"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.
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.
Warner - World's Best Literature - v03 - Bag to Ber
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D. frosch
HENRY WARD BEECHER.
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LIBRARY
WORLD'S BEST LITERATURE
2ncient and frien
(HARLES DUDLES WIRVR
Ei liiR
IL VILTI VIRIGI! " VABI 1101 (ILDI. RIVE
TERT I WIRNIK
IROL
TI MOS
VOL. II
Vili'yi
l':,! ! !
TIL
## p. 1222 (#12) ############################################
## p. 1223 (#13) ############################################
LIBRARY
OF
THE
WORLD'S BEST LITERATURE
Ancient and Modern
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER
EDITOR
HAMILTON WRIGHT MABIE, LUCIA GILBERT RUNKLE,
GEORGE H. WARNER
ASSOCIATE EDITORS
THIRTY VOLUMES
VOL. III
NEW YORK
R. S. PEALE AND J. A. HILL
PUBLISHERS
## p. 1224 (#14) ############################################
COPYRIGHT 1897
BY R. S. PEALE AND J. A. HILL
All rights reserved
COMPANY
THE WERNER
1
DOR
LINDERS
## p. 1225 (#15) ############################################
THE ADVISORY COUNCIL
CRAWFORD H. TOY, A. M. , LL. D. ,
Professor of Hebrew, HARVARD UNIVERSITY, Cambridge, Mass.
THOMAS R. LOUNSBURY, LL. D. , L. H. D. ,
Professor of English in the Sheffield Scientific School of
YALE UNIVERSITY, New Haven, Conn.
WILLIAM M. SLOANE, Ph. D. , L. H. D. ,
Professor of History and Political Science,
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY, Princeton, N. J.
BRANDER MATTHEWS, A. M. , LL. B. ,
Professor of Literature, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY, New York City.
JAMES B. ANGELL, LL. D. ,
President of the UNIVERSITY OF Michigan, Ann Arbor, Mich.
WILLARD FISKE, A. M. , Ph. D. ,
Late Professor of the Germanic and Scandinavian Languages
and Literatures,
CORNELL UNIVERSITY, Ithaca, N. Y.
EDWARD S. HOLDEN, A. M. , LL. D. ,
Director of the Lick Observatory, and Astronomer,
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, Berkeley, Cal.
ALCÉE FORTIER, Lit. D. ,
Professor of the Romance Languages,
TULANE UNIVERSITY, New Orleans, La.
WILLIAM P. TRENT, M. A. ,
Dean of the Department of Arts and Sciences, and Professor of
English and History,
UNIVERSITY OF THE SOUTH, Sewanee, Tenn.
PAUL SHOREY, Ph. D. ,
Professor of Greek and Latin Literature,
UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO, Chicago, Ill.
WILLIAM T. HARRIS, LL. D. ,
United States Commissioner of Education,
BUREAU OF EDUCATION, Washington, D. C.
MAURICE FRANCIS EGAN, A. M. , LL. D. ,
Professor of Literature in the 1. 1
CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF AMERICA, Washington, D. C.
504572
## p. 1226 (#16) ############################################
## p. 1227 (#17) ############################################
V
TABLE OF CONTENTS
VOL. III
LIVED
PAGE
1235
JENS BAGGESEN
1764-1826
A Cosmopolitan ('The Labyrinth ')
Philosophy on the Heath (same)
There was a Time when I was Very Little
1 243
Philip JAMES BAILEY
1816–
From (Festus): Life; The Passing-Bell; Thoughts,
Dreams; Chorus of the Saved
1253
JOANNA BAILLIE
1762-1851
Woo'd and Married and A'
It Was on a Morn when we were Thrang
Fy, Let Us A’ to the Wedding
The Weary Pund o' Tow
From De Montfort
To Mrs. Siddons
A Scotch Song
Song, Poverty Parts Good Company'
The Kitten
1272
HENRY MARTYN BAIRD
1832-
The Battle of Ivry (The Huguenots and Henry of Na-
varre)
1277
SIR SAMUEL WHITE BAKER
1821-1893
Hunting in Abyssinia (“The Nile Tributaries of Abys-
sinia')
The Sources of the Nile ('The Albert Nyanza ')
1287
ARTHUR JAMES BALFOUR
1848–
The Pleasures of Reading (Rectorial Address)
## p. 1228 (#18) ############################################
vi
LIVED
PAGE
THE BALLAD (by F. B. Gummere)
Robin Hood and Guy of Gisborne
The Hunting of the Cheviot
Johnie Cock
Sir Patrick Spens
The Bonny Earl of Murray
Mary Hamilton
Bonnie George Campbell
Bessie Bell and Mary Gray
1305
The Three Ravens
Lord Randal
Edward
The Twa Brothers
Babylon
Childe Maurice
The Wife of Usher's Well
Sweet William's Ghost
HONORÉ DE BALZAC (by William P. Trent) 1799-1850 1348
The Meeting in the Convent (The Duchess of Langeais')
An Episode Under the Terror
A Passion in the Desert
