Swarnakumari Ghosal

“ There is no need to pity my cousin, she has sufficient self-love and knows her own value too well, and perhaps she has reason on her side. She is beautiful and accomplished, and the man who marries her will get a princess and half a kingdom. There is no knowing how many men are sighing for her. If you want to pity, rather pity those disappointed suitors. If cousin Kusum really did receive a scar from this affair, rest assured it is healed by this time."
"You should not be so quick to judge. Do you not know that they remember longest who do not fall in love easily?" ”

“ It was ever the same song, and that song was the enchantress. I resolved not to ask him to sing again, but when the time came I could not resist. The strange fascination of the song lay in its power to bring back to my memory the days of my childhood. It poured a flood of feeling over me that awoke the dormant emotions of the maiden, and ere the song was ended, it created a vortex in which I felt myself carried into the realm of the ideal, searching for something I knew and yet I knew not. I was lost in an intense longing; it seemed as if a god had taken possession of him who sang. ”

“ Whatever might be the shortcomings of men in general, he whom I was to call husband must be above all that is small and unworthy in a man. This might appear like a fanciful illusion to a maturer mind, but the ideal being unblemished carried all the force of reality in my inexperienced heart. Nor was I satisfied to have my husband's love for one life only, I must feel in my own consciousness that he had been mine in lives of the past and would be mine again in lives to come. ”

“ What the lover is to youth the parents are to childhood—the object of worship and affection, the idol of the heart. It has always seemed to me that a parent is protector and lover blended in one. Towards both we are drawn by the same desire, to make the beloved a part of ourselves, to have complete possession. The disappointment is the same in each case when love is not reciprocated, and we feel an equal readiness to embrace pain and adversity in order to promote the happiness of the beloved. ”

“ At intervals I felt a sensation of acute pain, a desire to see light through the darkness that enshrouded me. At these moments I felt like one maddened by a keen struggle to break through chains that are too strong to be broken. It seemed like irony that of all men Chotu should be the cause of all this. Chotu whom I had loved so much, upon whom I had looked as a friend. Then suddenly a thought dawned upon me, it came like a revelation: Chotu, the friend of my childhood, whom I had trusted as never another, Chotu was to be my saviour now. ”

“ My young life was inundated with love, and from it I have drawn the conclusion that love is ever the same, whether it be between parent and child, brother and sister or youth and maiden. It is born in affection towards the parent, then passing in its development through the stages of love for brothers and sisters, and the fondness of friendship, it finally finds its full expression in the passion of youth and maiden. ”

“ That woman is blessed who, having found her idol, surrenders herself in worship to him entirely. That man is blessed who, once installed in the shrine of a consecrated heart, dedicates himself to her and thus justifies the end of life. That love alone is true which, based on self-abnegation, endures in its fullness throughout all time.
Thus I love father much even now. I would gladly sacrifice myself to procure his happiness, but he is no longer the only object of my affection, aspiration, desire, worship and contemplation, my only source of happiness. ”

“ I knew not the book in which I had read it, but the passage lived. If the sea is dangerous, then it must be an angry look that compares with it, but is a woman's look of anger ever awe-inspiring to man? Not being a man, I could not judge that, but I had to smile at the pusillanimity of man. I could not imagine such an angry look, such exasperation in a man as would discompose me. I am usually considered mild-natured, the sight of the least suffering in others moves me instantly, and for one I love I could sacrifice all my desires ”

“ You do not love Chotu, the friend of your childhood, you love the new man, the doctor."
"And you do not love me, you love the companion of your childhood."
I thought at one time that individuality disappeared in love, and that love was all self-abnegation, but now I find that as light and shade are both required for a landscape, so altercations an demands are also adjuncts of love, and in this way love is kept ever young.
At any rate in our lives love is full of challenge. "You do not love me," I say mockingly, "you love the companion of your childhood." ”

“ I felt sad to see all this, and my eyes filled with tears.
The old lady continued, "Mother, who are you? Are you my daughter-in-law? Have you come at last? He has gone into exile, and has not yet returned."
My heart felt as if it were breaking, and tears flowed from my eyes. And then I awoke and found myself still weeping. I looked at my watch. Scarcely half-an-hour had elapsed since the doctor's departure, and I might not have slept more than five minutes, but the heavy load of despair that had weighed on my mind before I went to sleep had awakened with me. I was as sad as ever. ”

“ No Westerner can realise what a powerful influence matrimony has upon the life of a Hindu woman. Her husband is the representation of the Divine on earth to her, the object of her worship. There can be no mistake whoever he may be; he is the only one, and none other ever dare claim a thought in her mind. She has been trained in this conviction throughout the ages until it has moulded her nature and is in itself enough to awaken her love and foster it. ”

“ One colour ever shaded with another, "Yes, such," I murmured, "are the ways of this world, never a smile without a tear, no happiness without an equal portion of sorrow. I wish some God would change this law, and make mankind happier." And yet why should I lament? What was I after all but an atom in the great ocean of life?
I found myself seated at the piano before I knew it. I began to play unconsciously, I knew not why, the song that was so near my heart ”

“ My life became well-nigh unbearable. Still I felt resolved on one point—it would be far better for me to remain unmarried and continue being worried than to be joined to a man for whom my heart cared not. The whole affair put a severe strain upon me, under which my nervous system threatened to break down.
These things continued to be of daily recurrence—the unsparing criticism of the people, aunt's admonitions to my father, his assurance that all would be well in the end; but I heard no more of any settled marriage, nor was Chotu mentioned to me again. ”

