The Secret Scripture

“The terror and hurt in my story happened because when I was young I thought others were the authors of my fortune or misfortune; I did not know that a person could hold up a wall made of imaginary bricks and mortar against the horrors and cruel, dark tricks of time that assail us, and be the author therefore of themselves.” 

Roseanne reflects on her youth and thinks of how she viewed herself then as a passive object, vulnerable to others’ machinations. She remained largely ignorant of the world around her, which she indicates later in her discussions about the Irish Civil War and the Second World War. She now realizes that her ignorance was both her buffer against a violent world and the way in which she chose to exist within it. 

“It is funny, but it strikes me that the person without anecdotes that they nurse while they live, and that survive them, are more likely to be utterly lost not only to history but the family following them.” 

Roseanne writes this thought in her testimony while thinking about her parents. She contrasts her father’s perpetual storytelling with her mother’s lack of stories. Roseanne suggests that one must protect one’s stories and ensure that they persist long after death by telling them. It is this belief that leads her to write her testimony, both to provide evidence that she lived and to reclaim a narrative that others have attempted to control and manipulate.

“And a man who can make himself merry in the face of those coming disasters that assailed him, as disasters do so many, without grace or favour [sic], is a true hero.” 

Roseanne is thinking of her father, an impoverished man, who took pleasure in music and verse. Roseanne’s fondness for musicality will later lead to her attraction to her future husband, Tom. Though there are class and religious differences between the men, both use music to buoy their spirits.