Mela

“ On a certain occasion during the annual mêla, a young girl permitted the improper attentions of a young man, and soon afterwards found herself in an interesting condition; vainly she entreated the young man to marry her, and hide her shame ”

“ Before my improvements and the new regime, the people went to different melas to see the tamashas, for however low and poor a people are, they will have their pleasures. I have read this somewhere. 149“One way of getting an idea of our fellow men’s miseries is to go and look at their pleasures.” I have often thought of this when seeing the simple trifling amusements of the millions of India people at a mela. How narrow and empty the minds that could take any pleasure in what they enjoy! ”

“ NOW the holy and chaste woman Olympias, whilst journeying in the footsteps of this woman Melania, was emulating her in the excellence of her divine life and labours, and she was seized with a fervent desire of travelling in the path which leadeth to heaven, and in every respect she made herself cling close to the Divine Books. ”

“ The face and attitude of that unseductive Venus, wide awake and melancholy, opposite her snoring lover, seems to symbolise the indignities which women may have to endure from insolent and sottish boys with only youth to recommend them. ”

“ It is now believed that the melá must have numbered between 750,000 and 1,000,000 of souls . . . Bathing at Hurdwan, during such a melá, may be said never to cease. All day on the 11th the police were obliged to be present up to eleven o'clock P.M. They were on the ground again at two o'clock A.M. on the 12th, and from that time till ten o'clock at night they were obliged to remain at their posts. It is said that several of the brave men who worked so hard at the melá have died . . ."
Writing of the Bairagis, the correspondent goes on:—
"These mustered over 10,000 strong. ”

“ Waves of laughter, scyllas of sarcasm, melancholic whirlpools, Melting in the vast sea of bliss. The storm of MAYA stilled By magic wand of intuition deep. The universe, forgotten dream, subconsciously lurks, Ready to invade my newly-wakened memory divine. I live without the cosmic shadow, But it is not, bereft of me; As the sea exists without the waves, But they breathe not without the sea. ”

“ Then their fields spin themselves green carpets; snow and ice are not in all the land; then a million, strange, bright, fragrant things powder that sward with perfumes; and high, majestic beings, dumb and grand, stand up with outstretched arms, and hold their green canopies over merry angels—men and women—who love and wed, and sleep and dream, beneath the approving glances of their visible god and goddess, glad-hearted sun, and pensive moon! ”

“ And bliss steals slowly through their quiet souls;
Though ever lost to human kind
And all they love, they are resign'd:
While with a scarce-heard murmur rolls,
Like the waves that break along the shore,
The sound of the world they must see no more.
List! Mary is the first to speak,
Her tender voice still tenderer in her bliss;
And breathing o'er her silent husband's cheek,
As from an infant's lip, a timid kiss,
Whose touch at once all lingering sorrow calms,
Says, "God to us in love hath given
A home on earth, most like to Heaven,
Our own sweet Isle of Palms." ”

“ Shall twine with the chaplet of song for the brows
Of each fair Morvida, Llan Meilen’s sweet Rose.
Had the love I had loved been inconstant or gay,
Enduring at most but a long summer’s day,
Growing cold when the splendour of noontide hath set,
I might have forgotten that ever we met.
But long as Eryri its peak shall expose
To the sunshine of summer, or winter’s cold snows,
My love will endure for Llan Meilen’s sweet Rose. ”

“ Her face changed then, as the calm sea will change when a breath of wind rises in the east, and the waves dance and sparkle in wild haste beneath the first blush of the morning.
Colour and life came into her cheeks, light and passion sprang to her eyes; all the woman’s nature rose to her face. ”

“ It’s marvellous what a glint of moonlight can do. It throws a glamour over the essentially commonplace, the same way that—well, that that fancy known as love does upon occasions, otherwise the plain features of a woman would perish from the earth and not be perpetuated. The lumpy daughter of the village who exists simply to show what an artist was Jean François Millet, appears down there to float through the moonlight like the restless spirit of a princess. Is she coming to meet the spirit of her lover at their old trysting-place? ”