The Napoleon of the People (“The Country Doctor')
1432
GEORGE BANCROFT (by Austin Scott)
1800-1891
The Beginnings of Virginia (History of the United
States')
Men and Government in Early Massachusetts (same)
King Philip's War (same)
The New Netherland (same)
Franklin (same)
Wolfe on the Plains of Abraham (same)
Lexington (same)
Washington (same)
1458
JOHN AND MICHAEL BANIM
1798-1874
The Publican's Dream (The Bit of Writin'? )
Ailleen
Soggarth Aroon
Irish Maiden's Song
1474
THÉODORE DE BANVILLE
1823–1891
Le Café ("The Soul of Paris')
The Mysterious Hosts of the Forests (The Caryatids":
Lang's Translation)
Aux Enfants Perdus: Lang's Translation
Ballade des Pendus: Lang's Translation
1481
ANNA LÆTITIA BARBAULD
1743–1825
Against Inconsistency in Our Expectations
A Dialogue of the Dead
## p. 1229 (#19) ############################################
vii
LIVED
PAGE
ANNA LÆTITIA BARBAULD- Continued :
Life
Praise to God
1475-1552
1496
ALEXANDER BARCLAY
The Courtier's Life (Second Eclogue)
1788–1845
1503
RICHARD HARRIS BARHAM
As I Laye A-Thynkynge
The Lay of St. Cuthbert
A Lay of St. Nicholas
1529
SABINE BARING-GOULD
1834-
St. Patrick's Purgatory (Curious Myths of the Middle
Ages)
The Cornish Wreckers (“The Vicar of Morwenstow')
18-
1543
JANE BARLOW
The Widow Joyce's Cloak (“Strangers at Lisconnel')
Walled Out (Bogland Studies)
1754-1812
1557
JOEL BARLOW
A Feast (Hasty Pudding')
1563
WILLIAM BARNES
1800-1886
Blackmwore Maidens
Jessie Lee
May
The Turnstile
Milken Time
To the Water-Crowfoot
Zummer an' Winter
1571
JAMES MATTHEW BARRIE
1860-
The Courting of T'nowhead's Bell (Auld Licht Idylls')
Jess Left Alone (A Window in Thrums')
After the Sermon (“The Little Minister ')
The Mutual Discovery (same)
Lost Illusions (“Sentimental Tommy')
Sins of Circumstance (same)
1607
FRÉDÉRIC Bastiat
1801-1850
Petition of Manufacturers of Artificial Light
Stulta and Puera
Inapplicable Terms (Economic Sophisms')
## p. 1230 (#20) ############################################
viii
LIVED
PAGE
1617
1633
/
CHARLES BAUDELAIRE (by Grace King) 1821-1867
Meditation
Death of the Poor
Music
The Broken Bell
The Enemy
Beauty
Death
The Painter of Modern Life (L'Art Romantique')
Modernness
From Little Poems in Prose): Every One His Own Chi-
mera; Humanity: Windows; Drink
From a Journal
LORD BEACONSFIELD (by Isa Carrington Cabell)
1804-1881
A Day at Ems (Vivian Grey')
The Festa in the Alhambra (“The Young Duke')
Squibs from The Young Duke': Charles Annesley; The
Fussy Hostess; Public Speaking; Female Beauty
Lothair in Palestine (“Lothair ')
BEAUMARCHAIS (by Brander Matthews) 1732-1799
Outwitting a Guardian (“The Barber of Seville')
Outwitting a Husband (“The Marriage of Figaro')
Francis BEAUMONT AND John FLETCHER 1584-1616
The Faithful Shepherdess
1 1579-1625
Song
Song
Aspatia's Song
Leandro's Song
True Beauty
Ode to Melancholy
To Ben Jonson, on His Fox'
On the Tombs in Westminster
Arethusa's Declaration (Philaster')
The Story of Bellario (same)
Evadne's Confession (“The Maid's Tragedy')
Death of the Boy Hengo (Bonduca')
From (The Two Noble Kinsmen'
1657
1674
1699
WILLIAM BECKFORD
1759-1844
The Incantation and the Sacrifice (Vathek)
Vathek and Nouronihar in the Halls of Eblis (same)
## p. 1231 (#21) ############################################
ix
LIVED
PAGE
HENRY WARD BEECHER (by Lyman Abbott) 1813–1887 1713
Book-Stores and Books (Star Papers ')
Selected Paragraphs
Sermon: Poverty and the Gospel
A New England Sunday (Norwood)
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN (by E. Irenæus Stevenson)
1770-1827 1749
Letters: To Dr. Wegeler; To the Same; To Bettina
Brentano; To Countess Giulietta Guicciardi; To the
Same: To His Brothers; To the Royal and Imperial
High Court of Appeal; To Baroness von Drossdick;
To Zmeskall; To the Same; To Stephan v. Breuning
Carl Michael BELLMAN (by Olga Flinch) 1740-1795 1763
To Ulla
Cradle-Song for My Son Carl
Amaryllis
Art and Politics
Drink Out Thy Glass
JEREMY BENTHAM
1748-1832 1773
Of the Principle of Utility (An Introduction to the Prin-
ciples of Morals and Legislation')
Reminiscences of Childhood
Letter to George Wilson (1781)
Fragment of a Letter to Lord Lansdowne (1790)
JEAN-PIERRE DE BÉRANGER (by Alcée Fortier) 1780-1857 1783
From The Gipsies?
