WOMAN IN ART
fectionate caressing that appeases, in a sense, her heart hunger that indicates innate motherhood. A poignant, pathetic prophecy (?) of her future.
Look at a statue in marble of "Her Son." It has made a young American woman famous. She wanted to portray the soul of motherhood. Note her success. Her babe has grown out of her arms; he is a stalwart boy at her side. Her guidance as his mother has lifted his thought, awakened his wonder; her love has lifted his heart to the Invisible who is all love, all wisdom, the Author of his being who, supplementing the mother influence with the Divine, will be the Master Workman to shape his life and his destiny. One cannot look upon the group without recognizing that Nellie V. Walker, in the medium of marble, has portrayed spirit with surprising vividness.
I am sure there are some among my readers who can recall the time—can't you?—when you fell in love with your own mother. I knew a little boy—he is over six feet now—but when he was six years old he came in from play one day and, leaning against his mother's knees, began to tell her an experience with another boy, something he did not like. He was looking intently into her face as he talked, and his story came more and more slowly. Suddenly he broke off in the midst of a sentence, climbed into her lap, put rather dirty hands on her cheeks, and looked. Then thoughtfully he said, "I didn't know you were such a beautiful mother! Why, I love you 'way down to my toes." And reverently he kissed her eyes and her lips, and sliding from her lap walked slowly around her chair and, coming again to her knee, gazed into the tender face and, straightened to his full height, said, "I'd like to be a man for you!"
Young women, God grant that sometime you may have the supreme blessing of being reverenced by your son. Such mothers and such sons would give us a new world.
There is a painting true to the life and suggestive of the generation that is passing. Again we have one of those Rembrandt backgrounds, for it is a deep twilight effect. You can just discover the window through the delicate curtains, and the blooming plant on the sill. The mother is at the piano, and the gleam from the one candle lights the faces of mother and daughter. With one hand she accompanies the old song, the other is about the listening child. It is the sweet refrain of an old, old song to the mother; it is just a lovely experience to the little girl. How do I know? Because I have lived that same delight, leaning against my blessed mother as she sang to her little girl, sang sweeter songs than I have since listened to,—"The Loved Ones at
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