IX

Motherhood

and

"Race Suicide"

155

A mother is a mother still,

The holiest thing alive.

A baby lying on his mother's breast
Draws life from that sweet fount;
He takes his rest

And heaves deep sighs;

With brooding eyes

Of soft content

COLERIDGE.

She shelters him within that fragrant nest,

And scarce refrains from crushing him
With tender violence,

His rosebud mouth, each rosy limb
Excite such joy intense;
Rocked on that gentle billow,

She sings into his ear

A song that angels stoop to hear.
Blest child and mother doubly blest!
Such his first pillow.

A man outwearied with the world's mad race
His mother seeks again;

His furrowed face,

His tired gray head,

His heart of lead

Resigned he yields;

She covers him in some secluded place,
And kindly heals the earthy scar

Of spade with snow and flowers,
While glow of sun and gleam of star,
And murmuring rush of showers,
And wind-obeying willow

Attend his unbroken sleep;

In this repose secure and deep,

Forgotten save by One, he leaves no trace.

Such his last pillow.

IRVING BROWNE,

Motherhood and "Race Suicide"

THE

HE wilfully idle man, like the wilfully barren woman, has no place in a sane, healthy, and vigorous community. Moreover, the gross and hideous selfishness for which each stands defeats even its own miserable aims. Exactly as infinitely the happiest woman is she who has borne and brought up many healthy children, so infinitely the happiest man is he who has toiled hard and successfully in his life-work. The Strenuous Life.

The Happiest Men and

Women

The

Greatest

Thing in

If the men of the nation are not anxious to work in many different ways, with all their might and strength, and ready and able to the World fight at need, and anxious to be fathers of families, and if the women do not recognize that the greatest thing for any woman is to be a good wife and mother, why, that nation has cause to be alarmed about its future.

Letter to Mrs. Van Vorst.

The
Fearless

Mother of

Healthy
Children

Race

Suicide

The man must be glad to do a man's work, to dare and endure and to labor; to keep himself, and to keep those dependent upon him. The woman must be the housewife, the helpmeet of the homemaker, the wise and fearless mother of many healthy children. In one of Daudet's powerful and melancholy books he speaks of "the fear of maternity, the haunting terror of the young wife of the present day." When such words can be truthfully written of a nation, that nation is rotten to the heart's core. When men fear work or fear righteous war, when women fear motherhood, they tremble on the brink of doom; and well it is that they should vanish from the earth, where they are fit subjects for the scorn of all men and women who are themselves strong and brave and high-minded.—The Strenuous Life.

2

If a man or woman, through no fault of his or hers, goes throughout life denied those highest of all joys which spring only from home life, from the having and bringing up of many healthy children, I feel for them deep and respectful sympathy,—the sympathy one extends to the gallant fellow killed at the beginning of a campaign, or to the man who toils hard and is brought to