The People's Reminiscences
The Gad-Fly
The Old Tramp
Draw It Mild
Fifty Years
The King of Yvetot
The Garret
Fortune
My Tomb
From His Preface to His Collected Poems
1801
GEORGE BERKELEY
1685-1753
On the Prospect of Planting Arts and Learning in
America
Essay on Tar-Water (Siris')
HECTOR BERLIOZ
1803-1869
The Italian Race as Musicians and Auditors (Autobio-
graphy')
The Famous Snuff-Box Treachery” (same)
1809
## p. 1232 (#22) ############################################
LIVED
GE
HECTOR BERLIOZ — Continued :
On Gluck (same)
On Bach (same)
Music as an Aristocratic Art (same)
Beginning of a « Grand Passion” (same)
On Theatrical Managers in Relation to Art
1819
Saint BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX
1091-1153
Saint Bernard's Hymn
Monastic Luxury (Apology to the Abbot William of St.
Thierry)
From His Sermon on the Death of Gerard
BERNARD OF CLUNY (by William C. Prime)
Twelfth Century
Brief Life Is Here Our Portion
1828
1834
JULIANA BERNERS
Fifteenth Century
The Treatyse of Fysshynge with an Angle
## p. 1233 (#23) ############################################
LIST OF PORTRAITS
IN VOL. III
Vignette
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Jens Baggesen
Philip James Bailey
Joanna Baillie
Henry Martyn Baird
Sir Samuel W. Baker
Arthur James Balfour
Honoré de Balzac
George Bancroft
John and Michael Banim
Théodore de Banville
Anna Lætitia Barbauld
Richard Harris Barham
Jane Barlow
Joel Barlow
James Matthew Barrie
Frédéric Bastiat
Charles Baudelaire
Lord Beaconsfield
Beaumarchais
Francis Beaumont
William Beckford
Henry Ward Beecher
Ludwig van Beethoven
Jeremy Bentham
Jean-Pierre Béranger
George Berkeley
Hector Berlioz
Bernard de Clairvaux
Juliana Berners
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## p. 1235 (#25) ############################################
1235
JENS BAGGESEN
(1764-1826)
ENS BAGGESEN was born in the little Danish town Korsör in
1764, and died in exile in the year 1826. Thus he belonged
to two centuries and to two literary periods. He had
reached manhood when the French Revolution broke out; he wit-
nessed Napoleon's rise, his victories, and his fall. He was a full
contemporary of Goethe, who survived him only six years; he saw
English literature glory in men like Byron
and Moore, and lived to hear of Byron's
death in Greece. In his first works he
stood a true representative of the culture
and literature of the eighteenth century,
and was hailed as its exponent by the
Danish poet Herman Wessel; towards the
end of the century he was acknowledged
to be the greatest of living Danish poets.
Then with the new age came the Norwe-
gian, Henrik Steffens, with his enthusiastic
lectures on German romanticism, calling
out the genius of Oehlenschläger, and the
eighteenth century was doomed; Baggesen
JENS BAGGESEN
nevertheless greeted Oehlenschläger with
sincere admiration, and when the Aladdin' of that poet appeared,
Baggesen sent him his rhymed letter From Nureddin-Baggesen to
Aladdin-Oehlenschläger. '
Baggesen was the son of poor people, and strangers helped him
to his scientific education. When his first works were recognized he
became the friend and protégé of the Duke of Augustenborg, who
provided him with the means for an extended journey through the
Continent, during which he met the greatest men of his time. The
Duke of Augustenborg meanwhile secured him several positions,
which could not hold him for any length of time, nor keep him at
home in Denmark. He went abroad a second time to study peda-
gogics, literature, and philosophy, came home again, wandered forth
once more, returned a widower, was for some time director of the
National Theatre in Copenhagen; but found no rest, married again,
and in 1800 went to France to live. Eleven years later he was pro-
fessor in Kiel, returning thence to Copenhagen, where meanwhile his
## p. 1236 (#26) ############################################
1236
JENS BAGGESEN
)
fame had been eclipsed by the genius of Oehlenschläger. Secure in
the knowledge of his powers, Oehlenschläger had carelessly published
two or three dramatic poems not worthy of his pen, and Baggesen
entered on a violent controversy with him in which he stood practi-
cally by himself against the entire reading public, whose sympathies
were with Oehlenschläger. Alone and misunderstood, restless and
unhappy, he left Denmark in 1820, never to return. Six years later
he died, longing to see his country again, but unable to reach it.
