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What “The Woman Thou Gavest Me” Did for “Baby’s Sake”
plain-featured person, whom baby could never
come to love as she would, I was sure, love me.
I felt better after I had taken tea, and a3 It
was then 7 o’clock, and the sun was setting
horizontally through the cypresses of the ceme
tery, I knew It was time to go.
I could not do that, though, without un
dressing baby and singing her to sleep. And
even then I sat for a while with an aching
heart, and Isabel on my knee, thinking of how
I should have to go to bed that night, tor the
first time, without her.
Mrs. Oliver, in the meantime, examining the
surplus linen which I had brought in my par
cel, was bursting into whispered cries of de
light over it, and, being told I had made the
clothes myself, was saying, "What a wonderful
seamstress you might be if you liked, ma’am.”
At length the time came to leave baby, and
no woman knows the pain of that experience
who has not gone through it.
Though I really believed my darling would
be loved and cared for and knew she would
never miss me, or yet know that I was gone
(there was a pang even in that thought, and in
every other kind of comforting), I could not
help it, that, as I was putting my cherub into
her cot, my tears rained down on her little
face and awakened her, so that I had to kneel
by her side and rock her to sleep again.
"You’ll be good to my child, won’t you, Mrs.. (
Oliver?” I said.
“ 'Deed I will, ma’am,” the woman replied.
"You’ll bathe her every day, will you not?”
"Night and morning. I alius does, ma’am.
"And rinse out her bottle and see that she
has nice new milk fresh from the cows?”
‘;Sure as sure, ma’am. But don’t you fret
no more about the child, ma'am. I’ve been a
mother myself, ma’am, and I’ll be as good to *
your little angel as if she was my own come
back to me.”
"God bless you!" I said, in a burst of an
guish, and after remaining a moment longer
on my knees by the cot (speaking with all my
heart and soul, though neither to nurse nor to
baby), I rose to my feet, dashed the tears from
my eyes, and ran out of the house.
• • *
¥ KNEW that my eyes were not fit to be seen
* in the streets, so I dropped my dark veil
and hurried along, being conscious of nothing
for some time except the clang of electric cars
and the bustle of passers-by, to whom my poor
little sorrow was nothing at all.
But I had not gone far—I think I had not,
though my senses were confused and vague-
before I began to feel ashamed, to take myself
to task, and to ask what I had to cry about.
If I had parted from my baby it was for her
own good, and if I had paid away my last sov
ereign I had provided for her for a month, so I
had nothing to think of now except myself and
how to get work.
I never doubted that I should get work, or
that I should get it immediately, the only open
question being what work and where.
Hitherto I had thought that, being quick with
my pen, I might perhaps become secretary to
somebody, but now, remembering the typist’s
story (“firms don’t like it”), and wishing to run*’
no risks in respect to my child, I put that ex
pectation away and began to soar to higher
things.
How vain they were! Remembering some
kind words the Reverend Mother had said
about me at the Convent (where I had taken
more prizes than Alma, though I have never
mentioned it before), I told myself that I, too,
was an educated woman. I knew Italian,
French and German, and having heard that
some women could make a living by translat
ing books for publishers, I thought I might do
the same.
Nay, I could even write booxs myself. I
was sure I could—one book at all events, about
friendless girls who had to face the world for
themselves—and all good women would read
it (some good men also), because they would
see that it must be true.
Oh, how vain were my thoughts! Yet in
another sense they were^iot all vanity, for I
was not thinking of fame, or what people
would say about what I should write, but only
what I should get for it.
I should get money, not a great deal perhaps,
yet enough for baby and me, that we might
have that cottage in the country, covered with
creepers and roses, where Isabel would run
about the grass by and by and pluck up the
flowers in the garden.
“So what have you got to cry about, you
ridiculous thing?” I thought while I hurried
along, with a high step now, as if my soul
had been in my feet.
But a mother’s visions of the future are like
a mirage (always gleaming with the fairy pal
aces which her child is to inhabit some day),
and I was not the first to see her shadows
fade away.
The full instalment of this fascinating
story will be found in the current (
issue of HEARST’S MAGAZINE.
