The Old Lady I T is neither for sermon nor for
music, for stained glass or for architecture that I go to a certain church in Dublin, but to see the old lady. For the old lady is in herself a benediction. She is, too, a mystery. I have no idea who she is. I have passed her once or twice and she' has looked at me so benignly, so shrewdly, so whimsically, that I knew she. recognized me from those glances in 'church, for we sit at right angles, she in the nave and I in a transept.
The old lady is like Tennyson's " Maud," she " sits by a pillar alone." She never seems to have any relations with her, but she always makes: room, so kindly, so suavely for the couple who share her pew. They arc always' late -and she is always in goOd time. Indeed, I have rieyer' seen her arrive _for VaM usually late, too. I do not think she is claisically beautiful or handsome, 'But I know that Franz Hals 'would have loved. to paint her. He would have given 'every wrinkle its due He would. have --brought out that . whimsical, benignant shrewdness in her eyes; for you feel that she would see all your fairlts.at.the moment that she saw, their excuses, or the feeble little virtues that oppose them.. _ . One would declate'that she is a grandmother, 'for she seems the ideal grandmother. Children- should be about her skirts and at her knee, listening to stories and rhymes and quaint sayings of which, it seems certain, she has a store. And yet it is possible that she is childless, 'eVen imaginable that she never married ;- that instead she is a grandmother in spirit, giVing herself out to all children.
To see her sing is, as lovely as to watch, her pray Often when I have thought the .hymn stupid and commonplace, and the tune insipid, I have caught 'sight of the old lady, and seen her rapt, standing at Ileaven'S 'gate, looking within. Her voice- when it reaches :those gates:must be beautiful as a lark's. And 'when she prays She speaks to .Gnd. For heT.there is no need to change the Prayer Book, she puts her own heart and soul into the familiar collects. Then, in the: sermon she is- all" kind attention. I think she must always be wiser • 'than the. preacher, for her face has the light of wisdom on it and she looks very old in experience . and thought. She has heeded George Herbert's, "Church Porch." I, an certain ,she' says " Judge not the .Preacher.". But still that humorous mouth must smile at times over the foibles of clergy and congregation. One feel§ 'that nOthing could escape her . . _ She is no sentimentalist.. I believe she could be ironic, if one deserved it.
The 'old lady's dress is one of. the delights of church going. She sets her own fashion, and I am sure she has her -own dressmaker who understands " Madam's' style."
beliOe, too, that Madam is very cateful and particular about the details of her Sunday dresses. There is the purple velvet pelisse trimmed with soft dark fur. She Wears it with a vOlyet bonnet trimmed with purple pansies. She has strings tied under her chin. And there is the grey mantle, Made in a style quite her own, with a bonnet with soft feathers at one side. Her dress_ es are rich and pleasing. She wears them to please. I invent endless stories about the old lady. I wonder where she lives, what she is like out of church; who she knows, what she does. • Is she fond of-Bridge, or does' she play Patience in the evening ?
- I could find out all these things by describing her to the Rector Of the Church and asking him about her. 'But hesitate. Should I spoil my own romance ? Now I have the excitement of wonder. She remains unique=" the old lady," pattern for all grandmothers, an inspiration to 'artists, a modern Franz Hals. It May be that you
Previous page