His first poetry was published in 1785, a volume of ‘Comic Tales,
which made its mark at once. The following year appeared in quick
succession satires, rhymed epistles, and elegies, which, adding to his
fame, added also to the purposeless ferment and unrest which had
taken possession of him. He considered tragedy his proper field, yet
had allowed himself to appear as humorist and satirist.
When the great historic events of the time took place, and over-
threw all existing conditions, this inner restlessness drove him to
and fro without purpose or will. One day he was enthusiastic over
Voss's idyls, the next he was carried away by Robespierre's wildest
speeches. One year he adopted Kant's Christian name Immanuel in
transport over his works, the next he called the great philosopher
“an empty nut, and moreover hard to crack. ) The romanticism in
Denmark as well as in Gerinany reduced him to a state of utter
confusion; but in spite of this he continued a child of the old order,
which was already doomed. And with all his unrest and discord he
remained nevertheless the champion of “form,” “the poet of the
graces,” as he has been called.
This gift of form has given him his literary importance. He
built a bridge from the eighteenth to the nineteenth century; and
when the new romantic school overstepped its privileges, it was he
who called it to order. The most conspicuous act of his literary life
was the controversy with Oehlenschläger, and the wittiest product of
his pen is the reckless criticism of Oehlenschläger's opera “Ludlam's
Cave. Johann Ludvig Heiberg, the greatest analytical critic of
whom Denmark can boast, remained Baggesen's ardent admirer; and
Heiberg's influential although not always just criticism of Oehlen-
schläger as a poet was no doubt called forth by Baggesen's attack.
Some years later Henrik Hertz made Baggesen his subject. In 1830
appeared Letters from Ghosts,' poetic epistles from Paradise. No-
body knew that Hertz was the author. It was Baggesen's voice from
beyond the grave, Baggesen's criticism upon the literature of 1830.
It was one of the wittiest, and in versification one of the best, books
in Danish literature.
Baggesen's most important prose work is “The Labyrinth,' after-
wards called "The Wanderings of a Poet. It is a poetic description
## p. 1237 (#27) ############################################
JENS BAGGESEN
1 237
of his journeys, unique in its way, rich in impressions and full of
striking remarks, written in a piquant, graceful, and easy style.
As long as Danish literature remains, Baggesen's name will be
known; though his writings are not now widely read, and are im-
portant chiefly because of their influence on the literary spirit of his
own time. His familiar poem “There was a time when I was very
little,' during the controversy with Oehlenschläger, was seized upon
by Paul Möller, parodied, and changed into “There was a time when
Jens was much bigger. Equally well known is his (Ode to My
Country,' with the familiar lines:
“Alas, in no place is the thorn as tiny,
Alas, in no place blooms as red a rose,
Alas, in no place is there couch as downy
As where we little children found repose. ”
A COSMOPOLITAN
From "The Labyrinth )
F
ORSTER, a little nervous, alert, and piquant man, with gravity
written on his forehead, perspicacity in his eye, and love
around his lips, conquered me completely. I spoke to him
of everything except his journeys; but the traveler showed
himself full of unmistakable humanity. He seemed to me the
cosmopolitan spirit personified.
It was
as if the world were
present when I was alone with him.
We talked about his friend Jacobi, about the late King of
Prussia, about the literature of Germany, and about the present
Pole-high standard of taste. I was much pleased to find in him
the art critic I sought. He said that we must admire everything
which is good and beautiful, whether it originates West, East,
South, or North. The taste of the bee is the true one. Differ-
ence in language and climate, difference of nationality, must not
affect my interest in fair and noble things. The unknown repels
the animal, but should not repel the human creature. Suppose
you say that Voltaire is animal in comparison with Shakespeare
or Klopstock, or that they are animal in comparison with him:
it is a blunder to demand pears of an apple-tree, as it is ridicu-
lous to throw away the apple because it is not a pear.
The
entire world of nature teaches us this æsthetic tolerance, and yet
we have as little acquired it as we have freedom of conscience.
We plant white and red roses in the same bed, but who puts
## p. 1238 (#28) ############################################
1238
JENS BAGGESEN
the Messiah' and the Henriade' on the same shelf ?
He only
who reads neither the one nor the other. True religion wor-
ships God; true taste worships the beautiful without regard of
person or nation.
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.
## p. 1219 (#9) #############################################
## p. 1220 (#10) ############################################
D. frosch
HENRY WARD BEECHER.
