Gala-Days [92]
Let her abide for a little season, and she shall emerge triumphantly, with ethereal wings and a happy flight."
But the nursery ought not to be the mother's chrysalis. God never intended her to wind herself up into a cocoon. If he had, he would made her a caterpillar. She has no right to bury her womanly nature in the tomb of childhood. It will surely be required at her hands. It was given her to sun itself in the broad, bright day, to root itself fast and firm in the earth, to spread itself wide to the sky, that her children in their infancy and youth and maturity, that her husband in his strength and his weakness, that her kinsfolk and neighbors and the poor of the land, the halt and the blind and all Christ's little ones, may sit under its shadow with great delight. No woman has a right to sacrifice her own soul to problematical, high-minded, world-stirring sons, and virtuous, lovely daughters. To be the mother of such, one might perhaps pour out one's life in draughts so copious that the fountain should run dry; but world-stirring people are extremely rare. One in a century is a liberal allowance. The overwhelming probabilities are, that her sons will be lawyers and shoemakers and farmers and commission-merchants, her daughters nice, "smart," pretty girls, all good, honest, kind-hearted, commonplace people, not at all world-stirring, not at all the people one would glory to merge one's self in. If the mother is not satisfied with this, if she wants them otherwise, she must be otherwise. The surest way to have high-minded children is to be high-minded yourself. A man cannot burrow in his counting-room for ten or twenty of the best years of his life, and come out as much of a man and as little of a mole as he went in. But the twenty years should have ministered to his manhood, instead of trampling on it. Still less can a woman bury herself in her nursery, and come out without harm. But the years should have done her great good. This world is not made for a tomb, but a garden. You are to be a seed, not a death. Plant yourself, and you will sprout. Bury yourself, and you can only decay. For a dead opportunity there is no resurrection. The only enjoyment, the only use to be attained in this world, must be attained on the wing. Each day brings its own happiness, its own benefit; but it has none to spare. What escapes today is escaped forever. Tomorrow has no overflow to atone for the lost yesterdays.
Few things are more painful to look upon than the self-renunciation, the self-abnegation of mothers,--painful both for its testimony and its prophecy. Its testimony is of over-care, over-work, over-weariness, the abuse of capacities that were bestowed for most sacred uses, an utter waste of most pure and life-giving waters. Its prophecy is early decline and decadence, forfeiture of position and power, and worst, perhaps, of all, irreparable loss and grievous wrong to the children for whom all is sacrificed.
God gives to the mother supremacy in her family. It belongs to her to maintain it. This cannot not be done without exertion. The temptation to come down from her throne, and become a mere hewer of wood and drawer of water is very strong. It is so much easier to work with the hands than with the head. One can chop sticks all day serenely unperplexed. But to administer a government demands observation and knowledge and judgment and resolution and inexhaustible patience. Yet, however uneasy lies the head that wears the crown of womanhood, that crown cannot be bartered away for any baser wreath without infinite harm. In both cases there must be sacrifice; but in the one case it is unto death, in the other unto life. If the mother stands on high ground, she brings her children up to her own level; if she sinks, they sink with her.
To maintain her rank, no exertion is too great, no means too small. Dress is one of the most obvious things to a child. If the mother wears cheap or shabby or ill-assorted clothes, while the children's are fine and harmonious, it is impossible that they
But the nursery ought not to be the mother's chrysalis. God never intended her to wind herself up into a cocoon. If he had, he would made her a caterpillar. She has no right to bury her womanly nature in the tomb of childhood. It will surely be required at her hands. It was given her to sun itself in the broad, bright day, to root itself fast and firm in the earth, to spread itself wide to the sky, that her children in their infancy and youth and maturity, that her husband in his strength and his weakness, that her kinsfolk and neighbors and the poor of the land, the halt and the blind and all Christ's little ones, may sit under its shadow with great delight. No woman has a right to sacrifice her own soul to problematical, high-minded, world-stirring sons, and virtuous, lovely daughters. To be the mother of such, one might perhaps pour out one's life in draughts so copious that the fountain should run dry; but world-stirring people are extremely rare. One in a century is a liberal allowance. The overwhelming probabilities are, that her sons will be lawyers and shoemakers and farmers and commission-merchants, her daughters nice, "smart," pretty girls, all good, honest, kind-hearted, commonplace people, not at all world-stirring, not at all the people one would glory to merge one's self in. If the mother is not satisfied with this, if she wants them otherwise, she must be otherwise. The surest way to have high-minded children is to be high-minded yourself. A man cannot burrow in his counting-room for ten or twenty of the best years of his life, and come out as much of a man and as little of a mole as he went in. But the twenty years should have ministered to his manhood, instead of trampling on it. Still less can a woman bury herself in her nursery, and come out without harm. But the years should have done her great good. This world is not made for a tomb, but a garden. You are to be a seed, not a death. Plant yourself, and you will sprout. Bury yourself, and you can only decay. For a dead opportunity there is no resurrection. The only enjoyment, the only use to be attained in this world, must be attained on the wing. Each day brings its own happiness, its own benefit; but it has none to spare. What escapes today is escaped forever. Tomorrow has no overflow to atone for the lost yesterdays.
Few things are more painful to look upon than the self-renunciation, the self-abnegation of mothers,--painful both for its testimony and its prophecy. Its testimony is of over-care, over-work, over-weariness, the abuse of capacities that were bestowed for most sacred uses, an utter waste of most pure and life-giving waters. Its prophecy is early decline and decadence, forfeiture of position and power, and worst, perhaps, of all, irreparable loss and grievous wrong to the children for whom all is sacrificed.
God gives to the mother supremacy in her family. It belongs to her to maintain it. This cannot not be done without exertion. The temptation to come down from her throne, and become a mere hewer of wood and drawer of water is very strong. It is so much easier to work with the hands than with the head. One can chop sticks all day serenely unperplexed. But to administer a government demands observation and knowledge and judgment and resolution and inexhaustible patience. Yet, however uneasy lies the head that wears the crown of womanhood, that crown cannot be bartered away for any baser wreath without infinite harm. In both cases there must be sacrifice; but in the one case it is unto death, in the other unto life. If the mother stands on high ground, she brings her children up to her own level; if she sinks, they sink with her.
To maintain her rank, no exertion is too great, no means too small. Dress is one of the most obvious things to a child. If the mother wears cheap or shabby or ill-assorted clothes, while the children's are fine and harmonious, it is impossible that they