Sorrel

“ Crake! crake! nearly day and night; but now the rattle begins, and the bird must take refuge in the corn. Like the reaper, the mowing-machine is buried under the swathe it cuts, and flowers fall over it—broad ox-eye daisies and red sorrel. Upon the hedge June roses bloom; blackbirds whistle in the oaks; now and again come the soft hollow notes of the cuckoo. Angles and wheels, cranks and cogs, where are they? They are lost; it is not these we see, but the flowers and the pollen on the grass. There is an odour of new-made hay; there is the song of birds, and the trees are beautiful. ”

“ This world's sorest sorrows are those that tear the human heart-strings, and mine was even more bitter than an ordinary grief, for I do not believe there ever was a more attached family than ours, and not only had I lost the most beloved of brothers, but the confidant, the guide and the companion of my whole life. ”

“ Then the Sorcerer began to sing; and his voice was like liquid gold. It made one think of all the most beautiful things in the world: of the dawn in the sky, of great birds with white wings, of rushing waters, of prancing horses and waving plumes, of the deep velvet sky with its armies of stars.
“Oh, how lovely! How wonderful!” cried the Princesses. “Oh, sir! where did you learn those songs?”
The Sorcerer smiled. “It is this little guitar,” he said, holding it up. “It is bewitched. One has only to strike the strings and the song comes out of it. ”

“ This agony, and not the love I bear thee, is the work of sorcery. It is a forgery—I will never believe it; and yet her signature is there! and after trial, when torture, shame, and agony were past, what could bring forth an avowal such as this? Oh, what but remorse for deceiving one who had loved thee so well! The mother of fiends! she so good, so charitable, so religious, who never missed a mass or festival. I shudder and laugh at the same moment! A sorceress—Jane .... where is the Jane I loved—the good and gentle? ”

“ When first thy Sire to send on earth Virtue, his darling child, design'd, To thee he gave the heavenly birth And bade to form her infant mind. Stern rugged Nurse! thy rigid lore With patience many a year she bore: What sorrow was, thou bad'st her know, And from her own she learn'd to melt at others' woe. Scared at thy frown terrific, fly Self-pleasing Folly's idle brood, Wild Laughter, Noise, and thoughtless Joy, And leave us leisure to be good. Light they disperse, and with them go The summer Friend, the flattering Foe ”

“ Those hours were passed in much bodily suffering, but sorer still were the conflicts of her mind. The scales which had prevented her from seeing the real worth of life and the awful realities of the future, at once fell from her eyes, and she saw or rather felt with indescribable clearness, that the great truths which appertain to the welfare of the soul belong alike to the young and the healthy, to the sick and the dying. ”

“ What sufferings, what sorrows should I have escaped!”
“Sufferings at your age, Rosario?”
“Aye, Father; Sufferings, which if known to you, would equally raise your anger and compassion! Sufferings, which form at once the torment and pleasure of my existence! Yet in this retreat my bosom would feel tranquil, were it not for the tortures of apprehension. Oh God! Oh God! how cruel is a life of fear!—Father! I have given up all; I have abandoned the world and its delights for ever: Nothing now remains, Nothing now has charms for me, but your friendship, but your affection. ”

“ She was twelve, yet the little blind maid was old enough to know her loss, to feel her sorrow.
Rose, cold, selfish, unsympathetic, lamenting the loss of a lover whom she had no power to hold more than the death of her mother, feeling no love for the sister who had made for her sake a useless sacrifice, was not a desirable companion for the little blind sister. ”

“ For, brother, I am weary for my lover.
⁠And I must see him once, alive or dead.
“I've prayed to heaven, but it would not listen,
⁠I'll call thrice in the devil's name to-night,
Be it a live man that shall come to hear me. ”

“ Come, Slasher, we will be true brothers, and you can converse with me of your sorrow, if it endures, for I have my own. The recollection of this day will last all my life. One cannot see his mother, his sister, as I have seen mine, without forever bearing it in remembrance. Our situations are so similar that it is good for us to be together. We will not fear to look danger in the face; well, we will be half farmers, half soldiers. ”

“ I am aware, my dear sister, a secret presentiment has long possessed you that the finger of God was about to point out to you your brother, that innocent partaker of your sorrows, the one alone worthy to repair them, as he was fated to share them. ”