## p. 1221 (#11) ############################################
LIBRARY
WORLD'S BEST LITERATURE
2ncient and frien
(HARLES DUDLES WIRVR
Ei liiR
IL VILTI VIRIGI! " VABI 1101 (ILDI. RIVE
TERT I WIRNIK
IROL
TI MOS
VOL. II
Vili'yi
l':,! ! !
TIL
## p. 1222 (#12) ############################################
## p. 1223 (#13) ############################################
LIBRARY
OF
THE
WORLD'S BEST LITERATURE
Ancient and Modern
CHARLES DUDLEY WARNER
EDITOR
HAMILTON WRIGHT MABIE, LUCIA GILBERT RUNKLE,
GEORGE H. WARNER
ASSOCIATE EDITORS
THIRTY VOLUMES
VOL. III
NEW YORK
R. S. PEALE AND J. A. HILL
PUBLISHERS
## p. 1224 (#14) ############################################
COPYRIGHT 1897
BY R. S. PEALE AND J. A. HILL
All rights reserved
COMPANY
THE WERNER
1
DOR
LINDERS
## p. 1225 (#15) ############################################
THE ADVISORY COUNCIL
CRAWFORD H. TOY, A. M. , LL. D. ,
Professor of Hebrew, HARVARD UNIVERSITY, Cambridge, Mass.
THOMAS R. LOUNSBURY, LL. D. , L. H. D. ,
Professor of English in the Sheffield Scientific School of
YALE UNIVERSITY, New Haven, Conn.
WILLIAM M. SLOANE, Ph. D. , L. H. D. ,
Professor of History and Political Science,
PRINCETON UNIVERSITY, Princeton, N. J.
BRANDER MATTHEWS, A. M. , LL. B. ,
Professor of Literature, COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY, New York City.
JAMES B. ANGELL, LL. D. ,
President of the UNIVERSITY OF Michigan, Ann Arbor, Mich.
WILLARD FISKE, A. M. , Ph. D. ,
Late Professor of the Germanic and Scandinavian Languages
and Literatures,
CORNELL UNIVERSITY, Ithaca, N. Y.
EDWARD S. HOLDEN, A. M. , LL. D. ,
Director of the Lick Observatory, and Astronomer,
UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, Berkeley, Cal.
ALCÉE FORTIER, Lit. D. ,
Professor of the Romance Languages,
TULANE UNIVERSITY, New Orleans, La.
WILLIAM P. TRENT, M. A. ,
Dean of the Department of Arts and Sciences, and Professor of
English and History,
UNIVERSITY OF THE SOUTH, Sewanee, Tenn.
PAUL SHOREY, Ph. D. ,
Professor of Greek and Latin Literature,
UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO, Chicago, Ill.
WILLIAM T. HARRIS, LL. D. ,
United States Commissioner of Education,
BUREAU OF EDUCATION, Washington, D. C.
MAURICE FRANCIS EGAN, A. M. , LL. D. ,
Professor of Literature in the 1. 1
CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF AMERICA, Washington, D. C.
504572
## p. 1226 (#16) ############################################
## p. 1227 (#17) ############################################
V
TABLE OF CONTENTS
VOL. III
LIVED
PAGE
1235
JENS BAGGESEN
1764-1826
A Cosmopolitan ('The Labyrinth ')
Philosophy on the Heath (same)
There was a Time when I was Very Little
1 243
Philip JAMES BAILEY
1816–
From (Festus): Life; The Passing-Bell; Thoughts,
Dreams; Chorus of the Saved
1253
JOANNA BAILLIE
1762-1851
Woo'd and Married and A'
It Was on a Morn when we were Thrang
Fy, Let Us A’ to the Wedding
The Weary Pund o' Tow
From De Montfort
To Mrs. Siddons
A Scotch Song
Song, Poverty Parts Good Company'
The Kitten
1272
HENRY MARTYN BAIRD
1832-
The Battle of Ivry (The Huguenots and Henry of Na-
varre)
1277
SIR SAMUEL WHITE BAKER
1821-1893
Hunting in Abyssinia (“The Nile Tributaries of Abys-
sinia')
The Sources of the Nile ('The Albert Nyanza ')
1287
ARTHUR JAMES BALFOUR
1848–
The Pleasures of Reading (Rectorial Address)
## p. 1228 (#18) ############################################
vi
LIVED
PAGE
THE BALLAD (by F. B. Gummere)
Robin Hood and Guy of Gisborne
The Hunting of the Cheviot
Johnie Cock
Sir Patrick Spens
The Bonny Earl of Murray
Mary Hamilton
Bonnie George Campbell
Bessie Bell and Mary Gray
1305
The Three Ravens
Lord Randal
Edward
The Twa Brothers
Babylon
Childe Maurice
The Wife of Usher's Well
Sweet William's Ghost
HONORÉ DE BALZAC (by William P. Trent) 1799-1850 1348
The Meeting in the Convent (The Duchess of Langeais')
An Episode Under the Terror
A Passion in the Desert
The Napoleon of the People (“The Country Doctor')
1432
GEORGE BANCROFT (by Austin Scott)
1800-1891
The Beginnings of Virginia (History of the United
