Lir

“ All went on like that for a good while, but at last a great misfortune came on Lir, for his wife died from him after a sickness of three nights. And that came very hard on Lir, and there was heaviness on his mind after her. And there was great talk of the death of that woman in her own time. ”

“ There lives no man who knoweth us in the house
where we were born."
So the children of Lir flew away to the Glory Isle of Brandan the saint, and they settled upon the Lake of the Birds until the holy Patrick came to Erin and the holy Mac Howg came to Glory Isle.
And the first night he came to the island the children of Lir heard the voice of his bell ringing for matins, so that they started and leaped about in terror at hearing it; and her brothers left Fingula alone. "What is it, beloved brothers?" said she. "We know not what faint, fearful voice it is we have heard." ”

“ Nine hundred years to be on the water, it is a long time for any one to be in pain; it is I put this on you through treachery, it is best for you to do as I tell you now.
"Lir, that got victory with so many a good cast, his heart is a kernel of death in him now; the groaning of the great hero is a sickness to me, though it is I that have well earned his anger."
And then the horses were caught for Aoife, and the chariot yoked for her, and she went on to the palace of Bodb Dearg, and there was a welcome before her from the chief people of the place. ”

“ CHAPTER V.
"You say I have been very ill?" said Lily, looking up into the dark face bending over her.
"Yes, you have been near to death's door; but indeed you must not talk; you will exhaust yourself."
"But I must talk," said the patient, willfully. "Why am I here? This is not my home," glancing round the poor, ill-furnished room. "Where are my father, my sister, my maid? Oh, God!" and a piercing shriek burst from her lips. "I remember everything—the murderous dagger-thrust, the horrid spell that bound me hand and foot and tongue. ”

“ That I still wear from my neck suspended,
Art thou stronger than our spirit-bond so cherish'd?
Or canst thou prolong love's days untimely ended?
Lily, I fly from thee! I still am doom'd to range
Thro' countries strange,
Thro' distant vales and woods, link'd on to thee!
Ah, Lily's heart could surely never fall
So soon away from me! ”

“ When, bearing blessings, they descend to earth."
Shall we describe the angel-child Lilly, whose symmetrical features and quiet ways were the exact counterpart of her father's, or shall we leave her to the creation of the fancy, after giving the brief outlines? Fair as a lily her straight soft brown hair was of the richest hue in which nature asserted her independence, as that of both her parents curled. ”

“ You're not the poorest man in Lille.
My heart is weary, my peace is gone,
How shall I e'er my woes reveal?
I have no money, I lie in pawn,
A stranger in the town of Lille.
IV. Say, shall I to yon Flemish church,
And at a Popish altar kneel?
O do not leave me in the lurch,—
I'll cry ye patron-saints of Lille!
Ye virgins dressed in satin hoops,
Ye martyrs slain for mortal weal,
Look kindly down! before you stoops
The miserablest man in Lille.
And lo! as I beheld with awe
A pictured saint (I swear 'tis real)
It smiled, and turned to grandmamma!—
It did! and I had hope in Lille! ”

“ So deep and true is Lily's love for you, that if he were to say to her, 'I have your brother in my power, and I can bring misery and shame upon him, and will, if you are cold to me!'--if he were to say this to Lily in his own bad way, and work upon her loving heart in his own bad way—O, Alfred, I could almost pray that somebody would kill him!--if he were to do all this, as he may, I tremble to think what Lily would do. ”

“ It seemed to me that I must soon sink down and glide into unconsciousness. I heard in the wind the voice of Lily calling me, half sadly, half reproachfully; and with the thought of Lily came the thought of prayer. But prayer had never been to me what it was to Lily; I could not lean on it as she would have done in my situation. I strove to get hold of words which would tell of my sorrow for my rebellious wilfulness, which would be a cry to my Father above; but they slipped away from my lips, and would not come when I wanted them, as they would have come like helpful angels to Lily. ”