“ What do you feel about colour, Meriel? Does it speak to you? Look at those great waves today! ... The blue of them, the deepest, truest blue that it is possible to conceive, and the shafts of green, cutting across the blue, and the purple shadows, and above all, the foamy torrent of white! Things that one has done oneself are so poor, so unsatisfying; but the big things last. The sea comforts me, Meriel; the bigness of it, the beauty of it. Why should we fret, and be troubled? It will pass! Everything passes. ”

“ All this part of the picture I fancied cold and hard; but it was the Venus herself that seemed to me the impersonation of womanly beauty and womanly love. Emerging from a cloud, with her blue draperies defining the rounded symmetry of her form, and leaving one exquisite foot bare, she is gazing on the prostrate hunter with an expression of unspeakable tenderness and self-abandonment, such as comes but once in a lifetime over woman's face. ”

“ But when we put the shoes from off our feet and enter, we should see before us, tall and grave, glorious in strong beauty, majestic in her amplitude of power, the Goddess Motherhood.
Such love should shine from her deep eyes that children would crowd to that temple and feel at home; learning to understand a little of what had brought them there. Such beauty in this body of great womanhood that men would worship as for long they have worshipped her of Melos. Such high pride that girls, gazing, would feel strong to meet and bear their splendid task. ”

“ But afar off, as from some half-forgotten world, he seemed to hear the mellow, golden patterning of bells, bells weaving their intricate spell of beauty about another city than this dark Babel, a City of grave spires and a curving street and quiet immemorial lanes....
“No, carissima,” he smiled at her with the true ffoulis charm. “No. Your body is beautiful. But my soul is beautiful. We can never, never understand each other.” ”

“ Suffering the evils both of the day and night,
While no night is more dark than is my day,
Nor no day hath less quiet than my night:
With such bad misture of my night and day,
That living thus in blackest winter night,
I feel the flames of hottest summer day.
90
Stella, think not that I by verse seek fame,
Who seek, who hope, who love, who live but thee;
Thine eyes my pride, thy lips my history:
If thou praise not, all other praise is shame. ”

“ Till the heart is with them dancing in a happy wonderland,
While the shadows of the after-noon with lilac hues combine.
In the lilac-blossom-time the lovers often fondly meet,
And drink the blossom’s odor, a true potency for dreams,
And oftest when the evening-dew makes it a tenfold sweet,
A-trembling like a tear of joy within the clear moonbeam,
The youth in his new happiness a prince of kingdoms is,
The maiden is a being fair, as from some other clime,
And heaven itself is upon earth in that pure, binding kiss,{168}
There in her father’s garden in the lilac-blossom-time. ”

“ With Oro, the sun is co-eternal; and the same life that moves that moose, animates alike the sun and Oro. All are parts of One. In me, in me, flit thoughts participated by the beings peopling all the stars. ”

“ And as the mellow shadows of night stole over the scene-as the heavens looked down in all their sereneness, and the stars shone out, and twinkled, and laughed, and danced upon the blue waters, and coquetted with the moonbeams—for the moon was up, and shedding a halo of mystic light over the scene-making night merry, nature seemed speaking to Maria in words of condolence. ”

“ Soft eyes looked love in answer and the softness and beauty went in with the fibre. Baby fingers clutched at it and were laughingly untangled. At night, when the fires of the village were lighted, and the crimson glow was reflected upon it, strange tales of love and war were mingled with the thread. “The nightingale sang into it, the roses from Persian gardens breathed upon it, the moonlight put witchery into it; the tinkle of the gold and silver on the women's dusky ankles, the scent of sandal wood and attar of rose—it all went into the rug. ”

“ The dark shadows which, when they surround a woman’s eyes, betray past storms of grief, as the halo round the moon—the eye of night—gives warning of storms to come, were deeper than ever; and when her sorrowful gaze fell on Melissa, the girl felt an almost irresistible longing to throw herself into her arms and weep on her motherly bosom. ”

