Eve

“ There was never a daughter of Eve but once, ere the tale of years be done, Shall know the scent of the Eden Rose, but once beneath the sun! Though the years may bring her joy or pain, fame, sorrow, or sacrifice, The hour that brought her the scent of the Rose she lived it in Paradise! ”

“ Arise, Eve, from thy repentance; for, behold, Adam thy husband has gone forth from his body; arise and see his spirit carried up to Him that made [24] it, to meet Him.
And Eve arose, and covered her face with her hand; and the angel says to her: Raise thyself from the things of earth. And Eve gazed up into heaven, and she saw a chariot of light going along under four shining eagles—and it was not possible for any one born of woman [25] to tell the glory of them, or to see the face of them—and angels going before the chariot. ”

“ Take it, Eve, for it is a promise of better things to come. Never again doubt your Father's love. You have only to wait, and when the winter's snows have gone and the summer sun shines once more, the flowers will bloom again as beautiful as ever."
Then Eve watched the angel return to Heaven, until the gleam of her silver wings was no longer to be seen. She still carried in her hand his tiny gift and as she turned away she saw that where the angel's feet had rested the snow had melted away, and on the green grass beneath was growing a lovely cluster of snowdrops. ”

“ Eve had been suffering, suffering for Canterton, Lynette and herself. She saw life so clearly now—the lights and shadows, the sunlit spaces, the sinister glooms, the sharp, conventional horizons. Canterton did not know how much of the woman there was in her, how very primitive and strong were the emotions that had risen to the surface of her consciousness. The compact would be too perilous. She knew in her heart of hearts that the youth in her desired more than a spiritual dream, and she was trying to harden herself, to build up barriers, to smother this splendid thing, this fire of the gods. ”

“ That woman was Eve; that mirror-like lake was set in the midst of the Garden of Eden; I was Adam, and not this watery-eyed antediluvian calling himself by my name, who is a familiar figure in the Anthropological Society, an authority on evolution, and a blot upon civilization.
I have little to say about this first existence of mine. It was full of delights. Speech not having been invented, Eve was an attractive companion to a man burdened as I was with responsibilities, and until our children were born we went our way in happiness and silence. ”

“ Eve, as she was when first she grew into separate entity and embodiment out of Adam's side; Eve, of creamiest flesh, and richest, reddest blood, before a soul—a tormenting, puzzling, intangible, incomprehensible soul—was breathed into her. ”

“ So as lovely as one can fancy Eve, fresh from the hands of her Creator, the beautiful, unhappy, wronged young wife passed from her dressing-room and into that lovely shrine of her garnered griefs that saw what the world saw not—the desolation of that sensitive heart—the nursery of her loved, lost baby! ”

“ Eve lay and looked at the sky, and at the dim tops of the trees sliding by, trailing their branches across the stars. She could see the outline of Canterton’s head and shoulders in front of her, but never once did she see his profile, for the car was travelling fast and he kept his eyes on the winding road that was lit brilliantly by the electric headlights. They swept through Basingford like a charge of horse. Eve saw the spire of the church walk by, a line of dark roofs undulating beneath it. ”

“ Self was no longer dissevered from the all-consciousness of the life round her. The tenderness came back to her, all those mysterious, elusive and exultant moods that came she knew not whence and went she knew not whither. She had ceased to be a pathological specimen corked up in a bottle, and had become part of the colour and the smell, the joy and the pathos of things vital.
In the fields Eve saw lambs at play, skipping absurdly, butting each other. Birds were singing and making love, and the bees were busy in the furze. A sense of the immensity, of the exultant rush of life, possessed her. ”

“ Mary's destiny was to undo what Eve had done, and whatever in the order of grace Eve lost, Mary regained. Mary is the direct antithesis of Eve. Ave — Eva — even their very names are an inversion, the one of the other. It was due to God's dignity and power that His fair creation should be restored by exactly the same means wherewith by the demon it had been destroyed. Eve sprang from Adam and became his mother in error and death; Mary sprang from God and became the Mother of the Man-God — the truth and the life. ”

