ome. The same is sometimes the case with
artists, whose whole interest and creative energies are absorbed in
their work.

With all my heart I despise those married people in full possession of
health and strength who deliberately elect to remain childless. With all
my heart I pity the celibate and those to whom children are denied. Yet
they have compensations--though they lose the rapture, they miss also
the infinite anxieties, the innumerable worries, the constant
self-denial, the often bitter disappointments. Children bring many other
pains than those of birth. Tennyson says, 'the saddest soul in all the
world is she that has a child and sees him err.' Yet by some subtle
alchemy of nature, the strings of mother hearts are sometimes attuned
even more tenderly to the children who err. I think one of the most
beautiful lines ever written occurs in Stephen Philips' _Marpessa_. When
the maid Marpessa rejects the god in favour of the humble mortal lover,
of the latter she says:

'And he shall give me passionate children, not
Some radiant god that will despise me quite,
But clamouring limbs, and little hearts that err.'

But the clamouring limbs soon wax great, alas! out of all recognition;
the little hearts become wise and worldly and err in a less pleasing
manner--our passionate children outgrow us quickly nowadays. That is the
real tragedy of motherhood--_to be outgrown_.

PART V

HOW TO BE HAPPY THOUGH MARRIED

'To dwell happily together they should be versed in the niceties of
the heart and born with a faculty for willing compromise.'

'Goodness in marriage is a more intricate problem than mere single
virtue, for in marriage there are two ideals to be realised.'
--R. L. STEVENSON.

I

A FEW SUGGESTIONS FOR REFORM

Within the last twenty-five years the worst injustices of our marriage
laws have been rectified, and compared with them the remaining
grievances appear relatively mild. It is scarcely credible in these days
of advanced women that only a few years ago a husband could take
possession of his wife's property and spend it as he liked, or, what is
still more monstrous, could appoint a stranger as sole guardian to his
children after his death, entirely ignoring the natural rights of the
mother.

The most serious injustice remaining is that the relief of divorce is
more accessible to men than to women. This obviously is a law made by
men for their own advantage