made to the old people's memory. They likewise laughed, the
errors were amusing, but it mattered little if they no longer remembered
a name, the child at any rate belonged to the harvest that had sprung
from them.

Then there were certain granddaughters and great-granddaughters whom
they themselves summoned and kissed by way of bringing good luck to the
babes that were expected, the children of their children's children,
the race which would ever spread and perpetuate them through the far-off
ages. And there were mothers, also, who were nursing, mothers whose
little ones, after sleeping quietly during the feast, had now awakened,
shrieking their hunger aloud. These had to be fed, and the mothers
merrily seated themselves together under the trees and gave them the
breast in all serenity. Therein lay the royal beauty of woman, wife and
mother; fruitful maternity triumphed over virginity by which life is
slain. Ah! might manners and customs change, might the idea of morality
and the idea of beauty be altered, and the world recast, based on the
triumphant beauty of the mother suckling her babe in all the majesty of
her symbolism! From fresh sowings there ever came fresh harvests, the
sun ever rose anew above the horizon, and milk streamed forth endlessly
like the eternal sap of living humanity. And that river of milk carried
life through the veins of the world, and expanded and overflowed for the
centuries of the future.

The greatest possible sum of life in order that the greatest possible
happiness might result: that was the act of faith in life, the act of
hope in the justice and goodness of life's work. Victorious fruitfulness
remained the one true force, the sovereign power which alone moulded
the future. She was the great revolutionary, the incessant artisan of
progress, the mother of every civilization, ever re-creating her army
of innumerable fighters, throwing through the centuries millions after
millions of poor and hungry and rebellious beings into the fight for
truth and justice. Not a single forward step in history has ever been
taken without numerousness having urged humanity forward. To-morrow,
like yesterday, will be won by the swarming of the multitude whose quest
is happiness. And to-morrow will give the benefits which our age has
awaited; economic equality obtained even as political equality has been
obtained; a just apportionment of wealth rendered easy; and compulsory
work re-established as the one gl