Hall Caine’s Wonderful Description
in “Hearst’s Magazine” of Mother
Love, and the Sacrifices That Mary
O’Neill Made for the Child That
“Had No Father.”
swoPSTS* Daniel O’Neill, a powerful, rf* lf-
made San force, h r. only daughter. Mary, Into
h loveless marriage with the lm P* < ;' lnlouB
profligate Lord Haa, so that his ambition to.have
his descendant, the rightful heirs of the one
earldom in Elian may he realized Mars ■ r “"
vent-raised young woman, shocked to. And her
husband a man of sordid, sensual passions, re
fuses utterly to have anything to do with him
until such time as he can prove hirnself worthy
of her love. During the honeymoon Hhrona
Alma Lter. a divorcee who had keen *
from the convent Mary attended In Horne, at
tache* herself to the party, and makes the
“honeymoon trip” a long series of Blights and
insults to Lady Haa . .
At last Lady Haa becomes certain of the inn-
delltv of her husband and of his misconduct
with*Alma Lier. On her return to London Mary
encounters her old play-fellow, Martin Conrad,
who has returned from his triumphant expedi
tion to the Antarctic Drawn into ever-closer
relations with the only man for whose friend
ship she had ever cared, Mary finally awakes to
the fact that she is hopelessly in love with
Martin Terrified by this knowledge, and find
ing herself more and more in love with Martin,
she determines to run away from the cause of
her distress and go home.
Mary's home-coming to Castle Haa is a sad
affair. Her busbar* l fills the tumble-down old
mansion with his fast friends from London, In
cluding Alma Lier, who assumes control of the
household. Ultimately the Illness of her father
offers Mary excuse for escape from the intoler
able environment. Hut before visiting her old
home Mary appeals In turn to her Bishop and to
her father's lawyer, only to find that neither
Church nor State can offer any relief from her
false position She returns next day to Castle
Haa to find that Martin is arriving for a fare
well visit, and that by Alma Ller’s deceitful
scheming the whole house party has gone off for
a few days’ cruise.
During her three days alone with her lover
Mary fights a grim battle with temptation, only
to find on the last night that her faith In renun
ciation and the laws of the Church is a fragile
thing compared with her overwhelming love for
this pure-hearted man. With Martin's passion
ate words, ‘You are my real wife; 1 am your
real husband.” ringing in her brain she forgets
everything else, and with strong steps walks
across the corridor to Martin’s bedroom. This
is the action which Martin has advised ns being
the only course open to them which is sure to
bring the one result they have decided to attain
— Mary’s divorce from Lord Haa.
Mary determines, after the departure of Mar
tin Conrad, to hide herself in London. She is
driven by fear of Lord Raft's discovery of her
unfaithfulnes to him; she is equally afraid of
the venomous tongue of Alma Lier She is no
sotmer settled In a cheap little boarding house
in London than a great hue and cry is raised by
I?" f ,V her ; ?! a J' p,,r80nB ' " ta Mildred, that
? ne ,ru8Bt frlBnd of her convent days, who
feirets her out, but for Mary’s sake she breaks
a \ow and refuses to give her up Then comes
Antarc‘t?c Th f ,he Io . B8 , of Martin’s ship In the
Antarctic. The report is false, hut Mary, who
flees from Mildred to a still more obscure part
of London, la plunged Into the depth of black
W; w fTOm v,T, h ' c 5. Bh “ 18 8av *‘ d on| v by the
birth of her child Motherhood is poignant with
loy and sorrow, but poverty compels Mary to
deny herself of even Us privileges; she decides
*» f» v * brr child with a poor family In Ilford
while ehe searches for employment.
Published by Permission of. and Copyrighted,
1913, by HEARST’S MAGAZINE.
I am not what Is called a religious man, but
when I thought of my darling’s danger (for
such I was sure It was), and how 1 was cut
off from her by thousands of miles of Impassa
ble sea, there came an overwhelming longing
to go with my troubles to somebody stronger
than myself.
I found it hard to do that at first, for a feel-
Memorandum by Martin Conrad.
M Y great-hearted, heroic little woman!