“ It taught him, too, the very best species of politeness—that of the heart; and young Lillias could not help wondering where it was that the manners of the red-cheeked Highland boy had received so exquisite a polish, and why it was that she herself was so much the object of his quiet unobtrusive attentions. When night released him from labour, he would take up his seat in some dark corner of the house, that commanded a full view of the fire, and there would he sit for whole hours gazing on the features of his mistress. A fine woman looks well by any light, even by that of a peat fire ”

“ And when the king heard and saw the evidence, he sent the old woman, who was reliable, to identify the pearl necklace. And he heard from her that Lily was branded on the hip.
Then he was convinced that she was really a witch and had devoured his son. So he went himself to the counsellor's son, who was disguised as a hermit, and asked how Lily [17] should be punished. And by his advice, she was banished from the city, though her parents wept. So she was banished naked to the forest and knew that the counsellor's son had done it all, but she did not die. ”

“ In the distance—for Lily-Vale is not a small place—may be seen great towering mountains, encircling the valley; their shining heads, which glow in the sunlight with purple and rosy hues, looking like radiant guides watching over the little folks below them, are fair to gaze upon, and many a lesson of firmness, fidelity, and truth do the children learn from the sight of those faithful sentinels of Lily-Vale. ”

“ How do you know that for years past Lillie has not felt some longings and deficiencies in her inner life of which she was barely conscious, or which she did not understand?
You are not only a clever and capable man; you are kind, and an entertaining companion; in short, you have many good qualities which Lillie exalted to the skies. But your nature is not very poetical. You are, in fact, rather prosaic, and only believe what you see. ”

“ John thinks of her only as he thought of her in the fair illusion of first love,—the dearest and most sacred of all illusions.
The Lillie who guides his household, and is so motherly to the younger children; who shares every thought of his heart; who enters into every feeling and sympathy,—she [331] is the pure reward of his faithfulness and constancy. She is a sacred and saintly Lillie, springing out of the sod where he laid her mother, forgetting all her faults for ever. ”

“ When we were a little older we had lessons together, both from a regular teacher and from my father, and when we began to read together, the heroes and heroines of our books were as real to us as our dolls had been, and we lived over their lives and histories again and again. What life and energy Lili had; what freshness and vivacity; my charming Lili, with her flowing brown curls and her laughing eyes! ”

“ Lilly was left in no uncertainty as to his opinion about the immortality of the soul, the origin of the universe, and God Almighty. Often she felt as if she were left shivering alone in a vast icy-cold wilderness where there was no All-loving Father, no hope of an after-life, and much less of a St. Joseph. ”

“ There are some women whom we admire for their dazzling skin; for their fine hair, or their sparkling eyes; for their dimpled hands, their handsome ankles, or their necks of snow; but in every point of form and feature fair Lily was admirable. She was one of those magnificent beings that appear but once in a century. She was then the wonder, as she is still the boast, of all Cromar and the Garioch. ”

“ Whilst the King was at Windsor-Castle, once walking upon the leads there, he looked upon Captain Wharton's Almanack: 'My book,' saith he, 'speaks well as to the weather:' One William Allen standing by; 'what,' saith he, 'saith his antagonist, Mr. Lilly?' 'I do not care for Lilly,' said his Majesty, 'he hath been always against me,' and became a little bitter in his expressions. 'Sir,' saith Allen, 'the man is an honest man, and writes but what his art informs {145} him.' 'I believe it,' said his Majesty, 'and that Lilly understands astrology as well as any man in Europe.' Exit Rex Carolus. ”

“ On the twenty-sixth of September Lilly married Mr. Edward A. Munro, a Canadian whose business was in Brooklyn. It was an overwhelming trial to me, for Lilly had been my right hand in all affairs since her father’s death. It is true that ten words by telegraph never yet failed to bring her to my side by the next possible train, but the house was empty and forlorn without her; and both Alice and I were desolate. However life is a constant learning “to do without” until that wonderful, “never-coming-back,” we call death, restores to us all that we have lost. ”

