Page:Cyclopedia of illustrations for public speakers, containing facts, incidents, stories, experiences, anecdotes, selections, etc., for illustrative purposes, with cross-references; (IA cyclopediaofillu00scotrich).pdf/499



all I am to her earnest, modest and sincere piety."—, "Grant, the Man of Mystery."

(2110)

In a letter written by Grover Cleveland on the eve of his election to the governorship of New York State, he stated to his brother:

"I have just voted, and I sit here in the office alone. If mother were alive I should be writing to her, and I feel as if it were time for me to write to some one who will believe what I write I shall have no idea of reelection or of any high political preferment in my head, but be very thankful and happy if I serve one term as the people's governor. Do you know that if mother were alive I should feel so much safer. I have always thought her prayers had much to do with my successes. I shall expect you to help me in that way."

(2111)

See.

MOTHERS NOT IN FICTION

A sick youth was lying in bed, watching with quiet eyes his mother's form moving gently about the room where for weeks she had been ministering to him with tenderest heart and hands. There had been stillness there for a little while, when the boy spoke: "I wonder why there are no mothers in fiction." "Why, there are, dear; there must be," the mother answered quickly, but when she tried to name one, she found that none came at the call. When she related me the little incident, I too immediately said that our memory must be strangely at fault that it did not furnish us with examples in plenty. Maternal love! Why, art was filled with illustrations of it, and so was literature. And yet, on making search, I too have failed to find the typical mother where it seems she would so easily be found.—Atlantic Monthly.

(2112)

Mother, The, and the Lambs—See .

Mother Wisdom—See.

MOTHERHOOD

We can understand how Tennyson was preserved from the fatality of recklessness, how it is he wore the white flower of a blameless life, and ruled himself with chivalrous regard for womanhood, when we study his mother's face. What such a woman must have been in the home, and what sort of home it must have been where she moved like a ministering spirit, we can readily imagine.—, "The Makers of English Poetry."

(2113)

Alexander the Great never wore any garments save those made by his mother. These beautiful robes he showed to the Persian princes who came to visit his court as marks of the skill of Olympia, who was the daughter of a chieftain, the wife of a sovereign and the mother of a conqueror.

Every child does not have mother-made garments; but is it not true that every child is mother-made? And does he not more than continue the succession of her royal soul?

(2114)

MOTHERHOOD, DIVINE

I remember going one day into a great church in Paris and seeing, round back of the altar, in a little chapel sacred to the Virgin Mary and above a little altar in the little chapel, a bas relief. It represented the figure of a woman with a babe in her arms standing on the world; and under her feet, crusht and bleeding, was a serpent. It is only a woman with a babe in her arms that is going to crush the serpent after all.—

(2115)

MOTHERHOOD IN ANIMALS

Louis Albert Banks tells of a man who killed a she bear and brought her young cubs home to train up as pets:

When they got to camp the motherless pets were put in a box and given something to eat; but eat they would not and yelp they would, making a distressing noise. He took a switch and whipt them, but they only cried the louder. At first every one was sorry for them; but by and by, as the crying was continued, everybody began to scold on account of the noise. He thought that on account of the noise they made he would have to kill them. At length, however, he brought the mother-bearskin, and covering this over something, he put it in a corner of the box. The men stept back so that they could see without being seen, and pretty soon each little cub had smelled the mother