All this time I, in my vain belief
that our expedition was of some con
sequence to the world, was trying to comfort
myself with the thought that my darling must
\ve heard of my safety.
But how could I imagine that she had hid
den herself away in a mass of humanity—
which appears to be the most Impenetrable
depths into which a human being can disap
pear?
How could I dream that, to the exclusion of
all such interests as mine, she was occupied
day and night, night and day, with the joys
and sorrows, the raptures and fears of the
mighty passion of motherhood, which seems ‘
to be the only thing in life that is really great
and eternal?
Above all, how could I believe that in Lon
don itself, in the heart of the civilized and re
ligious world, she was going through trials
which make mine, in the grim darkness of the
polar night, seem trivial and easy?
It is all over now, and Ihough, thank God, I
did not know at the time what was happening
to my dear one at home, it is some comfort to
me to remember that I was acting exactly as
If 1 did.
“Every week for months and months I carried a large black bag of ready-made garments back and forth to the
large shops in the West End. Oh, how I dreaded those trips, haunted as they were by the terror of ac
cidently meeting Sister Mildred. Again and again I was ready to give up, but always that one thought
came, and I whispered to myself: ‘ For baby’s sake.’ ”
‘You mean I am to sell?” I asked. “Yus, take it or leave it,
my dear.”
tremity that it pleased Providence to come
to my relief. The very next morning I was
awakened out of my broken sleep by the sound
of a gun, followed by such a yell from Treacle
as was enough to make you think the sea-
serpent had got hold of him.
‘The ship! The ship! Commander! Com
mander! The ship! The ship!”
And, looking out of my little window, I saw
him, with six or seven other members of our
company, half naked, just as they had leaped
out of their berths, running like savage men
to the edgtr of the sea, where the Scotia, with
all flags flying (God bless and preserve her!),
w’as steaming slowly up through a grinding
pack of broken ice.
What a day that was! What shouting!
What handshaking! For O’Sullivan it was
DonnvbrooK Fair with the tail of his coat left
out, and for Treacle it
was Whitechapel Road,
with "What cheer, old
cock?” and an un-
quechable desire to
stand treat all round.
But w’hat I chiefly
remember is that the
moment I awoke, and
before the idea that
we were saved and
about to go home had
been fully grasped in
m'v hazy brain, the
thought flashed to my
mind:
“Now you’ll hear of
her! ”
(Here Mary O’Neil
again takes up her
story)
HE door of No. 10
was opened by a
rather uncomely wom
an of perhaps thirty
years of age. with a
weak face and watery
eyes.
This Was Mrs. Oliver,
and it occurred to me
even at that first sight
that she had > ight-
ened and evae” e 'ook
of a wife who lives
tinder the intimidation
of a tyrannical hus
band.
She welcomed me.
however, with a
warmth that partly dis
pelled my depression,
and I followed her
into the kitchen.
It was the only room
on the ground floor of
her house (except a
scullery), and It seemed
sweet and clean and comfortable, having a
table in the middle of the floor, a sofa under
the window, a rocking-chair on one side of the
fireplace, a swinging baby's cot on the other
side, and nothing about it that was not home
like and reassuring, except two large photo
graphs over the mantelpiece of men stripped
to the waist and sparring.
"We’ve been looking for you all day, ma’am,
and had nearly give you up,” she said.
Then she took baby out of mv ir.is, removed
her bonnet and pelisse, lifted 1 r barrow-coat
to examine her limbs, asked h > age, kissed
her on the arms, the neck, and the legs, and
praised her without measure.
“And what's her name, ma’am?”
“Mary Isabel, but I wish her to be called
Isabel.”
’’Isabel! A beautiful name, too! Fit for a
angel, ma’am. And she is a little angel, bless
her! Such rosy cheeks! Such a ducky little
mouth—such blue eyes—blue as the blue bells
In the cemet’ry. She’s as pretty as a wax-
work, she really is, and any woman in the
world might be proud to nurse her.”
A young mother is such a weakling that
praise of her child (however crude) acts like a
charm on her, and in spite of myself I was
beginning to feel more at ease, when Mrs.
Oliver’s husband came downstairs.
