Happy as the Day is Long

Thomas Faed RA, 1826-1900

1873

Source: The Faed Gallery, p. 56

[Please see below for the Faed Gallery's commentary on the painting.]

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[You may use this image without prior permission for any scholarly or educational purpose as long as you (1) credit the Internet Archive and the Getty Research Institute and (2) link your document to this URL in a web document or cite the Victorian Web in a print one.]

Ne'er trow ye wealth is happy aye, or poverty aye wae;
Ne'er hope to find the brichtest flowers aye on the highest brae:
In humble hames are happy hearts, in dells are flow'rets fair;
Around the muirland lammie plays the balmy summer air.
And He wha tends the lammie keeps us a' aneath his ee;
The balance aye is fairly poised atween the low and hie.

We know of no work of the artist of this class that is more thoroughly charming, or, despite its realism, fuller of simple poetry, than this. Mr. Faed is always peculiarly fortunate in his choice of titles; and "Happy as the Day is Long" forms no exception to the rule. In the pleasant warmth and sunlight of one of the long clays of a Scottish midsummer, a young mother — one of the brightest and bonniest of the whole series of comely cottagers he has given us — sits sewing on a bench outside her door. In the grass at her feet her little child is playing with a kitten, and through the open door we see the baby asleep in its cradle. The picture is full of genuine sentiment without being in the least sentimentalized, and will at once win its way to all hearts. [55]

Bibliography

The Faed gallery, a series of the most renowned works of Thomas Faed, reproduced in heliotype; with full descriptions, and a sketch of the life of the artist. Boston: James R. Osgood and Co., 1878. Internet Archive. Contributed by the Getty Research Institute. Web. 17 May 2018.

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Created 18 May 2018