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 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_. I know them thoroughly, and have walked in all their kingdoms. Three sisters they are, of one mysterious household; and their paths are wide apart; but of their dominion there is no end. Them I saw often conversing with Levana, and sometimes about myself. Do they talk, then? Oh, no! Mighty phantoms like these disdain the infirmities of language. They may utter voices through the organs of man when they dwell in human hearts, but amongst themselves is no voice nor sound--eternal silence reigns in _their_ kingdoms. _They_ spoke not as they talked with Levana. _They_ whispered not. _They_ sang not. Though oftentimes methought they _might_ have sung; for I upon earth had heard their mysteries oftentimes deciphered by harp and timbrel, by dulcimer and organ. Like God, whose servants they are, they utter their pleasure, not by sounds that perish, or by words that go astray, but by signs in heaven--by changes on earth--by pulses in secret rivers--heraldries painted on darkness--and hieroglyphics written on the tablets of the brain. _They_ wheeled in mazes; _I_ spelled the steps. _They_ telegraphed from afar; _I_ read the signals. _They_ conspired together; and on the mirrors of darkness _my_ eye traced the plots. _Theirs_ were the symbols,--_mine_ are the words.
What is it the sisters are? What is it that they do? Let me describe their form, and their presence; if form it were that still fluctuated in its outline; or presence it were that for ever advanced to the front, or for ever receded amongst shades.
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, when 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 for ever, which, heard at times as they tottered along floors overhead, woke pulses of love in household hearts that were not unmarked in heaven.