He was a short, thick-set man of about
thirty-five, with a square chin, a very thick
neck, and a close-cropped, red, bullet head, and
he was in his stocking feet and shirt-sleeves,
as if he had been dressing to go out for the
evening.
I remember that it flashed upon me—I don’t
know why—that he had seen me from the win
dow of the room upstairs, driving up in the
old man's four-wheeler; and had drawn from
that innocent circumstance certain unfavorable
deductions about my character and my capac
ity to pay.
I must have been right, for as soon as our
introduction was over, and I had interrupted
Mrs. Oliver’s praises of my baby’s beauty by
speaking about material matters, saying the
terms were to be four shillings, the man. who
had seated himself on the sofa to put on his
boots, said, in a voice that was like a shot out
of a blunderbuss:
Eive.”
How’d you mean, Ted?” said Mrs. Oliver,
t‘.r idly. “Didn’t we say four?”
“Five,” said the man again, with a still
If ^der volume of voice.
I could see that the poor woman was trem
bling, but, assuming the sweet air of persons
who live in a constant state of fear, she said:
"Oh, yes. It was five; now I remember.”
I reminded her that her letter had said four,
hut she insisted that I must be mistaken, and
when I told her I had the letter with me, and
she could see it if she wished, she said: “Then
it must have been a slip of the pen, in a man
ner of speaking, ma’am. We alius talked of
five. Didn’t we, Ted?”
“Certainly,” said her husband, who was still
busy with his boots.
I saw what was going on, and I felt hot and
angry, but there seemed to he nothing to do
except submit.
“Very well, we'll say five then,” I said.
“Paid in advance,” said the man, and when I
answered that that would suit me very well he
added:
“A month in advance, you know.”
By this time I felt myself trembling with in
dignation, as well as quivering with fear, for
while I looked upon all the money I possessed
as belonging to baby, to part with almost the
whole of it in one moment would reduce me to
utter helplessness, so I said, turning to Mrs.
Oliver, “Is that usual?”
It did not escape me that the unhappy woman
was constantly studying her husband’s face,
and when he glanced up at her with a meaning
look she answered, hurriedly: “Oh, yes,
ma'am’, quite usual. All the women in the Row
has it. Number five, she has twins and gets a
month in hand with both of them. But we’ll
take four weeks, and I can’t say no fairer than
that, can I?”
“But why?” I asked.
“Well, you see, ma’am, you’re—you’re a
stranger to us, and if baby was left on our
hands—not as we think you’d leave her charge
able, as the saying is, but if you v were ever ill,
and got a bit back with your payments—we be
ing only pore people"
While the poor woman was floundering on in
this way my blood was boiling, and I was begin
ning to ask her if she supposed for one moment
that I meant to desert my child, when the man,
who had finished the lacing of his hoots, rose
to his feet and said: “You don't want yer
baiby to be give over to tEe Guardians for the
sake of a week or two, do you?”
That settled everything. I took out my purse
and with a trembling hand laid my last
precious sovereign on the table.
A moment or two after this Mr. Oliver, who
had put on his coat and cloth cap, made for
the door.
“Evenin', ma'am,” he said, and with what
grace I could muster I bade him goodby.
“You aren't a-going to the ‘Sun,’ to-night, are
you, Ted?” asked Mrs. Oliver.
“Club,” said the man, and the door clashed
behind him.
I breathed more freely when he was gone,
and his wife (from whose face the look of fear
vanished instantly) was like another woman.
"Goodness gracious!" she cried, with a kind
of haggard hilarity, “where’s my head? Me
never offering you a cup of tea, and you look
ing so white after your journey.”
I took baby back into my arms while she
put on the kettle, set a black tea-pot on the
hob to warm, laid a napkin and a thick cup and
saucer on the end of the table, and then sat
on the fender to toast a little bread, talking
meantime (half apologetically and half proud
ly) about her husband.
He was a bricklayer by trade, and sometimes
worked at the cemetery, which I could see at
the other side of the road (behind the long
railing and the tall trees), but was more gen
erally engaged as a sort of fighting lieutenant
to a labor leader whose business it was to get
up strikes. Before they were married he had
been the "Lightweight Champion of White
chapel,” and those were photos of his fights
which I could see over the mantelpiece, but
“he never did no knocking of people about
now,” being “quiet and matrimonual.”