“ George Eliot, who understands the mission of an author, does not want to change human nature, does not want to create either gods or demons. She only expresses life as she finds it, and awakens in her reader love and sympathy. Dorothea lives in the ideal, her hopes and aspirations are utopian, and yet what blunders do not such people often commit in this world of ours. ”

“ I would gladly have torn it from my heart for ever, for it gave me no happiness. Was it the uncontrollable force of Karma again that had brought this new passion into my life? If man is not responsible, then why must he suffer so? Oh, great Creator, behold Thy work, how helpless, how weak are thy creatures! ”

“ My sister addressed the doctor, saying, "According to your account everything in England is superb; but had you ever there a moon like this?"
"Moonlight was rare indeed. Perhaps it was owing to this fact that it used to look so glorious when it did appear."
"You are hopelessly bewitched, I see," rejoined my sister. "Not only does England hold the most beautiful women, but the most perfect moon as well. How could you ever in the face of all these fascinations come back again? Really that puzzles me."
He caressed his handsome beard and smiled.
"Truth is sometimes stranger than fiction. ”

“ I really do not think your father would force you into marriage with another if he once came to know how the matter stands."
I knew that what he said was only too true, but I did not reply until he spoke again, with an air of impatience this time.
"If you cannot speak to your father, let me do so."
"No, no, do not speak to my father. Listen, I have a plan. The man to whom my father has betrothed me is a friend of my childhood, Chotu, we called him. I have great faith in him. I know Chotu will save me. I loved him when I was a little girl, and I regard him still as a dear friend. ”

“ Ask me not for the year, because years are to us only numbers, formless things following each other silently, and like a sage meditating on the Being without form or quality, so has the woman to stop and think and count backward and forward and backward again when she wants to trace the year in which a certain event occurred. But there is one thing the great God in His mercy has made impossible for her. She cannot, however hard she may try, count backward to the day of her birth. ”

“ I remained in the same condition as the day wore on, aimless, without hope, without any desire even to fight the inevitable, yet as water struggles underneath a rock, so did the instinct of life work underneath despair, my emotions were at war with each other. ”

“ Love is far stronger in its workings than any other emotion. To me it could never be the angry look that would prove fatal, but the appealing glance that pleads for pity—this would find response in me, and this only. ”

“ If there be Heaven on earth it came to me that minute when he offered his life to me, but alas! this great earth of ours holds the reality of Heaven but a second and then appears more threatening than ever. ”

“ She is no more a Shakespeare than you are, my dear fellow, however cleverly she may have written her novels."
"No, she is not a Shakespeare, nor did I mean to indicate that she was. Perhaps I did not express myself clearly. What I meant to say was that George Eliot is as great in her own line as any author in England, dead or alive."
"That comes to about the same thing. However, prove it to me that she has as great a creative genius as Shakespeare." ”

“ People say there is always a certain amount of jealousy in love. Could I consider myself of a different mould from women generally? Jealousy, if such it was, impressed me as a very harmless feeling, it died away in a sigh, it left no malice behind it. How could I indeed allow such a feeling to spring up, for surely Kusum was not guilty of any wrong, she had not robbed me of anything? ”

“ What I liked best was the liberty and self-reliance of the women. Day by day their sphere of activity expands until they have begun to invade the realms of politics. The men may laugh at them, but nevertheless they respect their women for it. It is impossible for us to realise here what influence those women exercise on their country and on the individual, and how beneficent that influence is. Our life seems purposeless compared with it. ”

“ Yes, Chotu would save me.
While still I was reflecting upon all that might or might not be, a servant came and handed me a card. What strange accident of fate was this? The doctor! my heart stood almost still; it was not joy that caused it, but amazement. I was like one in a trance when I told the servant to show him in. I was alone in the drawing-room, the only private apartment the house afforded. I had fled thither to be away from the curiosity and annoying remarks of friends. ”

“ Grant me that, oh Fate, and I shall feel compensated for the sorrow of existence." There was no wounded pride in this, I had no pride to wound, humility alone claimed me as her own.
Thus as the days went by the fire in my soul burnt on. ”

“ Just as I am the same individual now that I was in my infancy although I have assumed a different appearance through the growth and expansion of body and mind, so love is the same, though it grows, expands and blossoms out from infantile affection into the passion of youth. ”

“ I could not make my sister understand my action. According to her I had wantonly thrown away my only chance of happiness in life. The one object of a maiden's life is matrimony; she must be given to a desirable bridegroom, that is the goal of her existence. If she finds a worthy man who professes to love and is willing to marry her, she must consider that her future is assured, she has all that can make life dear. ”

“ In her matter-of-fact way she argued that similar occurrences take place daily in life, that a man is not perfect but liable to the failings of humanity in general. If woman raises her ideal of him too high she must be disillusioned, and as long as he has not committed any extraordinary offence there can be no reason for condemning him. But my midsummer night's dream had vanished, and vanished for ever. ”

“ Whenever my mother sees a girl who appears good-looking to her she makes up her mind that that very girl must become her daughter-in-law. If polygamy were still in vogue, she would have had half a dozen daughters-in-law by this time. Don't let that disturb you further. I am asking for a reply to my appeal."
What could I say? Was I not his, body and soul? How could I tell him that I was to become the wife of another? At last I replied timidly, hardly knowing myself how I came to say it:
"I am engaged. Father has already settled my marriage." ”