Whether it be in heaven, or elsewhere.
DREAMS
ESTUS
F
The dead of night: earth seems but seeming;
The soul seems but a something dreaming.
The bird is dreaming in its nest,
Of song, and sky, and loved one's breast;
The lap-dog dreams, as round he lies,
In moonshine, of his mistress's eyes;
The steed is dreaming, in his stall,
Of one long breathless leap and fall;
The hawk hath dreamed him thrice of wings
Wide as the skies he may not cleave;
But waking, feels them clipped, and clings
Mad to the perch 'twere mad to leave:
The child is dreaming of its toys;
The murderer, of calm home joys;
The weak are dreaming endless fears;
The proud of how their pride appears;
The poor enthusiast who dies,
Of his life-dreams the sacrifice,
Sees, as enthusiast only can,
The truth that made him more than man;
And hears once more, in visioned trance,
That voice commanding to advance,
Where wealth is gained - love, wisdom won,
Or deeds of danger dared and done.
The mother dreameth of her child;
The maid of him who hath beguiled;
The youth of her he loves too well;
The good of God; the ill of hell;
## p. 1252 (#42) ############################################
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PHILIP JAMES BAILEY
Who live of death; of life who die;
The dead of immortality.
The earth is dreaming back her youth;
Hell never dreains, for woe is truth;
And heaven is dreaming o'er her prime,
Long ere the morning stars of time;
And dream of heaven alone can I,
My lovely one, when thou art nigh.
CHORUS OF THE SAVED
From the Conclusion
F
ATHER of goodness,
Son of love,
Spirit of comfort,
Be with us!
God who hast made us,
God who hast saved,
God who hast judged us,
Thee we praise.
Heaven our spirits,
Hallow our hearts;
Let us have God-light
Endlessly.
Ours is the wide world,
Heaven on heaven;
What have we done, Lord,
Worthy this?
Oh! we have loved thee;
That alone
Maketh our glory,
Duty, meed.
Oh! we have loved thee!
Love we will
Ever, and every
Soul of us.
God of the saved,
God of the tried,
God of the lost ones,
Be with all!
Let us be near thee
Ever and aye;
Oh! let us love thee
Infinite!
## p. 1253 (#43) ############################################
1 253
JOANNA BAILLIE
(1762-1851)
J
JOANNA Baillie's early childhood was passed at Bothwell, Scot-
land, where she was born in 1762. Of this time she drew
a picture in her well-known birthday lines to her sister:-
Dear Agnes, gleamed with joy and dashed with tears,
O'er us have glided almost sixty years
Since we on Bothwell's bonny braes were seen,
By those whose eyes long closed in death have been:
Two tiny imps, who scarcely stooped to gather
The slender harebell, or the purple heather;
No taller than the foxglove's spiky stem,
That dew of morning studs with silvery gem.
Then every butterfly that crossed our view
With joyful shout was eted as it flew,
And moth and lady-bird and beetle bright
In sheeny gold were each a wondrous sight.
Then as we paddled barefoot, side by side,
Among the sunny shallows of the Clyde,
Minnows or spotted par with twinkling fin,
Swimming in mazy rings the pool within,
A thrill of gladness through our bosoms sent
Seen in the power of early wonderment. ”
JOANNA BAILLIE
When Joanna was six her father was appointed to the charge of
the kirk at Hamilton. Her early growth went on, not in books, but
in the fearlessness with which she ran upon the top of walls and
parapets of bridges and in all daring. «Look at Miss Jack,” said a
farmer, as she dashed by: “she sits her horse as if it were a bit of
herself. ” At eleven she could not read well. «'Twas thou,” she said
in lines to her sister —
(('Twas thou who woo'dst me first to look
Upon the page of printed book,
That thing by me abhorred, and with address
Didst win me from my thoughtless idleness,
When all too old become with bootless haste
In fitful sports the precious time to waste.
Thy love of tale and story was the stroke
At which my dormant fancy first awoke,
And ghosts and witches in my busy brain
Arose in sombre show, a motley train. ”
## p. 1254 (#44) ############################################
1254
JOANNA BAILLIE
In 1776 Dr. James Baillie was made Professor of Divinity at Glas-
gow University. During the two years the family lived in the col-
lege atmosphere, Joanna first read Comus,' and, led by the delight
it awakened, the great epic of Milton. It was here that her vigor
and disputatious turn of mind “cast an awe” over her companions.