States')
Men and Government in Early Massachusetts (same)
King Philip's War (same)
The New Netherland (same)
Franklin (same)
Wolfe on the Plains of Abraham (same)
Lexington (same)
Washington (same)
1458
JOHN AND MICHAEL BANIM
1798-1874
The Publican's Dream (The Bit of Writin'? )
Ailleen
Soggarth Aroon
Irish Maiden's Song
1474
THÉODORE DE BANVILLE
1823–1891
Le Café ("The Soul of Paris')
The Mysterious Hosts of the Forests (The Caryatids":
Lang's Translation)
Aux Enfants Perdus: Lang's Translation
Ballade des Pendus: Lang's Translation
1481
ANNA LÆTITIA BARBAULD
1743–1825
Against Inconsistency in Our Expectations
A Dialogue of the Dead
## p. 1229 (#19) ############################################
vii
LIVED
PAGE
ANNA LÆTITIA BARBAULD- Continued :
Life
Praise to God
1475-1552
1496
ALEXANDER BARCLAY
The Courtier's Life (Second Eclogue)
1788–1845
1503
RICHARD HARRIS BARHAM
As I Laye A-Thynkynge
The Lay of St. Cuthbert
A Lay of St. Nicholas
1529
SABINE BARING-GOULD
1834-
St. Patrick's Purgatory (Curious Myths of the Middle
Ages)
The Cornish Wreckers (“The Vicar of Morwenstow')
18-
1543
JANE BARLOW
The Widow Joyce's Cloak (“Strangers at Lisconnel')
Walled Out (Bogland Studies)
1754-1812
1557
JOEL BARLOW
A Feast (Hasty Pudding')
1563
WILLIAM BARNES
1800-1886
Blackmwore Maidens
Jessie Lee
May
The Turnstile
Milken Time
To the Water-Crowfoot
Zummer an' Winter
1571
JAMES MATTHEW BARRIE
1860-
The Courting of T'nowhead's Bell (Auld Licht Idylls')
Jess Left Alone (A Window in Thrums')
After the Sermon (“The Little Minister ')
The Mutual Discovery (same)
Lost Illusions (“Sentimental Tommy')
Sins of Circumstance (same)
1607
FRÉDÉRIC Bastiat
1801-1850
Petition of Manufacturers of Artificial Light
Stulta and Puera
Inapplicable Terms (Economic Sophisms')
## p. 1230 (#20) ############################################
viii
LIVED
PAGE
1617
1633
/
CHARLES BAUDELAIRE (by Grace King) 1821-1867
Meditation
Death of the Poor
Music
The Broken Bell
The Enemy
Beauty
Death
The Painter of Modern Life (L'Art Romantique')
Modernness
From Little Poems in Prose): Every One His Own Chi-
mera; Humanity: Windows; Drink
From a Journal
LORD BEACONSFIELD (by Isa Carrington Cabell)
1804-1881
A Day at Ems (Vivian Grey')
The Festa in the Alhambra (“The Young Duke')
Squibs from The Young Duke': Charles Annesley; The
Fussy Hostess; Public Speaking; Female Beauty
Lothair in Palestine (“Lothair ')
BEAUMARCHAIS (by Brander Matthews) 1732-1799
Outwitting a Guardian (“The Barber of Seville')
Outwitting a Husband (“The Marriage of Figaro')
Francis BEAUMONT AND John FLETCHER 1584-1616
The Faithful Shepherdess
1 1579-1625
Song
Song
Aspatia's Song
Leandro's Song
True Beauty
Ode to Melancholy
To Ben Jonson, on His Fox'
On the Tombs in Westminster
Arethusa's Declaration (Philaster')
The Story of Bellario (same)
Evadne's Confession (“The Maid's Tragedy')
Death of the Boy Hengo (Bonduca')
From (The Two Noble Kinsmen'
1657
1674
1699
WILLIAM BECKFORD
1759-1844
The Incantation and the Sacrifice (Vathek)
Vathek and Nouronihar in the Halls of Eblis (same)
## p. 1231 (#21) ############################################
ix
LIVED
PAGE
HENRY WARD BEECHER (by Lyman Abbott) 1813–1887 1713
Book-Stores and Books (Star Papers ')
Selected Paragraphs
Sermon: Poverty and the Gospel
A New England Sunday (Norwood)
LUDWIG VAN BEETHOVEN (by E. Irenæus Stevenson)
1770-1827 1749
Letters: To Dr. Wegeler; To the Same; To Bettina
Brentano; To Countess Giulietta Guicciardi; To the
Same: To His Brothers; To the Royal and Imperial
High Court of Appeal; To Baroness von Drossdick;
To Zmeskall; To the Same; To Stephan v. Breuning
Carl Michael BELLMAN (by Olga Flinch) 1740-1795 1763
To Ulla
Cradle-Song for My Son Carl
Amaryllis
Art and Politics
Drink Out Thy Glass
JEREMY BENTHAM
1748-1832 1773
Of the Principle of Utility (An Introduction to the Prin-
ciples of Morals and Legislation')
Reminiscences of Childhood
Letter to George Wilson (1781)
Fragment of a Letter to Lord Lansdowne (1790)
JEAN-PIERRE DE BÉRANGER (by Alcée Fortier) 1780-1857 1783
From The Gipsies?