“ I thought it thine: It said,
“Why sleepest thou, Eve? now is the pleasant time,
The cool, the silent, save where silence yields
To the night-warbling bird, that now awake
Tunes sweetest his love-laboured song; now reigns
Full-orbed the moon, and with more pleasing light
Shadowy sets off the face of things; in vain,
If none regard; Heaven wakes with all his eyes,
Whom to behold but thee, Nature’s desire? ”

“ She is unlike every other woman. I doubt if she knows how beautiful she is, or what is the worth of beauty. She is Eve, a perfect copy of Eve—the Eve of Scripture, and the Eve of Milton. She is Eve, in not knowing wherefore she should blush over her own nakedness—the type of the beautiful in its primitive state, unwashed, savage, with hair unconfined, who wanders through the garden, fearing nothing, and even playing with a serpent. ”

“ Eve’s hand lay against Canterton’s on the oak seat. The lightest of touches was sufficient. She was learning that the light, delicate touches, the most sensitive vibrations, are the things that count in life. ”

“ An Eve untouched and unstained, fresh from the hand of God, gazing at her reflection in the mossy mountain stream, amazed at her beauty, and in love with herself; even in this first act setting an example for man that he has followed too well for his own peace !
This canon was as black as Erebus down there a sea of sombre firs ; and down, down as if the earth was cracked and cleft almost in two. Here and there lay little nests of clouds below us, tangled in the tree- tops, no wind to drive them, nothing to fret and dis turb. They lay above the dusks of the forest as if asleep. ”

“ It is remarkable to what a degree woman develops her intellect in the spirit world.
Freed from the cares of maternity, she seems like some young goddess fresh from the hand of Jupiter. All nerve, electricity, and motion—her thoughts sparkling and full of flavor, and light, and life, this new-born Eve of the celestial kingdom inspires the down-trodden Eve of earth, and kindles to a blaze the whole male population of the spiritual globe. ”

“ In the magic evening light, which touches all things with a rosy, transitory glamour, the fresh young face with its daintily sculptured lineaments seemed marvellously and surpassingly fair; but, like morbidezza marble, hopelessly fixed and chill, and might have served for some image of Eve, when, standing on the boundary of eternal beatitude, she daringly put up her slender womanly fingers to pluck the fatal fruit. ”

“ The Lord should labour over her in a silent passion of Creation, and Adam should be tense as if in a dream of immortality, and Eve should take form glimmeringly, shadowily, as if the Lord must wrestle with His own soul for her, yet she was a radiance. ”

“ Eve, a curiously forbidding woman, rather a Gauguinesque type, results; she is presented to Adam; they eat the fruit; they take to foliage; they are judged; the leaves become real garments; they are driven forth to toil, Adam with an axe and Eve with a distaff. ”

“ As Eve spoke, her soft eyes, those of a courted and worshipped handsome woman, clearly expressed the compassion she felt for that ugly, deformed girl, whom she had never been able to regard as a daughter. Was it possible that she, with her sovereign beauty, that beauty which she herself had ever adored and nursed, making it her one care, her one religion—was it possible that she had given birth to such a graceless creature, with a dark, goatish profile, one shoulder higher than the other, and a pair of endless arms such as hunchbacks often have? ”

“ The new Eve looks round with a sensation of doubt and distrust, such as a city dame, the daughter of numberless generations of citizens, might experience if suddenly transported to the garden of Eden. ”

“ Who amongst us, beholding Eve in her beauty plucking the fruit which tempted her eye, would not have been ready to have echoed the first lie ever breathed on our planet, "thou shalt not surely die." Bright, guileless, and, until now, sinless being; God will not severely judge thee, He has threatened, but He will not perform. ”

“ Remember that while we were in the garden, we knew neither night nor day. Think of the Tree of Life, from below which flowed the water, and that shed lustre over us! Remember, O Eve, the garden land, and the brightness thereof!
10 Think, oh think of that garden in which was no darkness, while we lived in it.
11 Whereas no sooner did we come into this Cave of Treasures than darkness surrounded us all around; until we can no longer see each other; and all the pleasure of this life has come to an end."
Chapter XII - How darkness came between Adam and Eve. ”

