Life and Literature Part 101

WHILE MOTHER WAS AWAY.

The Princess of Wales has trained her children so carefully in habits of obedience and veracity that they are most trustworthy little persons.

Before her royal highness started on her trip round the world with her husband, she drew up a list of rules to be observed in the nursery, and added a series of light tasks to be fullfilled by each one of the youngsters before the date set for her return.

The rules were to be enforced by the nurses. The performance of the tasks was left to the honor of the children, and in addition there was a list of things they must not do.

There were occasional lapses of memory as regards the forbidden things, and some carelessness in carrying out the tasks, for royal children, despite the severity of their training, are children still. But in the main they respected their mother's wishes and commands, and took no advantage of her absence. Upon one occasion, however, they were sorely tempted. This was when their loving and beloved grandmother, Queen Alexandria, brought them a big box of bonbons. But when the sweets were offered to them, one child after another reluctantly but firmly declined to take any.

"We like them, but mother has forbidden us to eat them," explained the eldest prince.

"You can have the sugar-plums if I say you may," said the indulgent queen. "I will tell mama all about it when she returns."

Prince Eddie wavered momentarily, then reiterated his refusal.

"We'd like them," he sighed, "but that's what mother said."

The queen was slightly annoyed by this opposition.

"But if I say you may--" she said.

Prince Eddie stood his ground, a hero between two fires--the wishes of his adored mother, and those of his almost equally adored grandmother.

His sister and his brothers followed his lead. When the queen went away she put the bonbons on the nursery table and there they stayed for months untouched, a handsome monument to the thoroughness of the princess' training and the respectful love and devotion of her children.

--_The Youth's Companion._

1400

Better the child should cry than the mother sigh.

--_Danish._

1401

THE DARING OF A MOTHER.

In Scotland a peasant woman had a child a few weeks old, which was seized by one of the golden eagles, the largest in the country, and borne away in its talons to its lofty eyrie on one of the most inaccessible cliffs of Scotland's bleak hills; the mother, perceiving her loss, hurried in alarm to its rescue, and the peasantry among whom the alarm spread, rushed out to her aid; they all came to the foot of the tremendous precipice; the peasants were anxious to risk their lives in order to recover the little infant; but how was the crag to be reached? One peasant tried to climb, but was obliged to return; another tried and came down injured; a third tried, and one after another failed, till a universal feeling of despair and deep sorrow fell upon the crowd as they gazed upon the eyrie where the infant lay. At last a woman was seen, climbing first one part and then another, getting over one rock and then another, and while every heart trembled with alarm, to the amazement of all, they saw her reach the loftiest crag, and clasp the infant rejoicingly in her bosom. This heroic female began to descend the perilous steep with her child; moving from point to point; and while everyone thought that her next step would precipitate her and dash her to pieces, they saw her at length reach the ground with the child safe in her arms. Who was this female? Why did she succeed when others failed? It was The Mother of The Child.

--_c.u.mming._

1402

FUNERAL OF A MOTHER.

The Rev. George Crabbe when describing the funeral of "The Mother," in his pa.s.sing glance at the half-interested spectators, says:--

Curious and sad, upon the fresh-dug hill The village lads stood, melancholy still.

and in his description of the return to the house:--

Arrived at home, how then they gazed around.

In every place where she no more was found; The seat at table she was wont to fill; The fireside chair, still set, but vacant still; The garden walks, a labor all her own; The latticed bower, with trailing shrubs o'ergrown: The Sunday pew she filled with all her race-- Each place of hers, was now a sacred place, That while it called up sorrows in the eyes, Pierced the full heart, and forced them still to rise.

--_From the Eclectic Magazine._

1403

A MOTHER'S LOVE.

Children, look in those eyes, listen to that dear voice, notice the feeling of even a single touch that is bestowed upon you by that gentle hand. Make much of it while yet you have that most precious of all good gifts, a loving mother. Read the unfathomable love of those eyes; the kind anxiety of that tone and look, however slight your pain.

In after-life you may have friends, fond, dear, kind friends; but never will you have again the inexpressible love and gentleness lavished upon you which none but a mother bestows. Often do I sigh in my struggles with hard, uncaring world, for the sweet, deep security I felt when, of an evening nestling in her bosom, I listened to some quiet tale, suitable to my age, read in her tender and untiring voice. Never can I forget her sweet glances cast upon me when I appeared asleep, never her kiss of peace at night. Years have pa.s.sed away since we laid her beside my father in the old church yard; yet still her voice whispers from the grave, and her eye watches over me, as I visit spots long since hallowed to the memory of my mother.

1404

The mother's heart is the child's school-room.

1405

He who takes the child by the hand, takes the mother by the heart.

1406

Who ran to help me when I fell, And would some pretty story tell, Or kiss the place to make it well?

My mother.

1407

Each mother is a historian; she writes not the history of empires or of nations on paper, but she writes her own history on the imperishable mind of her child. That tablet and that history will remain indelible when time shall be no more. That history each mother shall meet again, and read, with eternal joy, or unutterable grief, in the coming ages of eternity.

1408

MOTHERS AND MEN.

That it is the mother who moulds the man is a sentiment beautifully ill.u.s.trated by the following recorded observation of a shrewd writer:--

"When I lived among the Choctaw Indians, I held a consultation with one of their chiefs respecting the successive stages of their progress in the arts of civilized life; and among other things he informed me, that at their start they made a great mistake,--they only sent boys to school. These boys came home intelligent men; but they married uneducated and uncivilized wives, and the uniform result was, the children were all like their mothers. The father soon lost all his interest both in wife and children. 'And now,' said he 'if we would educate but one cla.s.s of our children, we should choose the girls; for, when they become mothers, they educate their sons.'"

1409