Ewe

“ When you and Adam talk, I hear you say 'Why?' Always 'Why?' You see things; and you say 'Why?' But I dream things that never were; and I say 'Why not?' I made the word dead to describe my old skin that I cast when I am renewed. ”

“ AFTER this our Lord shewed concerning Prayer. In which Shewing I see two conditions in our Lord's signifying: one is rightfulness, another is sure trust.
But yet oftentimes our trust is not full: for we are not sure that God heareth us, as we think because of our unworthiness, and because we feel right nought, (for we are as barren and dry oftentimes after our prayers as we were afore) ; and this, in our feeling our folly, is cause of our weakness. [1] For thus have I felt in myself.
And all this brought our Lord suddenly to my mind, and shewed these words, and said: ”

“ And in this I saw verily that the inward part is master and sovereign to the outward, and doth not charge itself with, nor take heed to, the will of that: but all the intent and will is set to be oned unto our Lord Jesus. That the outward part should draw the inward to assent was not shewed to me; but that the inward draweth the outward by grace, and both shall be oned in bliss without end, by the virtue of Christ,—this was shewed. ”

“ Killing that love which thou hast vow'd to cherish;
Thy wit, that ornament to shape and love,
Misshapen in the conduct of them both,
Like powder in a skilless soldier's flask,
Is set afire by thine own ignorance,
And thou dismemb'red with thine own defence.
What, rouse thee, man! Thy Juliet is alive,
For whose dear sake thou wast but lately dead.
There art thou happy. Tybalt would kill thee,
But thou slewest Tybalt. There art thou happy too.
The law, that threat'ned death, becomes thy friend
And turns it to exile. There art thou happy. ”

“ The middle compartment is a triptych, consisting of Eve’s Temptation, the Annunciation by the Angel to the Blessed Virgin; and Gideon in his armour, on his knees, with his shield on the ground, watching the fleece. Over Eve’s Temptation there is a scroll issuing from Isaiah’s niche, and having this inscription: “Ecce virgo concipiet et pariet filium,”—Behold a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, Is. vii. 14; Eve stands near the tree of life, emblematized by God the Father among the branches,—and erect before her is the serpent, almost on the tip of its tail, with its body slightly curved. ”

“ In life our Guardian, and in death our Friend,
Glory supreme be Thine till time shall end!”
The sermon was short, and when the service was over Master Isaac and I spent a delightful afternoon with his bees among the heather. The “evening star” had come out when we had some tea in the village inn, and we walked home by moonlight. There was neither wind nor sun, but the air was almost oppressively pure. The moonshine had taken the colour out of the sandy road and the heather, and had painted black shadows by every boulder, and most things looked asleep except the rill that went on running. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Then, one night the dream intensified: I was playing with the creature, caressing it gently, when of a sudden its lips drew back in a snarl, and without warning it sprang at my throat and buried its fangs deep! I thought I could feel life being drawn from me; I screamed.
The doctors told me afterwards that I was semi-conscious for days; that I had to be restrained.
When I was well again, Eve came to see me. She was gentle—soothing. She held me close to her and oh! it was good to be alive and to belong to someone. ”

“ There has been bereavement in the miller's family."
"Men are a strange race," thought the Kyrkegrim; but he went to the priest and said—"The farmer is not afraid of death. You must find some subject of which men really stand in awe."
So when Sunday came round again, the preacher preached of Judgment—that dread Avenger who dogs the footsteps of trespass, even now! That awful harvest of whirlwind and corruption which [216] they must reap who sow to the wind and to the flesh! Lightly regarded, but biding its time, till a man's forgotten follies find him out at last. ”

“ A true daughter of Eve was this forest maiden, even if she did live in a wigwam, and had never read a novel or a romance, and because she had these feelings and was passing through these hours of disquietude and conflicting emotions we think none the less of her. ”

“ 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 was not surprised that a serpent could talk to her, for so many wonderful things were around her, that she listened to him, and answered him, without thinking it was any harm.
This is how temptation often comes to us, children!
Satan began by asking Eve a very clever question. He said, "Are you sure God has said that you may not eat of every tree in the garden?"
Then Eve said eagerly, "We may eat of every tree except one; but if we eat of that one we shall have to die!"
Then the serpent said to Eve, "You will not have to die! You will only be a great deal more wise than you are now!" ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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? ”

“ They seem’d to cry out upon Eve, for a lazy and dull Sinner; whilst in every Oath they loudly swore, that Soul not worth damning, that could not sin without a Temptation. By their horrible and hideous Oaths they shew’d, as if indeed they had this desperate Design upon Almighty God, to render his sacred Name odious to the World, by taking it often in their profane Mouths. ”

