He is the rays that flood her heart with contentment and satisfaction, and the strong cord that binds her to her husband; the hope toward which she has so long looked and of which she has dreamed; he is her sole companion in the darknesses of solitude, and the crown of her kingdom, for whose sake she fights all the armies of despair and hopelessness that league against her.
In his glances she sees the world and all who are in it, and in his smile the dazzling lamp that sweeps from her the darkness of life and helps her to bear responsibilities, awakening strength in her and renewing her resolve.
With one clasp of him to her breast the mother forgets all the fetters of trials and pains with which the days have bound her; the somber clouds part from the sky of her life, uncovering a smiling, flourishing, clear sky.
She strives for his sake and toils, heedless of fatigue, working to care for him with energy and fidelity, to prepare his powers and to set his steps straight.
She listens to him, taken by the magic of his first babblings—he calls: Mama—Papa—and she hastens to him, flooded with rapture, the tears of joy clinging to her eyelids.
She looks at him with glances of tenderness and affection as he smiles and laughs, crawling on the rug, trying his first unsteady movements, now falling, now bumping into things; and she clasps him to her breast, making him feel her love in the glow of her breath, and her tenderness in the warmth of her kisses.
She stays awake the long nights over his rest, drowned the while in her far-off dreams, seeing in her child, asleep with full eyelids, the delights of the world and all the treasured wishes it contains.
How many a startled leap has drawn the mother out of her pleasant dreams—a feeble movement, or a faint sound that might not rouse a heedless consciousness, makes her wake in alarm and stand before her child's bed, watching over him with her tenderness, and seeking out the source of his fright and his stirring.
She cannot bear the sight of her child crying from hunger, or ailing and in pain; she sacrifices everything for his sake, loading herself with severe torment to prepare his food, or to give him her breasts in the sweetest hours of her sleep.
She passes the nights in continual vigil before her sick, aching child, crying out from the depths of her soul—the hot tears flooding her cheeks—in prayer for her child's recovery, even should it lead her to pay her own soul as the price of his cure. She aches for his aches, and every strength in her dissolves before the pain he suffers, and her voice rises in broken moaning, the echo of the broken strings of her heart.
Among woman's merits there is none surpassing the merit of her sensibility. She turns herself into gifts and bestowals from a spring brimming with love, feeling, and tenderness that gushes in her depths; and so she gives with a bounty such as the man cannot give to his son, because he is himself athirst for those bounteous gifts—he wants to share with his son the blessings of giving, and this thirst is what drives him to marriage.
Woman understands by instinct the source of a child's crying, for instance, more than man understands it; she hastens to him, answering his call without delay or questioning, while the man