Then hundredfolds to sinners
Must be repaid in Hell.
If you think such men winners,
We disagree. Farewell.
But to the person who is right (and Mrs. Farrer was never in a moment’s doubt, though her prosody is influenced sometimes by the
sceptical Matthew Arnold) there is no mean reward:—
I sparkle resplendent,
A star in His crown,
And glitter for ever,
A gem of renown.
From internal evidence we can gauge her social position, while her views of caste appear in these radical days a trifle demodé. Her metaphors of sin are all derived from the life of paupers:—
Paupers through their sinful folly
Are workers of iniquity,
Living on Jehovah’s bounty,
Wasting in abject poverty.A pauper’s funeral their end,
No angels waft their souls on high;
Rich they were thought on earth, perhaps,
Yet far from wealth accursed they lie.Who are the rich? God’s Word declares,
The men whose treasure is above—
Those humble working gentlefolk
Whose life flows on in deeds of love.Despised in life I may remain,
Misunderstood by rich and poor;
An entrance yet I hope to gain
To wealthy plains on endless shore.No paupers in that heavenly land,
The sons of God are rich indeed;
His daughters all His treasures share;
It will their highest hopes exceed.
Those paupers who are ‘saved’ are rewarded by material comforts such as graced the earthly home of Georgiana herself, one of the ‘humble working gentlefolk.’ She enjoys her own fireside with an almost Pecksniffian relish, and she profoundly observes, as she sits beside her hearth:—
Like forest trees men rise and grow:
Good timber some will prove,
Others decayed as fuel piled,
Prepared are for that stoveThat burns for ever, Tophet called,
Heated by jealous heat,
Adapted to destroy all chaff,
And leaves unscorched the wheat.
Excellent Georgiana! She could not stand very much chaff of any kind, I suspect.
The alarming progress of ritualism in the ’eighties disturbed her considerably, though it inspired some of her more weighty verses.