The People's Reminiscences
The Gad-Fly
The Old Tramp
Draw It Mild
Fifty Years
The King of Yvetot
The Garret
Fortune
My Tomb
From His Preface to His Collected Poems
1801
GEORGE BERKELEY
1685-1753
On the Prospect of Planting Arts and Learning in
America
Essay on Tar-Water (Siris')
HECTOR BERLIOZ
1803-1869
The Italian Race as Musicians and Auditors (Autobio-
graphy')
The Famous Snuff-Box Treachery” (same)
1809
## p. 1232 (#22) ############################################
LIVED
GE
HECTOR BERLIOZ — Continued :
On Gluck (same)
On Bach (same)
Music as an Aristocratic Art (same)
Beginning of a « Grand Passion” (same)
On Theatrical Managers in Relation to Art
1819
Saint BERNARD OF CLAIRVAUX
1091-1153
Saint Bernard's Hymn
Monastic Luxury (Apology to the Abbot William of St.
Thierry)
From His Sermon on the Death of Gerard
BERNARD OF CLUNY (by William C. Prime)
Twelfth Century
Brief Life Is Here Our Portion
1828
1834
JULIANA BERNERS
Fifteenth Century
The Treatyse of Fysshynge with an Angle
## p. 1233 (#23) ############################################
LIST OF PORTRAITS
IN VOL. III
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Jens Baggesen
Philip James Bailey
Joanna Baillie
Henry Martyn Baird
Sir Samuel W. Baker
Arthur James Balfour
Honoré de Balzac
George Bancroft
John and Michael Banim
Théodore de Banville
Anna Lætitia Barbauld
Richard Harris Barham
Jane Barlow
Joel Barlow
James Matthew Barrie
Frédéric Bastiat
Charles Baudelaire
Lord Beaconsfield
Beaumarchais
Francis Beaumont
William Beckford
Henry Ward Beecher
Ludwig van Beethoven
Jeremy Bentham
Jean-Pierre Béranger
George Berkeley
Hector Berlioz
Bernard de Clairvaux
Juliana Berners
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1235
JENS BAGGESEN
(1764-1826)
ENS BAGGESEN was born in the little Danish town Korsör in
1764, and died in exile in the year 1826. Thus he belonged
to two centuries and to two literary periods. He had
reached manhood when the French Revolution broke out; he wit-
nessed Napoleon's rise, his victories, and his fall. He was a full
contemporary of Goethe, who survived him only six years; he saw
English literature glory in men like Byron
and Moore, and lived to hear of Byron's
death in Greece. In his first works he
stood a true representative of the culture
and literature of the eighteenth century,
and was hailed as its exponent by the
Danish poet Herman Wessel; towards the
end of the century he was acknowledged
to be the greatest of living Danish poets.
Then with the new age came the Norwe-
gian, Henrik Steffens, with his enthusiastic
lectures on German romanticism, calling
out the genius of Oehlenschläger, and the
eighteenth century was doomed; Baggesen
JENS BAGGESEN
nevertheless greeted Oehlenschläger with
sincere admiration, and when the Aladdin' of that poet appeared,
Baggesen sent him his rhymed letter From Nureddin-Baggesen to
Aladdin-Oehlenschläger. '
Baggesen was the son of poor people, and strangers helped him
to his scientific education. When his first works were recognized he
became the friend and protégé of the Duke of Augustenborg, who
provided him with the means for an extended journey through the
Continent, during which he met the greatest men of his time. The
Duke of Augustenborg meanwhile secured him several positions,
which could not hold him for any length of time, nor keep him at
home in Denmark. He went abroad a second time to study peda-
gogics, literature, and philosophy, came home again, wandered forth
once more, returned a widower, was for some time director of the
National Theatre in Copenhagen; but found no rest, married again,
and in 1800 went to France to live. Eleven years later he was pro-
fessor in Kiel, returning thence to Copenhagen, where meanwhile his
## p. 1236 (#26) ############################################
1236
JENS BAGGESEN
)
fame had been eclipsed by the genius of Oehlenschläger. Secure in
the knowledge of his powers, Oehlenschläger had carelessly published
two or three dramatic poems not worthy of his pen, and Baggesen
entered on a violent controversy with him in which he stood practi-
cally by himself against the entire reading public, whose sympathies
were with Oehlenschläger. Alone and misunderstood, restless and
unhappy, he left Denmark in 1820, never to return. Six years later
he died, longing to see his country again, but unable to reach it.
