These are the moments when the mind is sane.”
The Essays in Rhyme[136] are for grown-up readers, but they state with perfect clearness the ideals that inspired her work for children.
Under the pseudonym of “Q. Q.”, Jane Taylor contributed for six years to the Youths’ Magazine,[137] and her best pieces (afterwards collected) were “for children or men.”
“The young are new to themselves; and all that surrounds them is novel.”
“Q. Q.” gives them short moral tales, full of point and humour: really “entertaining” moral tales, and brilliant little character-studies. They read, and begin to know themselves. She introduces them to “Persons of Consequence” (one, “little Betsy Bond, daughter of John Bond, the journeyman Carpenter”). She sets forth a contrast: the old Philosopher, so wise that he is humble, and the Young Lady, just leaving School, who considers herself “not only perfectly accomplished but also thoroughly well-informed”; or the two brothers, one of whom writes a clever essay on self-denial, while the other practises it. Youth is left to judge between them.
The most arresting of these “Contributions”, “How it strikes a Stranger”, inspired Browning’s poem “The Star of my God Rephan.” A stranger from another planet, finding himself upon Earth, is filled with interest and wonder at what he sees. He enters readily into the pleasures of the new life, and remains thoughtlessly happy till he is faced with the unknown fact of death.
They refer him to the priests for an explanation.
“How!” he replies, “then I cannot have understood you; do the priests only die? Are not you to die also?” When he understands, he regards death as a privilege and refuses to do anything “inconsistent with his real interests.” The Adventure is described with a wonderful force of imagination; but the lesson strikes upon youthful ears like the voice in Everyman:
“Everyman, stand still. Whither art thou going,
Thus gaily?”