“Girl!” she said to the first she saw approaching, “the meat on your Bones cries aloud of Spring in the Fat, yet could I poison you with the Fang of Knowledge, trip you up in your twenties, so that you browse deep on the bog-matter, that is old-girls’ Wisdom, would I not do it with a high Heart and gladly, so,” said she, “riddle me this: as lame as a Goose, as halt as a Standstill, as fast as a Watch, as wet as a Rill, as soft as a Mouse end, as hard as a Heart, as salt as a flitch, as bitter as Gall, as sweet as the-way-in, as sour as old Cider, as dear as a Darling, as mean as a Boil; which is always present yet never in Sight, which is as light as a Kerchief, and as dark as a Crow? That”, she said, “is Love, but,” added she, “riddle me the other: That is as cool as a Cow’s Dug, as sane as a Bell hop, as calm as a Groat, as sure as you-think-it, and as right-as-you-are. Wisdom. And which will you have?”
But the Girl would not listen and said Gee to her Oxen. Then went Dame Musset into Petticoat Lane, just off Breach-String-Alley, where the wash of the World is a dozen of Drawers in the Victorian Style, a Leg for a Leg and a great Gap to span them. And seeing a Lass coming from Market with little in her Basket to save her from starving but the whole of an Ox with a Tongue out-lolling, a breechend to the Brisket with a rosette in pucker, and a whole survey of Heaven in the low Light of its Eyes, full fathoms wise in its Eyeballs of dear Eden, a ream and a half of tripe’s Meat, that harked back to three Bellies, a fair Pig’s Bladder for Baby to call the Cattle home, and a round of Hares’ Fur to make Daddy a coat, with a Nose-bag of Carrots and a jugfull of rye, and a Mill on her back to winnow the apples in her Winter Acre into kegs of Home-brewing for a Guest and a Secret the whole Winter through, — to this one said Musset, as the Geese flocked ungainly, “Hold Wench, there is much you must learn ere you cram that Fodder down the Gorge of your Gut, and it is of Love and its Sorrow, which, with my new findings, may be turned into a matter of no Tears nor Agues, so but listen and give yea, while I make you, for no-gold, as wise as your Mother, so riddle me this—”
But the Lass would not listen, and said cluck to her Geese, and Dame Musset went further into Highhip Road, and there on the steps of the Palace saw Girls of all sorts, in their lute strings and Velvets, their Rag-tags of Sodom and their flaps of Gomorrah and all of them hiding a Letter between them, and none of them twenty, and all had the Hound’s Eye and the Heart dumbfounded, and the stagger of those penned in the Pastures of Hope, far on the way to the Shambles of Know-alland-try-all, and Dame Musset hecame exceeding sorry, though no Vein bled, for Knowledge has cooled from Perron to Chimney.
“Girls, Girls,” said she, “pause now to listen, I bring no Trumpet but that of my Message. I ask you to settle on the Borders of yonder Palace, like Doves on a Fort, nor lift to fly until you have had word with me, for I have come to deliver you from Love and Love’s Folly, and great Regrets that furl up like Thunder, and in terrible Banners outrun to bedamn you. So riddle me this—”
But the Girls would not listen, and lifted their Skirts making a swish going outward, and Dame Musset went still further into Brambelly Grove, where Women are Women, and all of them busy in whipping the Sorrow from the Potluck of the other, like Linens they lay, over Box hedge and Rose-bush, all a cry stained sprawling.
“Yet hold!” cried Dame Musset, “though this is a rare Sight and one that I would not have missed for Shank or my Shin, still I’ve seen it, and ’tis sufficient, so rise up and Arm down, I come to give you Word that will make of this business a silly trouncing and no thing for Tears, so riddle me this—”
But they would not listen, and the Whip fell and the Girls wept, all in the Hedges of Brambelly Grove.
So Dame Musset went further until she came to Wellover Square, where she saw a Madame in Mittens sipping her Tea by the Gates of the Ministry. She came to a stop, and as if she had been a Crier of old London she had her say in this manner:
“Madam, I shall waste none of your Time by asking for it. This Morning, just as the Clock struck three of the Dawn, I came down from the strident winds of Life’s Troubles, a flag in no breeze, and I saw how and in what manner I might save the world all its Trials and Troubles, even for such as are silly enough to be in Love with a Man and a Man. This Wisdom came like a Sheep from the fold, and the Hound of Torment leapt for a Newbride’s Bosom. It has thus been my Pleasure, as it has been that of all over fifty, to know wherein I have erred. Now, had I this Knowledge when I was ten and ten and not yet ten, I should have had yet greater nights, and no tears wasting and reeking my Linens, so I give it to you: Never want but what you have, never have but that which stays, and let nothing remain. Wisdom is indifference, the only Trouble with it,” said she, pausing, “is how extraordinarily it fills the Bed. For this Morning, not half an Hour after my Wisdom had come down upon me, ten Girls I had tried vainly for but a Month gone, were all tearing at my shutters—”
“Ah yes,” said the Madame, putting another Lump in her tea, “I am sixty, and at my Age both Youth and Wisdom are over, and you reap a third Crop.”
“God save us,” cried Dame Musset, “is there yet more to learn of this world?”
“But yes,” said the Crone, “there is that and others.
At sixty you are ten Years tired of your Knowledge.”
Then returned Dame Musset by the way she had come, and en route remanded her order for ringing of Bells.
DECEMBER hath 31 days
IN this cold and chill December, the Month of the Year when the proof of God died, died Saint Musset, proof of Earth, for she had loosened and come up rooted in the Path of Love, where she had so long Hourished. Nor yet with any alien Sickness came she to her Death, but as one who had a grave Commission and the ambassador recalled.
She had blossomed on Sap’s need, and when need’s Sap found such easy flowing in the Year of our Lord 19—what more was there for her to do? Yet though her Life was completed, she has many Transactions for her end, so said she, lying on the flat of her Back, her good Beak of a nose yet more of a Pope’s proportion, “I have heard somewhere that there be as many Burials, and as different, as there be Births, yea, even in excess of this, for a Babe is born one of two ways, Head or Foot, but a Corpse can go down all-in-one or bit by bit, sideways or lengthways or Shin to Chin. There is the Small-town Burial and the Burial of State, and the Burial of Harvest, and the Burial of Frost. There is cracking and crating as they understand it in the District of the Ganges, and there is the upright and the supine, and the Head to Heel, there is Urn Burial or Cremation, there is the Flesh-eating Stone, the Sarcophagus, there is embalming and stretching of the Gut, there is lamenting, and there is laughing, There are those buried in Trenches, and those in Tombs, and those on Hills and those in Dales, those buried of shallow and those of deep digging. Some are followed on Foot, and some are followed in Carriages, and some are followed in the Mind alone and some are not followed at all; some have a Christian and some a Pagan rite, and some are swallowed up for an Hour in Churches, and others are accompanied with Wine and Song and covered with the Leaves of the Day, the while the Ass brays in the Market-place, and the sound of the Wine-press is like the Gush of a Girl’s first Sorrow.