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the sight of men diverts her attention from her love. "Come, beloved," she says, "let us go into the country, let us dwell in the fields. Let us arise in the morning to visit our vines, and to see if they begin to put forth their blossoms." Sweet words, which exhale pleasure, and appear to identify the delights of love with the delights of a rural life. But this sentiment-a secret instinct of modesty does not last long; nature hastens to enlarge its sphere, and in this she shows her wisdom and her solicitude she does not destroy; she regulates. It is by multiplying the felicities of love, that she places limits to its egotism. These two beings who isolated themselves from society, who desired to live alone, and to live only for each other, we see them re-appearing, surrounded by a group of little children; they advance, their countenance beaming with a two-fold joy, as if drawn forwards by these new ties which again attach them to the world. And who then on earth has ever experienced enjoyments so pure and so manifold? Attached to her husband by all the cares of tenderness, to her children by all the duties of love, the woman possesses within her breast the sweetest affections of nature. Her mind and heart are in a continual activity; she lives in him, in them; in the present, the past, and the future; and infinite pleasures are the reward of her inexhaustible tenderness.

To isolate oneself, is one of the first phases of love, but it is not love itself; love does not contract the heart, it expands it, and renders it capable of conquering selfishness. Ungrateful creatures that we are, we complain that the moments of solitude and egotism so soon pass away, and we do not feel that the family and society would be lost, if a similar enchantment could last for ever. In ceasing to be social, man would cease to be powerful; love, which

raises him up to heaven, would cause him to lose even his terrestrial empire.

Fortunately, nature is superior to our desires, and more generous than our wills.

In fact, man sighs and languishes at the feet of his mistress; but by the side of his companion amidst his children, he enjoys the plentitude of his being. He is the support, the protector of his family; all that is in him of noble, powerful, or generous, becomes excited and active. And yet he has lost nothing of his love; but, like his companion, he diffuses it over a greater number of objects: all these little hands which caress him, all these smiling countenances which surround him, recall to his mind her whom he loves; he recognises her in the smile of his children, and blesses her in their innocence. Ah! the graces of the young virgin never caused sweeter transports than those of the mother of a family! Love is happiness, for this world and for eternity.

Love, and your desires will be accomplished; love, and you will be happy; love, and all the powers of the earth will be at your feet. Love is a flame which burns in heaven, and of which the soft reflection extends to ourselves. Two worlds are open to it, two lives are bestowed upon it; it is by love that we redouble our being; that we approach to God.

CHAPTER XVII.

OF MATERNAL LOVE-A MORAL AND PHYSICAL LAW OF NATURE.

"C'est ici que sa voix pieuse et solennelle

Nous expliquait un Dieu que nous sentions en elle;
Et nous montrant l'épi dans son germe enfermé,
La grappe distillant son breuvage embaumé,
Nous enseignait la foi par la reconnoissance
Et faisait admirer à notre simple enfance,
Comment l'astre et l'insecte invisible à nos yeux
Avaient ainsi que nous leur père dans les cieux.”

LAMARTINE.

ALL our earthly attachments are dictated by pleasure. Maternal love alone arises amid suffering. Imagine to yourself, says Plutarch, the sensations of woman in the earliest days of the world, when, after the pains of childbirth, she saw her new-born infant upon the ground covered with blood, and more resembling a flayed animal than a living creature. Doubtless she might have regarded it as an evil of which nature had just delivered her; no visible charms attracted her towards it; her heart was moved neither by the beauty of its form, nor by the sweetness of its voice, and yet, still feverish with her sufferings, still trembling with the anguish of parturition, she washes and caresses it, clothes it, and presses it to her bosom, constantly recommencing a toil which never fatigues her; and in exchange for so many sacrifices, receiving only cries and wailings.

Well, this power, which is stronger than pain or disgust; this power at which Plutarch is with reason astonished, is but an animal feeling, like the tenderness of the cat for its

young; a blind instinct which belongs to the plant, to the insect, to the quadruped, to birds, as well as to woman; it is an immutable law of nature; a law of preservation; and that is all.

It is this law which prepares in the plant the juice which is to nourish the seed, the down which warms it, the folds which shelter it; it is this again which provides the seed with hooks, sails, shells, wings, tufts of feathers, according as it is required to be wafted to the mountains, or to abandon its vegetable fleets to the peaceful current of a rivulet.

In more perfect beings, this intelligent power is associated with the passions, increases their force, and trains them up to industry. The bird prepares its nest before knowing that it is about to produce a something of which it ought to take care, and lines it with a soft down, before knowing the delicacy of its brood; it hatches, that is to say, that the most restless of beings remains motionless during several weeks, seated on a cold and insensible shell, before knowing that it encloses a being similar to itself. At length, when the young ones are born, it brings them food; it defends them against enemies, it sings, it is anxious, or rejoices, and all these painful or joyful labours are destined to remain without any reward; no filial tenderness will ever respond to this maternal tenderness. Some day the young ones will try their wings; on another day they will take their flight and disappear in the regions of air. Animals have no family, they are truly neither father nor mother, nor related to each other; they are but the workmen of nature.

Thus, although organised beings are born weak and powerless, although they are surrounded with enemies, and as if on a battle-field, yet are they born in safety. Maternal love shields them by its foresight and its devoted

ness.

Like a vigilant sentinel it watches over each birth ; not for the preservation of an isolated being; of a quadruped, a bird, a fly, or even of a child, but for the accomplishment of this great work of nature, which wills that all should die, and that nothing should perish; that all should be born, and that nothing should be immortal. Whatever, then, may be the wants of all beings, their ferocity or their destructiveness, whatever may be the exigencies of death, maternal love remains as a conqueror on the earth, which it re-peoples. By it, every plant is renewed in its seed, every insect in its egg, every animal in its young; it is at the same time the source of life, and the limit of destruction.

It is a fact worthy of observation, that maternal love lasts only in each animal the time necessary for the conservation of the species; as soon as the young no longer require their mother, she abandons them. This sentiment, so strong, so tender, so caressing, so sublime, which occasions so many privations and sacrifices, becomes all at once extinct, and is succeeded by the most complete indifference. In the morning a mother will fight with fury to defend her progeny, which in the evening she no longer knows. And this abandonment, which excites no regret, which leaves no remembrance, is effected at the moment when long habit, or gratitude, would seem to render it impossible. When we reflect that the harmony of the world depends upon this double law of love and indifference, we are surprised not to see it anywhere pointed out. Only let us conceive what a new power the durable affection of animals would introduce upon the earth. What strength would be added to their exterminating instinct. If a war-cry were raised, twenty generations would arise around a single female, families would be armies, and all

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