288 THE EVOLUTION OF A MOTHER. 



Mother's chance was small. There, Infancy extends 

 to a few days or weeks, yet is but an incident in a life 

 preoccupied with sterner tasks. A lioness will bleed 

 for her cub to-day, and in to-morrow's struggle for life 

 contend with it to the death. A sheep knows its 

 lamb only while it is a lamb. The affection in these 

 cases, fierce enough while it lasts, is soon forgotten, 

 and the traces it left in the brain are obliterated be- 

 fore they have furrowed into habit. Among the Car- 

 nivora it is instructive to observe that while the brief 

 span of infancy admits of the Mother learning a little 

 Love, the father, for want of even so brief a lesson, re- 

 mains untouched, so wholly untouched indeed that 

 the Mother has often to hide her offspring from him 

 lest they be devoured. Love then had no chance till 

 the Human Mother came. To her alone was given a 

 curriculum prolonged enough to let her graduate in 

 the school of the affections. Not for days or weeks, 

 but for months, as the cry of her infant's helplessness 

 went forth, she must stand between the flickering 

 flame and death ; and for years to come, until the bud- 

 ding intellect could take its own command, this Love 

 dare not grow cold, or pause an hour in its unselfish 

 ministry. 



Begin at the beginning again and recall the fact 

 of woman's passive strain. A tendency to passivity 

 means, among other things, a capacity to sit still. Be 

 it but for a minute or an hour does not matter ; the 

 point is that the faintest possible capacity is there. 

 For this is the embryo of Patience and if much and 

 long nursed a fully fledged Patience will come out of 

 it. Supply next to this new virtue some definite ob- 

 ject on which to practise, let us say a child. When 



