very life. If need be, she sacrifices everything in life, and then
sacrifices life itself, going out into the darkness of death that her
child may come into fulness and sweetness of life. This is the mother
spirit, giving one's very self to bring life to another.

The mother gives her very life-blood that the new life may come. And, if
need be, will gladly give her life out to the death that the new life
may come into life. And yet more, she gives her life out daily and yearly,
throughout its length, that so the full strength and fragrance of life may
come in her child's life.

Yet, when all this has been said, I am strongly inclined to think that the
mother's love, though the greatest that can be found in any one heart, is
not the perfect, fully grown love. The human unit is not a man nor a
woman, but a man and a woman. Perfect love requires more than one or two
for its matured growth into full life. It cannot exist in its full
strength and fragrant sweets except where three are joined together to
draw out its full depth and meaning.

There must be two whose hearts are fully joined in love, each finding
answering and ever-satisfying love in the other; and so each love growing
to full ripeness in the warm sunshine of the other love. And then there
needs to be a third one, who comes as a result of that mutual love, and
who constantly draws out the love of the other two.

For love in itself is creative. It yearns to bring into being another upon
whom it may freely lavish itself. That other one must be of its own sort,
upon its own level. Nothing less ever satisfies. And so the love poured
out draws out to itself an answering love fully as full as its own. And
then, having yearned, it does more. It creates. It must create. It must