Sorrow…Deceitfulness of Hope
Dublin Core
Title
Sorrow…Deceitfulness of Hope
Subject
sorrow, happiness
Creator
Beta
Source
http://addison.vt.edu/record=b1775388~S1
Publisher
Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University
Date
July 1877
Contributor
Kristin Colonna, Lee Mathias
Rights
Permission to publish images from The Gray Jacket must be obtained from Special Collections, Virginia Tech.
Format
Text
Language
English
Type
article
Identifier
LD5655.V8 L4, ser.1, v.2, no.9 (July 1877), p.7
Text Item Type Metadata
Text
"A sorrow's crown of sorrow
Is remembering happier things."
So Alfred Tennyson says, and is it not true? Would any sorrow be half so hard to bear if there were not lurking behind it a memory of "happier things?"
Human nature is a strange study. It is made up of contradictions, and seeming inconsistencies. Although memory often brings with it a terrible pang, yet we all clasp it to our hearts and would not for the world part with it. When Pleasure, with her happy face, places the cup brimming with happiness to our eager lips, would the sparkling beverage be quaffed with half the intoxicating delight, with which we seize and drink it, if we knew that when the last drop had passed our lips the hand of grim Forgetfulness would pass swiftly over the page of memory's book, and blot out forever all recollection of the happy dream? Even if there comes to us a voice within our hearts telling us that in the sparkling cup is hidden poison, that sooner or later will come to us sorrow and misery, the crown of which will be the memory of ever having been tempted to yield to the entreaties of alluring Pleasure—obstinately we grasp the poisoned chalice, and murmur in our delirium the constant cry of the Lotos eaters
"Let us alone!"
And when warned that this blissful dream will pass away, that its roseate hue will soon be changed to one of inky blackness, we still refuse to listen and only make reply—
" What is it that will last?
All things are taken from us and become
Portions and parcels of the dreadful past.
Let us alone. What pleasure can we have To war with evil? Is there any peace
In ever climbing up the climbing wave?
All things have rest, and ripen towards the grave.
In silence ripen, fall and cease,
Give us long rest or death, dark death, or dreamful ease."
When, at the last, the golden cup falls from our trembling hand and is dashed to pieces—when at the bottom we find only worm-wood and gall, memory stands with all the relentless tyranny of Nemesis, ready to torment us almost past our endurance. If she would only let us keep forever before our mind the recollection of the last bitter drop that passed our lips, of the pain and anguish it caused us, this, hard as it is, would not be so unbearable. But oh! the misery, the ever increasing pain caused by the picture forever tormenting the vision of our first bliss, which seemed without alloy, when the first draught of the snowy foam, that sparkled in the sunlight, passed our lips ! What do we hold in our hands? In our blind delerium [sic] we had reached forth our hand to grasp and hold fast forever the golden apples held before us, and in their place we grasp bitter ashes—all that remains of this "dead sea fruit."
Hope and Memory have ever been called "twin sisters," and with their combined efforts have often brought misery, unspeakable, to mankind. Hope, blue-eyed, bouyant [sic], smiling Hope, ever dances before the mind, pointing onward into the distance to some shining object, to some happiness that the misty veil of futurity magnifies, and renders an hundred fold more alluring. But "what is Hope but deceiving?" Ah! she is as deceitful as she is fair and lovely, and when with abated breath and eager footsteps we rush madly on, recklessly dashing past obstacles and barriers over which Hope springs at a bound, we hurry toward the shining promise which ever grows brighter as we approach nearer. But we have reached it, and alas! It is only a mass of charred and blackened ruins upon which Despair, grim and forbidding, sits enthroned. Where now is our bright companion, our alluring enchantress, whose fascinations as far exceeded those of the fabled Circe, as the bright rays of God's sunlight exceed the pale lustre [sic] of the moon? She has gone and another fills her place. Memory, with sad eyes stands at our side and points backward over the vista of the past, shows us the bright spots in our lives, the sunshine and pleasure that once were ours instead of these heaps of ruins, shows us happiness that might still have been ours if we had not allowed ourselves to cling blindly to the hand of hope, and eagerly reached forward for "something better." Ah! they "might have been ours," and like a knell of death sound the words in our heart—
“Of all sad words of tongue or pen,
The saddest are these, it might have been.”
O, the racking, tormenting pain that we endure; not that our lives are now cast in the chill shadow, but because we once lived and rejoiced in the free, glad sunshine of day—not that our lives are now miserable, but that they have once been happier. Then comes a voice in our hearts which says, "be comforted; it might have been better, far better, but it might have been worse. Be comforted." More brightly than ever comes the vision of the past torment us, and we silence the voice in our hearts, and covering our face with our hands we fall down among the ruins all around us and cry aloud in our anguish—
"Comfort? comfort scorned of devils!
