Mantra

    Regular readers of this blog will recognize themes or mantras that reoccur; the presence of absence or the land of grief. It's been awhile but I've also repeated encouragement to bring up the dead person when in the presence of the bereaved. When a person dies there's often a conspiracy of silence about the deceased. Apparently it's not a new problem. Trollope was writing in the 1850s when he penned this. Dr. Robarts is Lucy's late father recently dead. Lucy was very close to her father and after his death goes to live at the parsonage at Framley with her sister and brother-in-law. Her neighbor, Lord Luffton is in conversation with her.

"But I can well understand what a loss you have had." And then, after pausing a moment, he continued, "I remember Dr. Robarts well." "Do you, indeed?" said Lucy, turning sharply towards him, and speaking now with some animation in her voice. Nobody had yet spoken to her about her father since she had been at Framley. It had been as though the subject were a forbidden one. And how frequently is this the case! When those we love are dead, our friends dread to mention them, though to us who are bereaved no subject would be so pleasant as their names. But we rarely understand how to treat our own sorrow or those of others. There was once a people in some land—and they may be still there for what I know—who thought it sacrilegious to stay the course of a raging fire. If a house were being burned, burn it must, even though there were facilities for saving it. For who would dare to interfere with the course of the god? Our idea of sorrow is much the same. We think it wicked, or at any rate heartless, to put it out. If full length for eighteen months, decreasing gradually during the other six. If he be a man who can quench his sorrow—put out his fire as it were—in less time than that, let him at any rate not show his power!

Trollope, Anthony. Framley Parsonage [with Biographical Introduction] (pp. 82-83). Neeland Media LLC. Kindle Edition.


"It had been as though the subject were a forbidden one. And how frequently is this the case! When those we love are dead, our friends dread to mention them, though to us who are bereaved no subject would be so pleasant as their names.'

   Reading this in Framley Parsonage, makes me wonder about Trollope's experience of  grief. It was a surprise to my how suddenly Joanne disappeared from conversation after her death. To this day there is no one about whom I'd rather converse.

Takk for alt,

Al