After her father's death she settled, in 1784, with her mother and
brother and sister in London.
She had made herself familiar with English literature, and above
all she had studied Shakespeare with enthusiasm. Circumscribed
now by the brick and mortar of London streets, in exchange for the
fair views and liberties of her native fruitlands, Joanna found her
first expression in a volume of Fugitive Verses, published in 1790.
The book caused so little comment that the words of but one friendly
hand are preserved: that the poems were “truly unsophisticated rep-
resentations of nature. ”
Joanna's walk was along calm and unhurried ways. She could
have had a considerable place in society and the world of “lions » if
she had cared. The wife of her uncle and name-father, the anato-
mist Dr. John Hunter, was no other than the famous Mrs. Anne
Hunter, a songwright of genius; her poem “The Son of Alknomook
Shall Never Complain' is one of the classics of English song, and
the best rendering of the Indian spirit ever condensed into so small
a space. She was also a woman of grace and dignity, a power in
London drawing-rooms, and Haydn set songs of hers to music. But
the reserved Joanna was tempted to no light triumphs. Eight years
later was published her first volume of Plays on the Passions. ' It
contained (Basil,' a tragedy on love; (The Trial,' a comedy on the
same subject; and De Montfort,' a tragedy on hatred.
The thought of essaying dramatic composition had burst' upon the
author one summer afternoon as she sat sewing with her mother.
She had a high moral purpose in her plan of composition, she said
in her preface, that purpose being the ultimate utterance of the
drama. Plot and incident she set little value upon, and she rejected
the presentation of the most splendid event if it did not appertain
to the development of the passion. In other words, what is and was
commonly of secondary consideration in the swift passage of dra-
matic action became in her hands the stated and paramount object.
Feeling and passion are not precipitated by incident in her drama as
in real life. The play De Montfort' was presented at Drury Lane
Theatre in 1800; but in spite of every effort and the acting of John
Kemble and Mrs. Siddons, it had a run of but eleven nights.
In 1802 Miss Baillie published her second volume of Plays on the
Passions. It contained a comedy on hatred; Ethwald,' a tragedy
on ambition; and a comedy on ambition. Her adherence to her old
1
## p. 1255 (#45) ############################################
JOANNA BAILLIE
I 255
plan brought upon her an attack from Jeffrey in the Edinburgh
Review. He claimed that the complexity of the moral nature of
man made Joanna's theory false and absurd, that a play was too nar-
row to show the complete growth of a passion, and that the end of
the drama is the entertainment of the audience. He asserted that
she imitated and plagiarized Shakespeare; while he admitted her
insight into human nature, her grasp of character, and her devotion
to her work.
About the time of the appearance of this volume, Joanna fixed
her residence with her mother and sister, among the lanes and fields
of Hampstead, where they continued throughout their lives. The
first volume of Miscellaneous Plays) came out in 1804. In the pref-
ace she stated that her opinions set forth in her first preface were
unchanged. But the plays had a freer construction. “Miss Baillie,”
wrote Jeffrey in his review, “cannot possibly write a tragedy, or an
act of a tragedy, without showing genius and exemplifying a more
dramatic conception and expression than any of her modern compet-
itors. ”
Constantine Palæologus,' which the volume contained, had
the liveliest commendation and popularity, and several times put
upon the stage with spectacular effect.
In the year of the publication of Joanna's Miscellaneous Plays,'
Sir Walter Scott came to London, and seeking an introduction
through a common friend, made the way for a lifelong friendship
between the two, He had just brought out “The Lay of the Last
Minstrel. ' Miss Baillie was already a famous writer, with fast friends
in Lucy Aikin, Mary Berry, Mrs. Siddons, and other workers in art
and literature; but the hearty commendation of her countryman,
which she is said to have come upon unexpectedly when reading
(Marmion' to a group of friends, she valued beyond other praise.
