THE HOMELY WOMAN.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XLIX, Issue 14972, 20 April 1912, Page 1 (Supplement)

THE HOMELY WOMAN.

BY FBAIfK. MORTOS- ' V Lv these days when on© hoar* so -sadly much of suffragettes and lady-novelists, and the ceaseless horde of strutting half* sexed creatures who are brilliant this and brilliant that, one is apt to overlook the fact that stands eternal fact, I mean, that it is the woman who stays at home and does her simple duty to God and her weak menfolk, that must count for most in any final reckoning of "big things done. I ■'■■■ don't mean by that, that a woman should be the willing, timid slave of a grumpy husband or uncaring brothers. Nor do I suggest for a momentheaven forbid!—that any woman should meekly permit herself to become a mere maternitymachine, I hold, indeed, that every woman should keep her personal freedom unimpaired, be she married, widowed, or still virgin; and the idea of the chattelwoman has always been peculiarly ; repugnant to me. I suppose »hat woman owes a certain duty to the state, just as a. man does; though my own duty to the state (which I regard dimly as a big cold beast that lias never rendered mo anyspecial service) sits at best but lightly oa^me. But a woman who is callously condemned to bring children into the world, until at length she is producing weaklings from an outworn body, might just as well be penned in some more decent sort of prison. She should have as many children as she feels she can wholesomely bear and truly , care for. If she has more, child-bearing -becomes child-murder.

So that when,l here confess my abiding lovo and admiration for the homely woman, you will -understand that I am not one of those barbarous man-monsters or Bluebeard-Frankensteins that 'the most advanced and manless ladies aro for ever, shrieking against. I lovo the home-woman especially because she has always seemed to me to be a better and completer woman than the others, the gadabouts and fly-by-nights and cacklcrs. So long as a woman lives in a house .that is her home, there can bo no more ennobling and glorious work than housework. I suppose that I am an unfashionable person; but if necessity arose I would- sooner a hundred times have a sister or daughter of mine in comfortable domestic service than see her fading in frills in a shop. Men may level, mountains, as engineers, or as soldiers extirpate thousands of their kind men may die for a beautiful fallacy, or live for a hopeless dream; men may toil and hustle in the mart or the .arena, and pluck a sort of plunder from the laps of the shoddiest gods. But woman— for the sheer divinity of her tasks and privileges, woman has by far the better of tie. She it is, as tender bride, with eyes aglow on the imminent blessedness of motherhood, who best understands the meaning of the Kingdom of God that is within us. " She it is, as mother radiant, who best understands the exquisite consolation of bringing God's grace and sustenance unto the least of these. She it is who inspires men to great deeds and consoles them superbly for bitter defeats,; gracious mother-woman who rules the world and shapes it, who brings new dynasties garlanded with the morning when the ancient palsied dynasties reef and fall. She stands closest to God, perhaps, because she is most nearly, related to the noblest Mother of them all-

I would sooner lose everything I hold and everything I still desparately dare to hope for than be robbed of one tender memory of my mother. I would sooner die to honour her dear name than suffer martyrdom for the sake of humanity tumid the plaudits of a myriad men. Those tender hands are stilled, but they aro closer and more comforting every year about my heart; for whenever they would have made a harsh gesture towards me, they faltered; and whenever I wearied them, they were resolutely kind. It is the mothers who bear us, that save us and shape us, and ugly brutes, the best of us would be if the mothers ever lost their faith. It is the mothers who teach us to live, and upon occasion not ignobly to die. Talk of man's high prerogativel would sooner know the happiness of bringing one tiny dimpling child into the world than be the saviour of a nation or the author of "Paradise Lost." It may be that I am an unfashionable person; but I hold to that dear conviction that still somehow makes life sweet and possible to me. , And it is the homely women, that aro the true mothers of the race. . 1 have seen a woman look pitiably paltry and small while she has swayed a thousand men by her eloquence; and I have seen another woman look holy and immaculate and serene as an angel against tho Throne while she has stooped above her jampots. There are no avowable tasks mean or sordid in themselves but all things are mean and sordid whenever our weakness or wickedness makes them so. It is the little; toilsome tasks of everyday that are in the end the greatest, and true nobility consists of sacrifice. The homely woman is earth's shining star, and all the- sons of men cry out to her morning and night. A« drooping fern for dewdrops^ For flowers the bee, "Wave-weary birds for woodland#, Long I for thee. A* rivers seek the ocean, . Tired things their nest, ' A* «torm-woni ships their haven Seek I thy breast. And this is why all normal men are ai heart intolerant of the suffragette and the hoyden-woman. • She has neither sanity nor purpose that any man should desire her. She turns from tho star of her destiny to grovel for gauds in the gutter. God made her great and womanly, but she fights incessantly foi» filth among the garbage. It is not from such women the strong men come. Tho mothers aro gravo and tender, quiet and serene. They aro the clear stream of health that cleanses all humanity. Men come and go; hut they are ineffable and eternal. Clean and incorruptible they come into the world, and unsullied all . they leave it. Tho children they bear can never be wholly base. I have seen such children grow, and have companied with them for my soul's good. There is a strength invincible in emergencies behind their puny strength, a quenchless hope springs ever to their eyes. Their mothers have armed them and bidden them go conquer. The world and all the stars are theirs. Tho mothers have arranged it so.

God covers them, Maybe. beneath th« nhadow of His wins, That they may sweeten all His dark for Him, And from their secret piacc, waft airs of calm Upon His troubled worlds.

Depend upon it, the homely women are the world's salvation.