r" / 



before 

 live. 

 In 



THE wise ignorance, the clear-seeing instinct 

 of our forefathers gave utterance to this oracle : 

 " Everything springs from the egg ; it is the world's 

 ^ ' cradle." 



Even our original, but especially the diversity 

 of our destiny, is due to the mother. She acts and she 

 foresees, she loves with a stronger or a weaker love, 

 she is more or less the mother. The more she is so, 

 the higher mounts her offspring ; each degree in 

 existence depends on the degree of her love. 



What can the mother effect in the mobile existence 

 * of the fish ? Nothing, but trust her birth to the ocean. 

 What in the insect world, where she generally dies as 

 soon as she has produced the egg ? To obtain for it 

 dying a secure asylum, where it may come to light, and 



the case of the superior animal, the quadruped, where the 



