rols the
education of the nursery. She that would not suffer at his birth even a
prefigurative or mimic degradation for her awful ward, far less could be
supposed to suffer the real degradation attaching to the non-development
of his powers. She therefore watches over human education.

Therefore it is that Levana often communes with the powers that shake
man's heart: therefore it is that she dotes upon grief. "These ladies,"
said I softly to myself, on seeing the ministers with whom Levana was
conversing, "these are the Sorrows; and they are three in number, as the
_Graces_ are three, who dress man's life with beauty; the _Parcae_ are
three, who weave the dark arras of man's life in their mysterious loom
always with colors sad in part, sometimes angry with tragic crimson and
black; the _Furies_ are three, who visit, with retributions called from
the other side of the grave, offenses that walk upon this; and once even
the _Muses_ were but three, who fit the harp, the trumpet, or the lute,
to the great burdens of man's impassioned creations. These are the
Sorrows, all three of whom I know." The last words I say _now_; but in
Oxford I said, "One of whom I know, and the others too surely I _shall_
know." For already in my fervent youth I saw (dimly relieved upon the
dark background of my dreams) the imperfect lineaments of the awful
sisters. These sisters--by what name shall we call them?

If I say simply "The Sorrows," there will be a chance of mistaking the
term; it might be understood of individual sorrow,--separate cases of
sorrow,--whereas I want a term expressing the mighty abstractions that
incarnate themselves in all individual sufferings of man's heart; and I
wish to have these abstractions presented as impersonations; that is, as
clothed with human attributes of life, and with functions pointing to
flesh. Let us call them therefore _Our Ladies of Sorrow_.

The eldest of the three is named _Mater Lachrymarum_, Our Lady of
Tears. She it is that night and day raves and moans, calling for
vanished faces. She stood in Rama, where a voice was heard of
lamentation.--Rachel weeping for her children, and refusing to be
comforted. She it was that stood in Bethlehem on the night when Herod's
sword swept its nurseries of Innocents, and the little feet were
stiffened forever, which, heard at times as they tottered along floors
overhead, woke pulses of love in household hearts that were not unmarked
in heaven.

Her eyes are