ng the infinitudes of small men who hold such a
large estimate of the incapacity and commonness of women.... Even among
the Sikh mothers (Bedient did not dream how his spirit prospered during
these Indian years) his ideal was strengthened. He found among the
mothers of the Punjab a finer courage than ever the wars had shown
him--the courage that bends and bears--and an answering sweetness for
all the good that men brought to their feet....

So one night at last he found himself thanking God in the great
silence--that he could see the natural greatness of women; that he was
alive to help them; that he could pity those who knew only the toiling,
not the mystic, hands of women; pity those--and tell them--who knew her
only as a sense creature.... And swiftly he wanted to tell women--how
high he held them--that one man in the world had kept his vision of
them brighter and brighter in substance and spirit. He had the queer,
almost feminine, sense, of their needing to know this, and of
impatience to give them their happiness. Perhaps they did not
continually hold this in mind; perhaps the men of their world had
taught them to forget.... They would be happier for his coming. He
would put into each woman's heart--_as only a man could do_--a
quickened sense of her incomparable importance; make her remember that
mothering is the loveliest of all the arts; that only in the lower and
savage orders of life the male is ascendant; that as the human race
evolves in the finer regions of the spirit--when growth becomes centred
in the ethereal dimension of the soul--woman, invariably a step nearer
the great creative source, must assume supremacy.... Among the dark
mountains the essence of all these thoughts came to him during many
nights.

He would make women happier by restoring to them--their own. He must
show how dreadful for them to forget for an instant--that they are the
real inspirers of man; that they ignite his every conception; that it
is men who follow and interpret, and the clumsy world is to blame
because the praise so often goes to the interpreter, and not to the
inspiration. But praise is a puny thing. Women must see that they only
are lovely who remain true to their dreams, for of their dreams is made
the spiritual loaf, the real vitality of the race; that by remaining
true to their dreams, though starved of heart, the sons that come to
them will be the lovers they dream of--and bring the happiness _they_
missed, to the d