The Lakeland evening telegram. (Lakeland, Fla.) 1911-1922, 1912-05-29

manned on the sinking Titanic, cnoOS- |
Jag to die with their husbands. Bo,h |
these women We're mothers One re-
fused to enter lfeboat without her
husband. The other, having placed |
her seven months old child in the
arms of the little ones aunt. delib- /
cra'ely climbed out of the lileboat
and back upon the ship to die with
her husband.
We have drifted into the habit OF
assuming that We're the choice
to be made, every woman would
make the paramount sacrifice for her
child; but the women, one old, one
young. who deliberately made the OPP
lGsije choice. while the ocean they
Knew 10 be two miles deep beneath
them was rising to gather them into
lis stiling, chilling embrace to
think OF these women disturbs our
cocksurencss.
If experience teaches her that lie
is Il chilly, thorny path the instinct
10 root those thorns from the child's
path and to cnwrap the little one
with her love and care to protect 1t
from the cold will make her a wom-
an warrior iiShj ing desperately for
her own life that il may be shield
| for the childs. If lites teachings
have been gcn,ler. if the path has
been strcwn so thick with rose leaves
that the thorns are seldom felt, or
their presence merely guessed, and
the air has been warmed and per
tmmed by luxury. the mother who ha,
learned no harsh lessons will not re-
gard the world as an enemy to her
child
The answer will depend greatly
upon the husband He is IA relic OF
the cave man. and if the idea of be-
ing master of the woman who is his
life companion survives in him, there
Is no doubt what her choice would
be- The slave would try 10 escape.
If he were friend and comrad",
LOYAL, kind, unselfish, there would be
battle in her heart. and doubt of its
issue.
Greatly, too, the choice will de-
pend upon the woman's nature, the
character of all those tributary
streams that have united in her. II
she is of a line of women who. when
the poetry of courtship and the ardOl
of the honeymoon has passed gave all
their affection and tenderness in ut
ter absorption to their children, b!
the law of probability We may expect
her to express that tendency toward
complete absorption in motherhood
Talk of environment as we will, be
lieve in its power as we do, We know
that heredity is a mighty undercur
rent in our lives. Beneath the smil
ing surface of our existence We fee
its drag. As the mothers Of the fam
lily have been for many generations
$ so the child Is fairly sure to be.
Yet there are women Of an0the
!, sort-good mothers. good housewives
! good friends-yet whose dominan
affection is that for their mate. Sucl
d a woman does not lack the materna
e instinct, but she has the genius TO
e that transcendent friendship which
is lasting wifehood.
In her the wife is never swallowe
up in the other. For such a w0ma
the man by whose side she walk
i through life is the greatest being be
d meath Deity.
h Yet despite all this We cannot b
d sure what manner of wife a man ha
Until they face together crisis. A
) aged man told me that he had bee
e married twenty years when h
e crossed the plains to California wit
q his wife, and that after they reache
= San Francisco he wanted to be intro
( duced to her. In the lightning flasht
n OF fate We see briefly and clearl
Ie faces whose features had been dill
@ in the light of every day. We rea
q. hearts whose riddle we had M
d guessed