of God. You know the happiness of love for your husbands,--a
happiness which does not come to an end, which does not break off
short, like all other forms of happiness, and which constitutes the
beginning of a new happiness,--of love for your child. You alone,
when you are simple and obedient to the will of God, know not that
farcical pretence of labor which the men of our circle call work, and
know that the labor imposed by God on men, and know its true rewards,
the bliss which it confers. You know this, when, after the raptures
of love, you await with emotion, fear, and terror that torturing
state of pregnancy which renders you ailing for nine months, which
brings you to the verge of death, and to intolerable suffering and
pain. You know the conditions of true labor, when, with joy, you
await the approach and the increase of the most terrible torture,
after which to you alone comes the bliss which you well know. You
know this, when, immediately after this torture, without respite,
without a break, you undertake another series of toils and
sufferings,--nursing,--in which process you at one and the same time
deny yourselves, and subdue to your feelings the very strongest human
need, that of sleep, which, as the proverb says, is dearer than
father or mother; and for months and years you never get a single
sound, unbroken might's rest, and sometimes, nay, often, you do not
sleep at all for a period of several nights in succession, but with
failing arms you walk alone, punishing the sick child who is breaking
your heart. And when you do all this, applauded by no one, and
expecting no praises for it from any one, nor any reward,--when you
do this, not as an heroic deed, but like the laborer in the Gospel
when he came from the field, considering that you have done only that
which was your duty, then you know what the false, pretentious labor
of men performed for glory really is, and that true labor is
fulfilling the will of God, whose command you feel in your heart.