they have sacrificed to obtain it, that the price has been very
heavy, and the fruit of their struggles bitter on their lips.

There are few men, I imagine, of my generation to whom the words
"home" and "mother" have not a penetrating charm, who do not look
back with softened heart and tender thoughts to fireside scenes of
evening readings and twilight talks at a mother's knee, realizing
that the best in their natures owes its growth to these influences.

I sometimes look about me and wonder what the word "mother" will
mean later, to modern little boys. It will evoke, I fear, a
confused remembrance of some centaur-like being, half woman, half
wheel, or as it did to neglected little Rawdon Crawley, the vision
of a radiant creature in gauze and jewels, driving away to endless
FETES - FETES followed by long mornings, when he was told not to
make any noise, or play too loudly, "as poor mamma is resting."
What other memories can the "successful" woman of to-day hope to
leave in the minds of her children? If the child remembers his
mother in this way, will not the man who has known and perhaps
loved her, feel the same sensation of empty futility when her name
is mentioned?

The woman who proposes a game of cards to a youth who comes to pass
an hour in her society, can hardly expect him to carry away a
particularly tender memory of her as he leaves the house. The girl
who has rowed, ridden, or raced at a man's side for days, with the
object of getting the better of him at some sport or pastime,
cannot reasonably hope to be connected in his thoughts with ideas
more tender or more elevated than "odds" or "handicaps," with an
undercurrent of pique if his unsexed companion has "downed" him