text:  "These ladies " said I softly to myself on seeing the ministers with whom Levana was conversing "these are the Sorrows; and they are three in number as the _Graces_ are three who dress man's life with beauty; the Parcae are three who weave the dark arras of man's life in their mysterious loom always with colours sad in part sometimes angry with tragic crimson and black; the _Furies_ are three who visit with retributions called on the other side of the grave offences that walk upon this; and once even the _Muses_ were but three who fit the harp the trumpet or the lute to the great burdens of man's impassioned creations