“ EVE, the English transcription, through Lat. Eva and Gr. Εὔα, of the Hebrew name חַוָּה‎ Ḥavvah, given by Adam to his wife because she was “mother of all living,” or perhaps more strictly, “of every group of those connected by female kinship” (see W. R. Smith, Kinship, 2nd ed., p. 208) , as if Eve were the personification of mother-kinship, just as Adam (“man”) is the personification of mankind. ”

“ Shall I string the cage up out of this old fellow's reach? His deafness, his inability to communicate with others, the exactness with which he obeys my commands as given him by my colored slides, his attention to my every wish, consequent upon his almost animal love for my person, are necessary to me now, while the bird—Ah! there it goes again, 'Eva! Eva!'
"Is it hate or love I feel, abhorrence or passion? Love would seek to save, but I have no thought of saving her, since she has acknowledged her love for Thomas, and since he—Oh, it is not now for Evelyn's sake I plan revenge, but for my own! ”

“ At this moment Eblis flew out of the serpent's mouth, and stood in human form beneath the tree.
"Who art thou, wondrous being, the like of whom I have not seen before?" asked Eve.
"I am a man who have become an angel." ”

“ 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. ”

“ Her ideal world is that of the bees, in which there is but one queen, and all other shes are stung to death. Eve was the only woman who tasted of happiness unalloyed, because in Eden she had no sisters. ”

“ Eve at once asked him to take her to the tree, but when she recognized the forbidden Tree of Knowledge, she demurred, assuring the serpent that God had commanded them not to touch it, for if they ate of it, they should surely die. "Am I not alive?" ”

“ 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? ”

“ And then that powerful yet adorable Eve, that Eve with the sturdy flanks fit for the bearing of humanity, that Eve with the proud, tender grace of a woman bent on being loved even to perdition, that Eve embodying the whole of woman with her fecundity, her seductiveness, her empire! ”

“ The vision of Ewing as he had passed glowed before her shut eyes, the active, square-shouldered, slender figure, garbed in a decently fitting suit of gray (she was glad to remember that) , the quick eyes, ardent for life, the thinned, brown face, the usual buoyance held down to an easy self-possession that was new to her, the wild, reliant expectancy of a boy tempered all at once by some heritage of insight. Outwardly, at least, he would fit his new life. So reflecting, she dozed on the look of the man in his eyes, and dreamed that she feared this and fled. ”

“ 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. ”

“ I therefore write down here, as briefly as I can, my story and my wishes, and shall give the letter with my miniature to my darling Waboose—whose Christian name is Eve, though she knows it not—with directions not to open it, or let it out of her hands, until she meets with a white man whom she can trust, for well assured am I that the man whom my innocent and wise-hearted Eve can trust—be he old or young—will be a man who cannot and will not refuse the responsibility laid on him. ”

“ Thou wert made to receive the apple like Venus, or to eat it like Eve; beauty begins with thee. I have just referred to Eve; it is thou who hast created her. Thou deservest the letters-patent of the beautiful woman. ”

“ I have work before me, I know; but what would life be without any difficulties! What a stupid life would Adam and Eve have led without sin! A true woman, Eve; disobedience gave the flavour to the fruit! ”

“ Nor will I speak of my meditations as I sit in my Ivy Bush like any other common owl, and reflect that if I had not had my own way, but had listened to Little Miss, I might have sat on an Eight-day Clock, and been godfather to the children. It is not seemly for an owl to doubt his own wisdom, but as I have taken upon me, for the sake of Little Miss, to be a child's counsellor, I will just observe, in passing, that though it is very satisfactory at the time to get your own way, you may live to wish that you had taken other folk's advice instead. ”

“ But the boy said, "There is no yew there, my Father."
"Have I not seen it, even in a vision?" cried the hermit. "Thou wilt say next that all the borders are not set with hearts-ease, which indeed must be through thy industry; and whence they come I know not, but they are most rare and beautiful, and my eyes long sore to see them again."
"Alas, my Father!" cried the boy, "the borders [205] are set with rue, and there are but a few clumps of hearts-ease here and there."
"Could I forget what I saw in an hour?" asked the old man angrily. ”

“ The truth is, of course, that, in our monstrously developed civilisation, custom can reconcile us to anything but Nature. She was a fashion that went out with Eve, and is the only one that has no more chance of resuscitation than the first innocence. ”

“ 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. ”