This is truth the poet sings,
That a sorrow's crown of sorrow
Is remembering happier things."
Is remembering happier things."
So Alfred Tennyson says, and is it not true? Would any sorrow be half so hard to bear if there were not lurking behind it a memory of "happier things?"
Human nature is a strange study. It is made up of contradictions, and seeming inconsistencies. Although memory often brings with it a terrible pang, yet we all clasp it to our hearts and would not for the world part with it. When Pleasure, with her happy face, places the cup brimming with happiness to our eager lips, would the sparkling beverage be quaffed with half the intoxicating delight, with which we seize and drink it, if we knew that when the last drop had passed our lips the hand of grim Forgetfulness would pass swiftly over the page of memory's book, and blot out forever all recollection of the happy dream? Even if there comes to us a voice within our hearts telling us that in the sparkling cup is hidden poison, that sooner or later will come to us sorrow and misery, the crown of which will be the memory of ever having been tempted to yield to the entreaties of alluring Pleasure—obstinately we grasp the poisoned chalice, and murmur in our delirium the constant cry of the Lotos eaters
"Let us alone!"
And when warned that this blissful dream will pass away, that its roseate hue will soon be changed to one of inky blackness, we still refuse to listen and only make reply—
" What is it that will last?
All things are taken from us and become
Portions and parcels of the dreadful past.
Let us alone. What pleasure can we have To war with evil? Is there any peace
In ever climbing up the climbing wave?
All things have rest, and ripen towards the grave.
In silence ripen, fall and cease,
Give us long rest or death, dark death, or dreamful ease."
When, at the last, the golden cup falls from our trembling hand and is dashed to pieces—when at the bottom we find only worm-wood and gall, memory stands with all the relentless tyranny of Nemesis, ready to torment us almost past our endurance. If she would only let us keep forever before our mind the recollection of the last bitter drop that passed our lips, of the pain and anguish it caused us, this, hard as it is, would not be so unbearable. But oh! the misery, the ever increasing pain caused by the picture forever tormenting the vision of our first bliss, which seemed without alloy, when the first draught of the snowy foam, that sparkled in the sunlight, passed our lips ! What do we hold in our hands? In our blind delerium [sic] we had reached forth our hand to grasp and hold fast forever the golden apples held before us, and in their place we grasp bitter ashes—all that remains of this "dead sea fruit."
Hope and Memory have ever been called "twin sisters," and with their combined efforts have often brought misery, unspeakable, to mankind. Hope, blue-eyed, bouyant [sic], smiling Hope, ever dances before the mind, pointing onward into the distance to some shining object, to some happiness that the misty veil of futurity magnifies, and renders an hundred fold more alluring. But "what is Hope but deceiving?" Ah! she is as deceitful as she is fair and lovely, and when with abated breath and eager footsteps we rush madly on, recklessly dashing past obstacles and barriers over which Hope springs at a bound, we hurry toward the shining promise which ever grows brighter as we approach nearer. But we have reached it, and alas! It is only a mass of charred and blackened ruins upon which Despair, grim and forbidding, sits enthroned. Where now is our bright companion, our alluring enchantress, whose fascinations as far exceeded those of the fabled Circe, as the bright rays of God's sunlight exceed the pale lustre [sic] of the moon? She has gone and another fills her place. Memory, with sad eyes stands at our side and points backward over the vista of the past, shows us the bright spots in our lives, the sunshine and pleasure that once were ours instead of these heaps of ruins, shows us happiness that might still have been ours if we had not allowed ourselves to cling blindly to the hand of hope, and eagerly reached forward for "something better." Ah! they "might have been ours," and like a knell of death sound the words in our heart—
“Of all sad words of tongue or pen,
The saddest are these, it might have been.”
O, the racking, tormenting pain that we endure; not that our lives are now cast in the chill shadow, but because we once lived and rejoiced in the free, glad sunshine of day—not that our lives are now miserable, but that they have once been happier. Then comes a voice in our hearts which says, "be comforted; it might have been better, far better, but it might have been worse. Be comforted." More brightly than ever comes the vision of the past torment us, and we silence the voice in our hearts, and covering our face with our hands we fall down among the ruins all around us and cry aloud in our anguish—
"Comfort? comfort scorned of devils!
This is truth the poet sings,
That a sorrow's crown of sorrow
Is remembering happier things."