I am they, they are I. The tree withers
and you clear the ground, thankful if out of its dead limbs you can
make good firewood; but its spirit, its life, is in fifty saplings.
The tree dies not, it changes.
These men and women that pass me in the street, this one hurrying to
his office, this one to his club, another to his love, they are the
mothers of the world to come.
This greedy trickster in stocks and shares, he cheats, he lies, he
wrongs all men--for what? Follow him to his luxurious home in the
suburbs: what do you find? A man with children on his knee,
telling them stories, promising them toys. His anxious, sordid
life, for what object is it lived? That these children may possess
the things that he thinks good for them. Our very vices, side by
side with our virtues, spring from this one root, Motherhood. It is
the one seed of the Universe. The planets are but children of the
sun, the moon but an offspring of the earth, stone of her stone,
iron of her iron. What is the Great Centre of us all, life animate
and inanimate--if any life be inanimate? Is the eternal universe one
dim figure, Motherhood, filling all space?
This scheming Mother of Mayfair, angling for a rich son-in-law! Not
a pleasing portrait to look upon, from one point of view.
Pages:
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249