The legend is that she read through the passage firmly to the close,
and only lost self-control in her sympathy with the emotion of a
friend :-
(The wild harp that silent hung
By silver Avon's holy shore
Till twice one hundred years rolled o'er,
When she the bold enchantress came,
From the pale willow snatched the treasure,
With fearless hand and heart in flame,
And swept it with a kindred measure;
Till Avon's swans, while rung the grove
With Montfort's hate and Basil's love,
Awakening at the inspired strain,
Deemed their own Shakespeare lived again. ”
## p. 1256 (#46) ############################################
1256
JOANNA BAILLIE
a
were
con-
The year 1810 saw (The Family Legend, a play founded on
tragic history of the Campbell clan. Scott wrote a prologue and
brought out the play in the Edinburgh Theatre. « You have only
to imagine,” he told the author, "all that you could wish to give
success to a play, and your conceptions will still fall short of the
complete and decided triumph of "The Family Legend. ) »
The attacks which Jeffrey had made upon her verse
tinued when she published, in 1812, her third volume of Plays on
the Passions. His voice, however, did not diminish the admiration
for the character-drawing with which the book was greeted, or for
the lyric outbursts occurring now and then in the dramas.
Joanna's quiet Hampstead life was broken in 1813 by a genial
meeting in London with the ambitious Madame de Staël, and again
with the vivacious little Irish woman, Maria Edgeworth.
She was
keeping her promise of not writing more; but during a visit to Sir
Walter in 1820 her imagination was touched by Scotch tales, and she
published Metrical Legends' the following year. In this vast Abbots-
ford she finally consented to meet Jeffrey. The plucky little writer
and the unshrinking critic at once became friends, and thenceforward
Jeffrey never went to London without visiting her in Hampstead.
Her moral courage throughout life recalls the physical courage
which characterized her youth. She never concealed her religious
convictions, and in 1831 she published her ideas in A View of the
General Tenor of the New Testament Regarding the Nature and
Dignity of Jesus Christ. In 1836, having finally given up the long
hope of seeing her plays become popular upon the stage, she pre-
pared a complete edition of her dramas with the addition of three
plays never before made public, — (Romiero,' a tragedy, "The Alien-
ated Manor,' a comedy on jealousy, and Henriquez, a tragedy on
remorse. The Edinburgh Review immediately put forth a eulogistic
notice of the collected edition, and at last admitted that the reviewer
had changed his judgment, and esteemed the author as a dramatist
above Byron and Scott.
“May God support both you and me, and give us comfort and
consolation when it is most wanted,” wrote Miss Baillie to Mary
Berry in 1837. “As for myself, I do not wish to be one year
younger than I am; and have no desire, were it possible, to begin
life again, even under the most honorable circumstances. I have
great cause for humble thankfulness, and I am thankful. ”
In 1840 Jeffrey wrote:-“I have been twice out to Hampstead,
and found Joanna Baillie as fresh, natural, and amiable as ever, and
as little like a tragic muse. ” And again in 1842: _“She is marvelous
in health and spirit; not a bit deaf, blind, or torpid. ” About this
time she published her last book, a volume of Fugitive Verses. '
## p. 1257 (#47) ############################################
JOANNA BAILLIE
1257
"A sweeter picture of old age was never seen,” wrote Harriet
Martineau. «Her figure was small, light, and active; her counte-
nance, in its expression of serenity, harmonized wonderfully with her
gay conversation and her cheerful voice. Her eyes were beautiful,
dark, bright, and penetrating, with the full innocent gaze of child-
hood. Her face was altogether comely, and her dress did justice
to it. She wore her own silvery hair and a mob cap, with its delicate
lace border fitting close around her face. She was well dressed, in
handsome dark silks, and her lace caps and collars looked always
new. No Quaker was ever neater, while she kept up with the times
in her dress as in her habit of mind, as far as became her years.
In her whole appearance there was always something for even the
passing stranger to admire, and never anything for the most familiar
friend to wish otherwise. ” She died, without suffering, in the full
possession of her faculties,” in her ninetieth year, 1851.
Her dramatic and poetical works are collected in one volume
(1843). Her Life, with selections from her songs, may be found in
(The Songstress of Scotland, by Sarah Tytler and J. L. Watson
(1871).
WOOD AND MARRIED AND A'
THE
HE bride she is winsome and bonny,
Her hair it is snooded sae sleek,
And faithfu' and kind is her Johnny,
Yet fast fa' the tears on her cheek.
New pearlins are cause of her sorrow,
New pearlins and plenishing too:
The bride that has a' to borrow
Has e'en right mickle ado.