In spite of myself my heart warmed to the
woman. I wonder it did not occur to me there
and then that, living in constant dread of her
tyrannical husband, she would always be guilty
of the dissimulation I had seen an example of
already, and that the effect of it would be re
flected upon my child.
It did not. I only told myself that she was
clearly fond of children and would be a kind
nurse to my baby. It even pleased me, in my
foolish, motherly selfishness, that she was a
Ing of shame came over me, and I thought:
"You coward! You forgot all about God
when tilings were going well with you, but now
that you are tumbling down, and death seems
certain, you whine and want to go where you
never dreamt of going in your days of ease
and strength.”
I got over that, though—there’s nothing ex
cept death a man doesn't get over down there
- -and a dark night came when (the ice break
ing from the cliffs of the Cape with a sound
that made me think of my last evening at
Castle Raa) i found myself folding my hands
and praying to the God of my childhood, not
for myself, but for my dear one, that He be
fore .Whom the strongest of humanity were
nothing at all would take her into His fatherly
keeping
"Help her! Help her! I can do no more.”
It was just when I was down to that ex
(From “The Fate of Empires," by Arthur
John Hubbard, M.D., Published by Long
mans, Green &. Co.)
j jfTTlE race may be regarded as an
j organism possessed, practically,
of an Indefinitely prolonged ex
istence. The individual, on the contrary,
has but a brief span of life. The duration
existence of the race is almost negligible.
The Race has be#n said to live In an 'ever-
moving present.’ The individual lives in
the presence of an ever approaching
death. Death is the factor that draws the
distinction between the two.”
The necessity of subordinating the in
terests of individuals to the requirements
cf the race, and the religious motive pre
sented as the only motive capable of in
suring such continuous sacrifice of self,
briefly condenses the argument made in a
volume recently published by Arthur John
Hubbard, M. D., with the title, "The Fate
of Empires—An Inquiry Into the Stability
of Civilization.”
Will the fate of the existing civilization
of Europe and America be to decay and
pass away like its predecessors in Baby
lon, Thebes. Athens and Rome? What
(f’fre the real causns which doomed t!/,«e
civilizations? How are those capses fid
their destructive effects to be avoided?'
Dr. Hubbard marshals the established
facts of history and of scientific knowledge,
and comes to the conclusion that neither
instinct nor instinct plus pure reason
can solve the problem Instinct alone is
almost incredibly wasteful. He quotes Sir
E. Ray l.ankester regarding the stress of
competition in the animal world:
“ The earth’s surface is practically full
—that is to say, fully occupied. Only one
pair can grow up to take the place of the
pair — male and female — which have
launched a dozen, or it njay be as many
as a hundred thousand young individuals
on the world > * * * Animal population
does not increase.' ”
Yet instinct, when uninfluenced by rea
son. is ideally thoughtless for the Individ
ual in labors for the perpetuity of the race.
“Any one who has watched a pair of mar
tens, under our own eaves, feeding their
young brood, persuading them to fiv, and
preparing them for their' migration, can
form some conception of it.
“The young beaks are incessantly open
and clamorous Through the livelong day
the parents, thin and working to the point
of exhaustion, must hunt for the, sake of
the insatiable young. Tltis is repeated
year after year, throughout the life of the
parents, and generation after generation
takes un the labor. The parents are but
the tools of the instinct that is in pos
session of the race. * • • True indi
vidual interest does nut enter into the
scheme at ell.’’
Yet, as there is no room upon the earth
for more than one pair to take the place
of the worn-out parent pair, “the history
of progress by the method of instinct is
the record of a wastefulness that is beyond
our powers of conception.”
Advancing to civilized man and the ad
dition of the power of reason to the force
of instinct, it is found that the first opera
tion of reason is to benefit the individual,
which can be done only at the expense of
the race. Now enters another element,
"society,” for reasoning beings find very
soon that their individual interests are
better served through reciprocal relations
with their fellows than by any attempt at
ruthless maintenance of the personal
standard.