“ As the summer drew near its zenith something seemed to come over Melian. Throughout the radiancy of the glowing summer day—or even when clouds from seaward brought some hours of soft warm rain to keep the full sapped leafage from succumbing to a too long unbroken glow of sun heat, she rejoiced with the joy of living. ”

“ No plum has a sweeter bloom or more delicious texture than the skin of your young face; but this mineral filth hides that delicate texture, and substitutes a dry, uniform appearance, more like a certain kind of leprosy than health. Nature made your face the rival of peaches, roses, lilies; and you say, 'No; I know better than my Creator and my God; my face shall be like a dusty miller's.' Go into any flour-mill, and there you shall see men with faces exactly like your friend Miss Lucas's. But before a miller goes to his sweetheart, he always washes his face. ”

“ In the first place maidens see in the light of the moon, especially in the Spring, more romance than you might credit, for it adds for them a mystery to the darkness which the night has not when it is merely black. ”

“ Standing on the apex of a sandy elevation, which still rose a few feet above the gathering flood, was the figure of a woman, as perfect in form and in classic beauty of feature as the Venus of Milo—a magnified human being not less than forty feet in height. ”

“ The dull light spread a gloom over the room we sat in, and from the black corners dark thoughts seemed to rise and grow upon us. So we would rather walk in the garden, or even look out of the window, when night fell, than sit at our work or our writing-table. ”

“ Alma forbid! We never fast; our aspirations are our prayers; our lives are worship. And when we laugh, with human joy at human things, —then do we most sound great Oro's praise, and prove the merit of sweet Alma's love! Our love in Alma makes us glad, not sad. Ye speak of temples;—behold! 'tis by not building them, that we widen charity among us. ”

“ Baby improves every day. The place is solitary, and has a wild charm. The moon shines magnificently over the sea, which roars loudly, agitated by the wind. I walk on the shore in the evening with Marcus, and indoors, Rebecca tells me in the clear moonlight occurrences in the history of the inner light, which prove the wonderful life and guiding of that inner light, where the soul truly waits for it with quiet introverted attention. ”

“ Mel. My thoughts are as black as your beard; my fortunes as ill-proportioned as your legs; and all the powers of my mind as leaden as your wit, and as dusty as your face is swarthy. 180
Gal. Faith, sweet, I’ll lay thee on the lips for that jest.
Mel. I prithee intrude not on a dead man’s right.
Gal. No, but the living’s just possession:
Thy lips and love are mine.
Mel. You ne’er took seizin on them yet: forbear.
There’s not a vacant corner of my heart,
But all is fill’d with dead Antonio’s loss.
Then urge no more; O leave to love at all;
’Tis less disgraceful not to mount than fall. ”

“ A girl in a garden with the moonlight in her hair? Stooping to pat him or feeding him yummies? He'd rolled over and was lying with his forelimbs stretched straight out, as though he were reaching for the moon. ”

“ How true it is that thought and feeling, like the sun, give color to outward things. The heart creates its own sunshine, or the cloud through which nature is revealed to it. Phebe Gray and her betrothed husband felt nothing but the sweet and the beautiful—their hearts were brimful of sunshine. But, alas, for Malina, she looked through the cloud. ”

“ The face of Stella, which both night and day
Did follow him, where-e’er he turned his way,
Her beck’ning in his dream might mean to be
A change of mind, before another moon.
Yea, might he but behold those eyes once more,
Receive again one look of kindliness,
And feast his famished heart upon her beauty,
And hear her speak, as once, forgetting duty,{39}
And give him one adieu of hope to bless,
Then would he seek his chimes on any shore.
XVI
How man is ever living by illusions! ”

“ How could I give that heart to thee, already sacred to another’s love?’ ‘Look,’ said Melechsala, ‘there are still blooming many other flowers besides her whom thou callest the flower of the world: they all refresh our eyes and sense with their varied hue and sweet perfume. ”

“ As in a glass, Miss Vesta seemed to see the whole thing. Melody a woman, a great singer, courted, caressed, living like a queen, with everything rich and beautiful about her; jewels in her shining hair, splendid dresses, furs and laces, such as even elderly country women love to dream about sometimes. ”