“ Eve walked back through the pine woods to Orchards Corner, thinking of Canterton and Lynette, and of the woman who was too busy to know anything about flowers. How Gertrude Canterton had delivered an epigram upon herself by uttering those few words. She was just a restless shuttle in the social loom, flying to and fro, weaving conventional and unbeautiful patterns. And she was married to a man whose very life was part of the green sap of the earth, whose humility watched and wondered at the mystery of growth, whose heart was, in some ways, the heart of a child. ”

“ You see my idea of Eve is a sensual, self-willed, ignorant savage, who saw something beautiful, that smelt good, and looked as if it tasted good, and so tasted it, without any aspiration after any other knowledge. ”

“ She does not shape her forms by a common model. Not one of Eve's numerous progeny in all respects resembles her who first culled the flowers of Eden. To the infinite variety and picturesque inequality of Nature we owe the great charm of her uncloying beauty. ”

“ There was something over it, a spirituality, a slight mistiness that softened the materialism. Eve knew what she desired to paint, and yet something bewitched her hands, puzzled her, made her dissatisified. The Gothic spirit refused to be conjured, refused to suffer this piece of brilliant formalism to remain untouched under the thinner blue of the northern sky. ”

“ There is no veil of sin over her eye; no cloud of suspicion darkens her forehead; no concealment feeds upon her damask cheek. Like Eve she goes about hand in hand with her friends, in native innocence, relying on what she has of virtue. ”

“ I do not doubt, therefore, that your pretty Eve is all you think her. She certainly is a graceful and gracious creature, with a delicate prettiness of the wild rose type, which I prefer greatly to the azalea or the camellia order of beauty. She cannot fail to love you—nor can she fail to be deeply grateful to you for having rescued her from shabby surroundings and a neglectful father. God grant that this step which you have taken—the most solemn act in a man’s life—may bring you the happiness which the marriage of true minds must always bring. ”

“ It withdraws into itself, it shrivels like burning paper, it becomes stronger, more concentrated, more animated. That Eve, that was originally to be placed over the Gates of Hell, stands with head sunk deeply into the shadow of the arms that draw together over the breast like those of a freezing woman. The back is rounded, the nape of the neck almost horizontal. She bends forward as though listening over her own body in which a new future begins to stir. ”

“ Thou, O God, art the true and most brilliant light; all other lights are mingled with darkness. Thou art the sun that knowest no down-setting, that dwellest in inaccessible light. Thou art the end to which all flesh come. Thou art the only satisfaction of all the blessed."
Eve.—"Adonai, Lord God, have mercy upon me for Thy great goodness, and for the multitude of Thy mercies do away my transgressions. Thou before all things didst create the immoveable heaven as a holy and exalted home, and Thou didst adorn it with angel spirits, to whom Thou didst in goodness declare thy purposes. ”

“ Where it will please God to put us, may be far from the garden, O Eve? Or where God will prevent us from beholding Him, because we have transgressed His commandment, and because we have made requests of Him at all times?
10 O Eve, if God will bring us into a strange land other than this, in which we find consolation, it must be to put our souls to death, and blot out our name from the face of the earth.
11 O Eve, if we are further alienated from the garden and from God, where shall we find Him again, and ask Him to give us gold, incense, myrrh, and some fruit of the fig-tree? ”

“ Eve ate of the fruit of knowledge, and the glories of uncomprehended Paradise began the slow process of resolving themselves in so much land and so much water, so many trees, so many shrubs, and so many spotted, speckled and striped birds and beasts and creeping things. ”

“ Coveting what God had withheld, longing for a luxury forbidden, ambitiously aiming at gaining knowledge which should make her independent as a God, Eve at once received into her heart "the lust of the eye, the lust of the flesh, and the pride of life." They came as guests—to remain as tyrants. When we feel their influence within ourselves, when covetousness, love of pleasure, or pride of intellect would draw us from our lowly allegiance to God, from our simple obedience to His word, let us look on the forbidden fruit and tremble—let us look on it, and watch and pray. ”

“ So, symbolled forth in these twin and fair flowers which Eve saved for Earth out of Paradise, each with the virtue to heal or to strengthen, stored under the leaves that give sweets to the air; here, soothing the heart when the world brings the trouble; here, recruiting the soul which our sloth or our senses enervate, leave we Woman, at least in the place Heaven assigns to her amidst the multiform “Varieties of Life.” ”