“ Nothing was too high or too low—too mighty or too insignificant, for the grasp of his genius. The stars, his informants, were as communicative on the most trivial as on the most important subjects. If a scheme was set on foot to rescue the king, or to retrieve a stray trinket—to restore the royal authority, or to make a frail damsel an honest woman—to cure the nation of anarchy, or a lap-dog of a surfeit, William Lilly was the oracle to be consulted. His almanacks were spelled over in the tavern and quoted in the senate ”

“ Lily had no real intimacy with nature, but she had a passion for the appropriate and could be keenly sensitive to a scene which was the fitting background of her own sensations. The landscape outspread below her seemed an enlargement of her present mood, and she found something of herself in its calmness, its breadth, its long free reaches. ”

“ Miss Oliver said to Rilla, as they went to church on Easter Morning. “But I am not off the rack. The torture may begin again at any time.”
“I doubted God last Sunday,’” said Rilla, “but I don’t doubt Him today. Evil cannot win. Spirit is on our side and it is bound to outlast flesh.” ”

“ Here I slept much better than a king, for I even fancied that it smelt of Lily. If little Lily, as she shall be called, whatever the rogues have christened her, if my little beauty--for that I am sure she must be--ever comes to light, when I am in my grave, remember one thing, Clara, you will find her breath and general fragrance just as her mother's were. Such things are hereditary, especially among women. ”

“ Lillie’s cheeks crimsoned; she stood with clasped hands and loud beating heart, surveying the fragments.
“What shall we do?” she exclaimed.
“Let us go away—she’ll find the bottle broken; we need not say anything. She will not know that you did it.”
So, conscience-smitten and miserable, the little girl followed her tempter down stairs; her first thought being an earnest desire to escape the blame. Lillie was nervous and sensitive and very timid; the idea of her teacher’s displeasure overshadowed all the sunshine of that day, and made it indeed a time of wretchedness. ”

“ Lily said not a word, but gathered and plaited a wreath of flowers, wherewith, as in a nuptial tie, she bound the white headstones together--anything so as not to disturb me just then. Even that trifle, a graceful idea born of her Southern origin, even that for the moment touched me deeply. Times there are when our souls seem to have taken hot baths in the springs of memory, and every pore of them is open. ”

“ Lilly was no longer a departed spirit, but a presiding genius that stood between her and the pages of her book, ready to interpret those dark phases of human experience which for a time shut us out from the beauty and glory of this outward world that the inner vision may become clearer, when, purified and sanctified, clothed, and in our right mind, we may sit down at the right hand of Jesus, accepting his condition, "That unless we become like one of these little ones, we can in no wise enter the kingdom of heaven." ”

“ Suppose Lily told how she had hidden him—him, Johnny Trumbull, the champion of the school—in that empty baby-carriage! He would have more to contend against than Arnold Carruth with socks and curls. He did not think Lily would tell. Somehow Lily, although a little, befrilled girl, gave an impression of having a knowledge of a square deal almost as much as a boy would; but what boy could tell with a certainty what such an uncertain creature as a girl might or might not do? ”

“ In fact, the clergy, when off duty, are no safer guides of attractive young women than other mortal men; and Lillie had so often seen their spiritual attentions degenerate into downright, temporal love-making, that she held them in as small reverence as the rest of their sex. Only one dreadful John the Baptist of her acquaintance, one of the camel’s-hair-girdle and locust-and-wild-honey species, once encountering Lillie at Saratoga, and observing the ways and manners of the court which she kept there, took it upon him to give her a spiritual admonition. ”

“ Lilly felt a dull terror arise within her of that old lady who sat commandingly in her arm-chair behind those respectable porcelain flower pots, and directed the conduct of so powerful a man as Lilly's benefactor. ”

“ LILI'S MENAGERIE.
[Goethe describes this much-admired poem, which he wrote in honour of his love Lili, as being "designed to change his surrender of her into despair, by drolly-fretful images."]
There's no menagerie, I vow,
Excels my Lili's at this minute;
⁠She keeps the strangest creatures in it,
⁠And catches them, she knows not how.
Oh, how they hop, and run, and rave,
And their clipped pinions wildly wave,—
Poor princes, who must all endure
The pangs of love that nought can cure.
What is the fairy's name?—Is it Lili?—Ask not me! ”