e holy. To them, for long ages, the approach
to motherhood has been by the most intense and exquisite love and
longing, by the Supreme Desire, the overmastering demand for a child.
Every thought they held in connection with the processes of maternity
was open to the day, simple yet sacred. Every woman of them placed
motherhood not only higher than other duties, but so far higher that
there were no other duties, one might almost say. All their wide mutual
love, all the subtle interplay of mutual friendship and service,
the urge of progressive thought and invention, the deepest religious
emotion, every feeling and every act was related to this great central
Power, to the River of Life pouring through them, which made them the
bearers of the very Spirit of God.

Of all this I learned more and more--from their books, from talk,
especially from Ellador. She was at first, for a brief moment, envious
of her friend--a thought she put away from her at once and forever.

"It is better," she said to me. "It is much better that it has not come
to me yet--to us, that is. For if I am to go with you to your country,
we may have 'adventures by sea and land,' as you say [and as in truth we
did], and it might not be at all safe for a baby. So we won't try again,
dear, till it is safe--will we?"

This was a hard saying for a very loving husband.

"Unless," she went on, "if one is coming, you will leave me behind. You
can come back, you know--and I shall have the child."

Then that deep ancient chill of male jealousy of even his own progeny
touched my heart.

"I'd rather have you, Ellador, than all the children in the world. I'd
rather have you with me--on your own terms--than not to have you."

This was a very stupid saying. Of course I would! For if she wasn't
there I should want all of her and have none of her. But if she went
along as a sort of sublimated sister--only much closer and warmer than
that, really--why I should have all of her but that one thing. And I
was beginning to find that Ellador's friendship, Ellador's comradeship,
Ellador's sisterly affection, Ellador's perfectly sincere love--none
the less deep that she held it back on a definite line of reserve--were
enough to live on very happily.

I find it quite beyond me to describe what this woman was to me. We talk
fine things about women, but in our hearts we know that they are very
limited beings--most of them. We honor them for their functional powers,
even while