XV 



CAREFUL MOTHERS 



A 



MOTHER nurses her ailing child without complaining of the 

 extra burden. She treats it as a matter of course ; she enters the 

 sick-room cheerfully, and so becomes a very sun of healing ; and we 

 are filled with reverence before this revelation of the selfless feminine 

 soul. 



Throughout all Nature we find the selfless care of the mother 

 for the child. Even among the animals we perceive, on every hand, 

 the self-sacrifice of maternal love. And we shall not despise this 

 instinct in the animals, disposing of it, perhaps, with the disdainful 

 remark that such care is merely an inevitable instinct, devoid of 

 understanding. Even the human mother's love and forethought are 

 not inspired by her understanding. She loves her child without 

 considering why she does so. Love enters her heart when the child 

 is born; and even so this love is an emanation from the great 

 Becoming, no less than the wonderful things which we see the 

 humblest living creature accomplish for the sake of its brood. 



In Recife, where I lived in a pension, I used to sit on the back 

 verandah of the airy, open, palm-encircled house ; and I used to 

 like sitting there after the others had gone, in order to delight my 

 eyes with the sight of the fascinating little guest who regularly 

 visited the supper-table (Plate 30). Like a kitten he emerged from 

 between the palm-leaves, with his woolly grey coat and his thick 

 black-and-white barred tail; so like a kitten that his gnome-like 

 face, with its round eyes attentively fixed on the observer, was all 

 the more surprising. Then, with a leap, the Saguim monkey sat on 

 a post of the verandah railing ; a second leap, and he was on the 

 table, reaching for the remains of the fruit that lay there. And now 

 a mother monkey came swinging along the electric lead that ran 

 under the verandah roof; she had a baby with her, anxiously 

 chnging to her back: an enchanting little creature, no bigger than 

 a mouse. Soon she too was on the table, and now, before anything 

 else, the baby's coat was given a thorough cleansing. The mother 

 gave particular attention to the proper arrangement of the 

 coiffure ; for while she herself wore her hair parted, with two white 

 tufts, right and left, the baby wore his hair brushed smoothly over 

 his forehead, and extending down to his neck, as many young people 

 266 



