Atlanta Georgian. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1912-1939, August 03, 1913, Image 172

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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.’ ”