His first poetry was published in 1785, a volume of ‘Comic Tales,
which made its mark at once. The following year appeared in quick
succession satires, rhymed epistles, and elegies, which, adding to his
fame, added also to the purposeless ferment and unrest which had
taken possession of him. He considered tragedy his proper field, yet
had allowed himself to appear as humorist and satirist.
When the great historic events of the time took place, and over-
threw all existing conditions, this inner restlessness drove him to
and fro without purpose or will. One day he was enthusiastic over
Voss's idyls, the next he was carried away by Robespierre's wildest
speeches. One year he adopted Kant's Christian name Immanuel in
transport over his works, the next he called the great philosopher
“an empty nut, and moreover hard to crack. ) The romanticism in
Denmark as well as in Gerinany reduced him to a state of utter
confusion; but in spite of this he continued a child of the old order,
which was already doomed. And with all his unrest and discord he
remained nevertheless the champion of “form,” “the poet of the
graces,” as he has been called.
This gift of form has given him his literary importance. He
built a bridge from the eighteenth to the nineteenth century; and
when the new romantic school overstepped its privileges, it was he
who called it to order. The most conspicuous act of his literary life
was the controversy with Oehlenschläger, and the wittiest product of
his pen is the reckless criticism of Oehlenschläger's opera “Ludlam's
Cave. Johann Ludvig Heiberg, the greatest analytical critic of
whom Denmark can boast, remained Baggesen's ardent admirer; and
Heiberg's influential although not always just criticism of Oehlen-
schläger as a poet was no doubt called forth by Baggesen's attack.
Some years later Henrik Hertz made Baggesen his subject. In 1830
appeared Letters from Ghosts,' poetic epistles from Paradise. No-
body knew that Hertz was the author. It was Baggesen's voice from
beyond the grave, Baggesen's criticism upon the literature of 1830.
It was one of the wittiest, and in versification one of the best, books
in Danish literature.
Baggesen's most important prose work is “The Labyrinth,' after-
wards called "The Wanderings of a Poet. It is a poetic description
## p. 1237 (#27) ############################################
JENS BAGGESEN
1 237
of his journeys, unique in its way, rich in impressions and full of
striking remarks, written in a piquant, graceful, and easy style.
As long as Danish literature remains, Baggesen's name will be
known; though his writings are not now widely read, and are im-
portant chiefly because of their influence on the literary spirit of his
own time. His familiar poem “There was a time when I was very
little,' during the controversy with Oehlenschläger, was seized upon
by Paul Möller, parodied, and changed into “There was a time when
Jens was much bigger. Equally well known is his (Ode to My
Country,' with the familiar lines:
“Alas, in no place is the thorn as tiny,
Alas, in no place blooms as red a rose,
Alas, in no place is there couch as downy
As where we little children found repose. ”
A COSMOPOLITAN
From "The Labyrinth )
F
ORSTER, a little nervous, alert, and piquant man, with gravity
written on his forehead, perspicacity in his eye, and love
around his lips, conquered me completely. I spoke to him
of everything except his journeys; but the traveler showed
himself full of unmistakable humanity. He seemed to me the
cosmopolitan spirit personified.
It was
as if the world were
present when I was alone with him.
We talked about his friend Jacobi, about the late King of
Prussia, about the literature of Germany, and about the present
Pole-high standard of taste. I was much pleased to find in him
the art critic I sought. He said that we must admire everything
which is good and beautiful, whether it originates West, East,
South, or North. The taste of the bee is the true one. Differ-
ence in language and climate, difference of nationality, must not
affect my interest in fair and noble things. The unknown repels
the animal, but should not repel the human creature. Suppose
you say that Voltaire is animal in comparison with Shakespeare
or Klopstock, or that they are animal in comparison with him:
it is a blunder to demand pears of an apple-tree, as it is ridicu-
lous to throw away the apple because it is not a pear.
The
entire world of nature teaches us this æsthetic tolerance, and yet
we have as little acquired it as we have freedom of conscience.
We plant white and red roses in the same bed, but who puts
## p. 1238 (#28) ############################################
1238
JENS BAGGESEN
the Messiah' and the Henriade' on the same shelf ?
He only
who reads neither the one nor the other. True religion wor-
ships God; true taste worships the beautiful without regard of
person or nation.
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
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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.
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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.
