NOTES AND QUESTIONS 1. Who is represented as telling this story? Is he English or French? How do you know? Where do you think he is when telling the story? Why does he long to be able to use a pen? Of whose valor does his story tell? What does he say of his own injury? 2. What were the English Engineers called upon to do? Why was this necessary? How many answered the call for volunteers? What became of the detachments sent out? What did they accomplish? What remained to be done? How was this accomplished? 3. Do you think it requires more courage to venture alone under fire than it does to take part in a charge? Can you explain why this is so? 4. Why were there no cheers when the twelfth man ran for the fuse? 5. This poem pays tribute to valor in action. In what other ways may valor be shown? NOTES AND QUESTIONS 1. This poem, like the one preceding, is based upon incidents in the story of the World War. 2. What did this woman put first in her prayer? What came second? 3. Why did she not name the place at which she expected to meet her husband? 4. What news did she receive? With what thought did she support herself? 5. Do you like the measure in which this poem is written? Does it seem appropriate to the story? With what word does each stanza end? Does this add to the rhythm of the poem? Can you explain how it helps to impress the spirit of the poem upon the reader? 6. What kind of valor is honored in this poem? Have you read any other poem which pays tribute to this kind of valor? NOTES AND QUESTIONS 1. Kipling is the friend of the brave man erywhere, but he is especially the friend of e British soldier, because he knows him so ell. In this ballad he presents the grievance Tommy Atkins, as the British regular soldier called. Remember, this poem was written ng before the World War. To what can you cribe the refusal of the public house to serve e soldier? How can you explain his treatent in the theater? 2. How can you account for the fact that diers are so poorly paid? 3. What qualities are needed to make a good soldier? 4. How much of the indifference shown toward soldiers in time of peace may be attributed to the fact that a nation thinks the loyalty and patriotism of the soldiers will hold them true no matter how they are treated? 5. Who is the Widow referred to in the poem? Who was her husband? 6. Do you think the soldiers liked this poem? Why? How would they feel toward its author? When do you think they would sing this ballad? SCOTT'S "LADY OF THE LAKE" I AN INTRODUCTION THE AUTHOR OF THE POEM Sir Walter Scott, like most writers of great literature, was a man to whom life was a marvelous adventure. For many generations his ancestors had been men fond of daring deeds. His father, an Edinburgh lawyer, was the first of his family to live in a city. Auld Wat, of the Lay of the Last Minstrel, belonged to the sixth generation before Sir Walter. Auld Wat's son William was asked to choose between being hanged, after he had been captured in a Border raid, and marrying the ugliest of his captor's daughters. The lady had the reputation of being the ugliest in four counties, and William was a handsome man. After three days' consideration of the matter he married the girl. Sir Walter, who was born August 15, 1771, in Edinburgh, Scotland, was the ninth of twelve children. He was lame from childhood, and at sixteen was struck by an illness so severe that for a long time he was compelled to remain in bed without speaking to anyone. He arranged the mirrors about his bed in such a way that he could watch the troops marching in the meadows. From childhood he loved animals and out-of-door sports. He had a pet pony that came into the house to be fed. He learned ballads by heart and shouted them at the top of his voice. At fifteen, he took up the study of law, in which he was distinguished for his prodigious memory; but his schooling was more or less irregular, and his real delight, apart from his pets and his sports, was in reading history, romance, and ballads. He learned Italian and Spanish in order to read some tales of chivalry and burlesque romance. Often he would tramp long distances in search of ballads or of some legend that had captured his fancy. Some time after his marriage to the daughter of a French royalist who had died during the Revolution, he published a collection of ballads under the title The Minstrelsy of the Scottish Border. The first two volumes of this collection appeared in 1802, and 850 copies were sold within a year. The third volume was published in 1803. Two years later his first important original work appeared, The Lay of the Last Minstrel. This poem grew out of his collection of native ballads, and 44,000 copies of it were sold in twenty-five years. In 1808 Marmion appeared, composed in great part while he was out on riding expeditions. He spoke of himself, at about this time, as a rattle-skulled, half-lawyer, half-sportsman, through whose head a regiment of horse had been exercising since he was five years old. Parts of Marmion were read to Scottish troops when they were under French fire. Perhaps the best way to realize the abounding vitality of Scott, and the zest which he found in life, is to fix one's attention for a moment on his life at Ashestiel, overlooking the Tweed, where he lived from 1804 to 1812. He rose at five and by six was at his desk, with books on every side of him. Breakfast came at nine and after a little more work he was "his own man." On rainy days he worked all day, but was in the habit of allowing excess work on such days to count in favor of a longer time out-of-doors when the weather was fine. His rule was to be out by one o'clock; long trips would begin by ten. It has been said that his life might be divided, as history is divided into reigns, by the succession of his favorite horses and dogs. His horses, in succession, were Captain, Lieutenant, Brown Adam, Daisy, Sybil Grey, and Covenanter. His favorite dogs were Camp, Maida, and Nimrod. When Camp died, Scott refused |