Joanna Baillie Quotes
War is honorable
In those who do their native rights maintain;
In those whose swords an iron barrier are
Between the lawless spoiler and the weak;
But is, in those who draw th' offensive blade
For added power or gain, sordid and despicable
As meanest office of the worldly churl.
Baillie, Joanna. A Series of Plays: In which it is Attempted to Delineate the Stronger Passions of the Mind. Vol. 2, T. Cadell, Jun. and W. Davies, 1802, p. 128. (In "Ethwald", Part I, Act I, Scene II).
The Germans and Americans did this as a standard practice. The French “history” to which the General referred did not involve machine guns and mortars. The entrenching tool (shovel) was a fundamentally important piece of equipment to the Germans and Americans but not the French at the beginning of WWI. Later in the war, the French finally learned.
Joanna Baillie was a Scottish poet and dramatist, known for such works as Plays on the Passions (three volumes, 1798–1812) and Fugitive Verses (1840). She shows her interest in moral philosophy and the Gothic. She was critically acclaimed in her lifetime, and while living in Hampstead, associated with literary contemporaries such as Anna Barbauld, Lucy Aikin, and Walter Scott. She died at the age of 88.
