TO FARMERS' WITES. 185 



hearted love of their childhood. Dear woman, do not 

 longer be given up to the endless round of dull, unrelieved 

 labor, or else take you gaze quite away from that distant 

 glimmer ! Ten to one you will not live to realize such 

 pleasant hopes ; or, if your life is prolonged, you will find 

 that talented sons and daughters can not turn with the 

 old clinging love of their early days to the mother they 

 have so completely outgrown and distanced to the poor, 

 old, self-sacrificed mother, shrivelled, both in body and in 

 mind, with only her faithful, loving heart to feel vaguely 

 hurt and unsatisfied over the pitying love which her 

 children can not help showing for her ! Very few of us 

 can enjoy a regard in which is mixed the element of com- 

 passion, and such regard, coming from child to parent, 

 is as painful as anything life affords. 



There may be a deep and touching beauty, to some 

 minds, in such complete body and mind sacrifice of the 

 mother to housework and child-care ; but it is all wrong, 

 nevertheless. We may be pardoned for throwing our- 

 selves into whirlpools, or into the jaws of lions and tigers, 

 to lose our lives in saving our children ; but to slowly sink, 

 until we are buried, in the slough of broken-down health 

 and mental stagnation, is something not to be condoned. 



Busy mother, you who are not "taking care" of your- 

 self, you who are toiling early and late for husband and 

 children, and bestowing less attention on yourself than 

 you would naturally give to the commonest four-footed 

 beast of burden, reflect a moment, and see if it is not a 

 solemn duty you owe to yourself and to your husband 

 and children, that you make sure no such future opens 

 before you ! If you have thus far made a cipher of your- 

 self, turn a new leaf at once, and commence caring a little 

 for the wife of your husband and the mother of your 

 children ! You had a fair stocii of good health and happy 

 spirits to begin with. What right have you to squander 

 such precious capital ? If attention to one's own health 



