By a hopeless penitent with a bookshelf and a leaky conscience At the opening of Elizabeth Gaskell’s Ruth, before we meet the orphaned seamstress or the soft-hearted Bensons, we are met with tears. Not sentimental ones, but slow, penitential tears - each drop a silent argument for mercy. The chosen epigraph, “Drop, drop, slow tears”, … Continue reading “Drop, Drop, Slow Tears” – A Meditation in the Margins
Tag: elizabeth-gaskell
Elizabeth Gaskell’s Ruth: A Perilous Slog Through Moral Terrain
Drop, drop, slow tears!And bathe those beauteous feet,Which brought from heavenThe news and Prince of peace.Cease not, wet eyes,For mercy to entreat:To cry for vengeanceSin doth never cease.In your deep floodsDrown all my faults and fears;Nor let His eyeSee sin, but through my tears. Phineas Fletcher At the heart of Ruth, published in 1853, is the tale … Continue reading Elizabeth Gaskell’s Ruth: A Perilous Slog Through Moral Terrain
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