So the civilization based upon instinct
plus reason exhibits a triangle of interests,
with the individual and society occupying
the base line angles and the race the
apex. But the race must suffer because
society is the creature of the individuals,
and their main interests are of the pres
ent, not the future. Reason, in exalting
the Individual, tends to subjugate instinct.
Offspring are a care and an expense. With
out them a man has no occaslofi to accu
mulate property; he may spend his whole
capital upon himself in his lifetime.
’’And.” says the author, “if he goes child
less through life, nature inflicts no pen
alty upon him or any cither individual.
But the race is injured—«te penalty of
disanoearance, the
family. * * * On this assumption, those
—married or unmarried—who elect to go
childless through life are relieved of one-
half of the stress and anxiety that are the
lot of those who hav-e elected to be the
parents of the generations to come.
"The relief, the advantage in the com
petitive stress, is in any case enormous.
The energy thus set free lays open the
whole vista of life to such a one. Leisure,
travel, adventure, all that the kingdoms
of this world can offer, are his; and to
marry, which is the great racial act of a
man’s lifetime, is the maddest and most
irrational act that it is possible to con
ceive.
"Thus, rationally, each sex Is apt to re
gard the other as the cause of its own un
doing, and we witness such a portent as
the sex-antagonism that is now springing
up. * * * The hostility between the in
terests of the individual and the race that
would exist among animals, were it not
masked by instinct, appears upon the
scene uncovered in rational society. Rea
son. per se, has no racial quality; it is not
concerned to avert this hostility, and the
distinction that death draws between the
Individual and the race places their In
terests directly In opposition to one
another.
“The spirit of the French mind Is gen
erally admitted to be the most logical and
rational in Europe—France has the lowest
birthrate. In America it has been noticed
that the (higher) education of women has
had a striking effect in leading to avoid
ance of office—that is to say, in either
preventing marriage or in producing child
less unions.
“In pure reason the individual is great
er than the race, and his interest pre
vails.”
Dr. Hubbard finds tjiat in the organiza
tion of the family society has provided a
link that “shall join the living of the pres
ent to the living of the future. * * *
The life of the family, longer than that of
the individual, shorter than that of the
race, is not incommensurable with either.
* * * The duty of the individual with
regard to the long-drawn life of the race,
otherwise so dim and uncertain, becomes
clear cut and definite when it is trans
mitted into duty to the family from which
he springs, whose love he shares, whose
traditions he inherits, and whose name he
must hand on.
"We have seen that marriage would be
the height of folly in a purely rational in
dividual, and that any equivalent mainte
nance of the race would not be less
irrational in a communist society. We see,
now, however, under the method of reli
gious motive, that marriage becomes the
very means for the performance of the
racial duty of the individual. Married, he
becomes one of those who are consecrated
for the provision of significance itself in
the future, unf the water of his life is
turned into wiae.”
“The conditions that obtained under the
Roman Empire have shown that reason is
deadly to the race, and that geocentric
(earth-centred) religion exercises no re
straint over its destructive influence. The
broad fact is, indeed, that in the whole
range of history—in every age and
tnroughout all the world—there is no
record of an enduring civilization that
rested on instinct alone, on reason alone,
on any combination of the two; or upon
any religion that served their purposes.
“Passing, however, beyond these agen
cies, we have found in Chinese life an ex
ample showing the prepotence of the
supra-rational method over that of pure
reason. The example, it is true, is incom
plete as an illustration of the whole method
of religious motive, for Taoism, making
no attempt to deal with the competitive
stress, and recognizing only racial duty,
fails socially, and China is filled by a pop
ulation that is brutalized by overcrowo-
lng and rendered desperate by the strug
gle for food. None the less it has shown
us that an entirely racial religion is able
to perform its proper function by securing
the preservation of the race and the per
manence of its civilization. * * * We
see that, in the long run, the world be
longs to the unworldly; that in the end
empire is to those to whom empire Is
nothing; and we remember, with a sense
of awe, the most astonishing of the Beat
itudes:
’ ‘Blessed are the meek, for they shall
Inherit the earth.’ ”