Other Sorrows, Other Joys by Janet Warner

Author:Janet Warner
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: St. Martin's Publishing Group

Blake, Visions of the Daughters of Albion, Plate 6, Copy J (1793). Lessing J. Rosenwald Collection, Library of Congress. Copyright © 2003 the William Blake Archive. Used with permission

* * *

Mary wrote from Paris. She had been invited to present a paper on education to a committee of the Girondins, and Thomas Paine was working on a committee for constitutional reform. William was happy to hear this, as we had not seen Tom Paine since last September.

“It is good that Mary has found congenial people and interests in France,” said William. “The Gironde are a progressive group.”

I thought of Paul-Marc’s cousin, Madame Roland, and wondered if Mary had met her. Paul-Marc had described her as a beautiful woman, with a great flair for dramatic action and a desire to be perfect in all her various roles. Paul-Marc apprenticed to her father, a Parisian engraver, and so had been her friend since youth. She married Roland when she was twenty-six, had one daughter, and no more children. She was not really happy in marriage, Paul-Marc thought, and liked to dominate her husband. She was active in politics. Her dinners and salon were an influence in the Gironde, when her husband was Minister of the Interior. She was just the sort of woman Mary would like. I hoped they had met, because then Mary would have some contact with Paul-Marc and I might hear news of him.

From Kate’s Notebook.

March 2, 1793.

Such an odd thing has occurred, I do not quite know what to make of it. Last night, William and I were sitting by candlelight, he reading and I mending. Usually he would say, “Bring me my things,” and I would know a Vision was present, and would fetch him his drawing materials. But this time, it was not William who had the Visitation: it was I.

And strangely, it was not present to my sight, but to my hearing. Of course, I have always heard Voices, though not like this. This voice took over my entire body. You must write, it said, write down what is dictated.

I reached for William’s pen and ink bottle and a piece of paper. William did not at first realize what was going on. He continued reading.

Then the voice began to dictate. It was a feminine voice. I began to write rapidly:

Hear me, I am Enion, Mother of Life!

I am made to sow the thistle for wheat; the nettle for a nourishing dainty

I have planted a false oath in the earth, it has brought forth a poison tree

I have chosen the serpent for counsellor and the dog

For a schoolmaster for my children.

I have blotted out from light and living the dove and nightingale

And I have caused the earthworm to beg from door to door

I have taught the thief a secret path into the house of the just

I have taught pale artifice to spread his nets among the morning.

I gasped; I could hardly stop writing, but I did not understand a word. William looked up curiously as I

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