Woo'd and married and a'!
Woo'd and married and a'!
Isna she very weel aff
To be woo'd and married at a'?
Her mither then hastily spak:-
«The lassie is glaikit wi' pride;
In my pouch I had never a plack
On the day when I was a bride.
E'en tak’ to your wheel and be clever,
And draw out your thread in the sun;
The gear that is gifted, it never
Will last like the gear that is won.
Woo'd and married and a'!
Wi' havins and tocher sae sma'!
## p. 1258 (#48) ############################################
1258
JOANNA BAILLIE
I think ye are very weel aff
To be woo'd and married at a'! »
“Toot, toot! " quo' her gray-headed faither,
«She's less o' a bride than a bairn;
She's ta'en like a cout frae the heather,
Wi’ sense and discretion to learn.
Half husband, I trow, and half daddy,
As humor inconstantly leans,
The chiel maun be patient and steady
That yokes wi’ a mate in her teens.
A kerchief sae douce and sae neat,
O'er her locks that the wind used to blaw!
I'm baith like to laugh and to greet
When I think o' her married at a'. »
Then out spak' the wily bridegroom,
Weel waled were his wordies I ween:
“I'm rich, though my coffer be toom,
Wi’ the blinks o' your bonny blue e'en.
I'm prouder o' thee by my side,
Though thy ruffles or ribbons be few,
Than if Kate o' the Croft were my bride,
Wi' purfles and pearlins enow.
Dear and dearest of ony!
Ye're woo'd and buiket and a'!
And do ye think scorn o’ your Johnny,
And grieve to be married at a'? »
She turn'd, and she blush'd, and she smil'd,
And she looket sae bashfully down;
The pride o' her heart was beguil'd,
And she played wi’ the sleeves o' her gown;
She twirlet the tag o’her lace,
And she nippet her bodice sae blue,
Syne blinket sae sweet in his face,
And aff like a maukin she flew.
Woo'd and married and a'!
Wi' Johnny to roose her and a'!
She thinks hersel' very weel aff
To be woo'd and married at a'!
## p. 1259 (#49) ############################################
JOANNA BAILLIE
1259
IT WAS ON A MORN WHEN WE WERE THRANG
I
T WAS on a morn when we were thrang,
The kirn it croon'd, the cheese was making,
And bannocks on the girdle baking,
When ane at the door chapp't loud and lang.
Yet the auld gudewife, and her mays sae tight,
Of a' this bauld din took sma' notice I ween;
For a chap at the door in braid daylight
Is no like a chap that's heard at e'en.
But the docksy auld laird of the Warlock glen,
Wha waited without, half blate, half cheery,
And langed for a sight o' his winsome deary,
Raised up the latch and cam' crousely ben.
His coat it was new, and his o'erlay was white,
His mittens and hose were cozie and bien;
But a wooer that comes in braid daylight
Is no like a wooer that comes at e'en.
He greeted the carline and lasses sae braw,
And his bare lyart pow sae smoothly he straikit,
And he looket about, like a body half glaikit,
On bonny sweet Nanny, the youngest of a'.
Ha, laird! ” quo' the carline, "and look ye that way?
Fye, let na' sic fancies bewilder you clean:
An elderlin man, in the noon o' the day,
Should be wiser than youngsters that come at e'en.
“Na, na," quo' the pawky auld wife, “I trow
You'll no fash your head wi' a youthfu' gilly,
As wild and as skeig as a muirland filly:
Black Madge is far better and fitter for you. "
He hem'd and he haw'd, and he drew in his mouth,
And he squeezed the blue bannet his twa hands between;
For a wooer that comes when the sun's i' the south
Is mair landward than wooers that come at e'en.
« Black Madge is sae carefu) – “What's that to me ? ”
“She's sober and eydent, has sense in her noodle;
She's douce and respeckit ” — “I carena a bodle:
Love winna be guided, and fancy's free. ”
Madge toss'd back her head wi' a saucy slight,
And Nanny, loud laughing, ran out to the green;
For a wooer that comes when the sun shines bright
Is no like wooer that comes at e'en.
## p. 1260 (#50) ############################################
1260
JOANNA BAILLIE
Then away flung the laird, and loud mutter'd he,
«A' the daughters of Eve, between Orkney and Tweed 0!