“ And not feel my sorrows share.
Can a father see his child,
Weep, nor be with sorrow fill'd.
Can a mother sit and hear,
An infant groan an infant fear—
No no never can it be,
Never never can it be. ”

“ I could not have been more than seven years old, when one night I woke up shivering, at the sound of angry voices. A conversation which no child should ever have heard, was going on in the room where I lay. My father was talking to my sister—perhaps, you do not know that I have a sister; few of my personal friends do,—and the terror she evinced I could well understand but not his words nor the real cause of his displeasure.
There are times even yet when the picture, forced upon my infantile consciousness at that moment of first awakening, comes back to me with all its original vividness. ”

“ If I cannot free thee, I will at least comfort thee, and thou shalt at least have one with thee who will prattle with thee about thy sorest affliction, and whisper courage to thee, and love thee, and whose best joke and best blood shall be at thy service. ”

“ At first, I used to wake with the heavy weight of sorrow upon me, morning after morning, and sit apart, pale and sad, with the tears starting at the slightest word—and was no doubt an object of wonder to my merry, boisterous cousins, who looked on me from wide open eyes, with wondering glances, scarcely ever approaching me or speaking to me. ”

“ Nay, nay, good cousin—to talk much, unless some other pain hinder me, is to me little grief. A foolish old man is often as full of words as a woman. It is, you know, as some poets paint us, all the joy of an old fool's life to sit well and warm with a cup and a roasted crabapple, and drivel and drink and talk!
But in earnest, cousin, our talking was to me great comfort, and nothing displeasing at all. For though we commoned of sorrow and heaviness, yet the thing we chiefly thought upon was not the tribulation itself but the comfort that may grow thereon. ”

“ Which fill'd his parents heart with grief and fear.
The girl was ten years younger than the son,
Seeing her brother thus in sin to run,
Though she was but an infant then in years,
Thus to her brother she did speak in tears:
Dear brother darling of my father's heart,
Hear what a child to you shall now impart,
If you run on in such a course of sin,
My tender parents to the grave you'll bring.
Each day above the heavenly God doth hear,
Your whole delight is to curse and swear ”

“ So wilt thou go, come joy, come pain, come life or death, since a maid is made to make man saint or devil, some days glad and some days sad, but ever and always a fool. And thou art Fool by profession, and, being lover professed and confessed, art doubly a fool; and since, good Folly, love's but folly and thou, a Fool, art deep in folly, so is thy state most melancholy. ”

“ Very soon the wrongdoer shall reap the harvest of a twofold injury: this day another bride shall stand by his side. Is there, then, no way to wreak the just revenge of a broken heart? That suggests sorcery. Yes, the body and soul of the false lover may melt as before a flame; but the price of vengeance is horrible. Yet why? Has not love become devilish? Is not life a curse? ”

“ If you should wed, may a father's curse
⁠Be your swift and sure undoing.
“My curse shall feed on your fields of corn,
⁠On your roof-tree make its nesting,
Your wife shall wish your child unborn
⁠As he pines on her sore heart resting.”
Now when this cruel oath he said
⁠The youth did chide him, crying,
“Since I have neither field nor bed
⁠Your curse shall fall to dying. ”

“ But you know as well as I, sister, that it is not age, but standing in the house, that settles such matters. Again, as the oldest present, I must request you, sisters, to pursue your work in silence. Prayers and psalms and holy meditations are better fitted for people in our evil case, threatened not only with the death of our reverend mother, but with the loss of all things, than such laughing and gossip as has gone on for the last half hour. I take shame to myself, and thank the child for her reproof, though it might have been more gently spoken. ”

“ From that hour, when, in the silence of the night, and because I could not sleep, being troubled by thoughts of my brother, I took her from her packing-case, she has never left me for one moment alone. She has become part and parcel of my life; grown into the very web of my being ”

“ Forgive me," she said to Sorrow, "and when you are weary and need rest, come to our cottage."
Sorrow gave her a sad but heavenly smile, and the sisters departed to the next abode.
"Did you ever see them before?" asked the children of their grandparents after the sisters had gone.
"Often: they have been going round the world for ages," answered their grandparents.
"But Joy looks so young, grandpa."
"That's because she has naught to do with trouble. She belongs to the bright side. She carries good tidings and pleasure to all; while Sorrow, her sister, administers the woes." ”

