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Rh faults and to develop latent virtues, so that, after a few months, or perhaps years, of greater or less discomfort, they generally settle down into a calm and peaceful contentment; and the love of children, which with us is a master-passion, tends to endear them to one another, and to make them overlook those little incongruities and discrepancies which, without the absorbing sentiment of parental love, they might be disposed to magnify into real incompatibilities, that would render married life a purgatory. You know nothing of the power of parental love, for your attachment to children, where it does exist, seems to have no reference to the parentage of the children. I observe that you part with your own offspring to the state establishments without regret, and adopt such children as you please, though you may have had no hand in the begetting of them, and cannot claim even a blood-relationship with them."

"In this too," he replied, "I think we have the advantage of you. Your own children are not necessarily loveable, though they are of your own blood. They may be ugly, disagreeable, disobedient and perverse. They may be so numerous as to be a serious burden upon you. And yet you are bound by law and by custom to love, cherish and provide for them all; to clothe, feed and educate them, though they may annoy and vex you every day of your life, and render your life miserable by their outrageous conduct. You have an idea that your children ought to love you, and pretend to consider it unnatural when they do not. But we do not see things in this light. Our children owe us no love for the mere fact that we are their parents. If we stand in the way of their advancement, if we prevent them obtaining the food and education