“ Sin comes in many a dazzling form,—
Fearful the tempter’s power,
Oh, God of love forbid thy fall,
In the dark, trying hour.
Poor little orphan child!
Should tears e’er dim the eye,
And grief and sorrow fill the soul,
And friends no one be nigh;
There is a friend above, on whom
Cast all thy earthly care,
Who ne’er forsakes the fatherless,
But hears the orphan’s prayer. ”

“ When I awoke in the morning, I found his ring on my finger in place of my own, which he had taken; and, O my brother, my heart was taken with him at first sight; and for the violence of my passion and longing, I have never since known the taste of sleep and have no occupation save weeping and repeating verses night and day. This, then, O my brother, is the story of the cause of my (pretended) madness.’ Then she poured forth tears and repeated the following verses:
Love has banished afar my delight ”

“ To open our hearts to those we know will commiserate our sorrows is the sweetest consolation those sorrows can receive; to you, then, madam, I divulge mine, sure at least of pity. At the time I first had the happiness of seeing you, the little credit my father had was exhausted, and his inability to pay being well known, he was arrested one evening as he sat by the bedside of my almost expiring mother! ”

“ If thy brother the son of thy mother, or thy son, or daughters, or thy wife, or thy friend whom thou lovest, would persuade thee secretly, saying, 'Let us go and serve strange gods', neither let thy eyes spare him nor conceal him, but thou shalt presently put him to death! ”

“ I am lost, spelled; the victim of sorcery I cannot fight against. What am I to do, what am I to do? Surely I can keep my steps from going near her. If I were to swear now that I will never set eyes on her more? ”

“ Loving her brother with an affection more like that of mother than sister, she had often thought over the traits of his character, where, with many a noble gift, the evil seeds of wrong teaching had left, like tall weeds among flowers, the baneful errors of inordinate self-esteem and pride. ”

“ You run away and marry the first irresponsible scamp that asks you; you show no sign of repentance or feeling until you are in trouble; you come back, at my invitation, and are made as welcome here as if you had been the most dutiful daughter in the world, and then—THEN—you propose to bring fresh sorrow and disgrace upon the parent who lifted you out of your misery, and offered you a home, and forgot and forgave the past! ”

“ I said; "I have something else to think about. Listen; if you are ever unlucky enough to tell a single soul of what has happened, I will strangle you."
"Alas! sir, what am I to do?" he replied with a mixture of innocence and malice. "The sorcerer said I was to tell my parents." ”

“ Go ask the weird sisters upon whose spindles hang the threads of every human life! Go ask the winds that echo the wails of human hearts and often carry them along with a cruel insatiable spirit of revenge, until all is hushed in the stillness of death. ”

“ Lady, name it not the Lay of the Four Sorrows, but, rather, the Lay of the Dolorous Knight. Would you hear the reason why it should bear this name? My three comrades have finished their course; they have nothing more to hope of their life. They are gone, and with them the pang of their great sorrow, and the knowledge of their enduring love for you. ”

“ I remarked, in a tone of tender sympathy; “tell me what you would of me, and if it be in my power——“
“If it be in your power!” the young lady said, quickly; “why, nothing is more easy, sir.”
“Explain yourself, madam.”
“Well, sir, I wish to be avenged.”
“In what way?”
“How, you know better than I, sir; must I teach you? You have in your power means to——“
“I, madam?”
“Yes, sir, you! for you are a sorcerer, and cannot deny it.”
At this word sorcerer, I was much inclined to laugh; but I was restrained by the incognita’s evident emotion. ”

“ How, my dear, my incomparable sister—how could I repress feelings of vengeance and of resentment against all my neighbours, of whom there is not one who did not accelerate my downfall, and will not share in our spoils? ”

“ My father dying when I was but ten years old left me, and a brother two years younger than myself, to the care of my mother, a woman of birth and education, whose prudence or virtue he had no reason to distrust. She felt, for some time, all the sorrow which nature calls forth, upon the final separation of persons dear to one another ”