From 'The Mottoes and Commentaries of Mother-Play.' Copyright 1895, by
D. Appleton & Co.
What shall we learn from our yearning look into the heart of the
flower and the eye of the child? This truth: Whatever develops, be it
into flower or tree or man, is from the beginning implicitly that
which it has the power to become. The possibility of perfect manhood
is what you read in your child's eye, just as the perfect flower is
prophesied in the bud, or the giant oak in the tiny acorn. A
presentiment that the ideal or generic human being slumbers, dreams,
stirs in your unconscious infant--this it is, O mother, which
transfigures you as you gaze upon him. Strive to define to yourself
what is that generic ideal which is wrapped up in your child. Surely,
as _your_ child--or in other words, as child of man--he is destined to
live in the past and future as well as in the present. His earthly
being implies a past heaven; his birth makes a present heaven; in his
soul he holds a future heaven. This threefold heaven, which you also
bear within you, shines out on you through your child's eyes.
The beast lives only in the present. Of past and future he knows
naught. But to man belong not only the present, but also the future
and the past. His thought pierces the heaven of the future, and hope
is born. He learns that all human life is one life; that all human
joys and sorrows are his joys and sorrows, and through participation
enters the present heaven--the heaven of love. He turns his mind
towards the past, and out of retrospection wrests a vigorous faith.
What soul could fail to conquer an invincible trust in the pure, the
good, the holy, the ideally human, the truly Divine, if it would look
with single eye into its own past, into the past of history? Could
there be a man in whose soul such a contemplation of the past would
fail to blossom into devout insight, into self-conscious and
self-comprehending faith? Must not such a retrospect unveil the truth?
Must not the beauty of the unveiled truth allure him to Divine doing,
Divine living? All that is high and holy in human life meets in that
faith which is born of the unveiling of a heaven that has always been;
in that hope born of a vision of the heaven that shall be; in that
love which creates a heaven in the eternal Now. These three heavens
shine out upon you through your child's eye. The presentiment that he
carries these three heavens within him transfigures your countenance
as you gaze upon him. Cherish this premonition, for thereby you will
help him to make his life a musical chord wherein are blended the
three notes of faith, hope, and love. These celestial virtues will
link his life with the Divine life through which all life is one--with
the God who is the supernal fountain of life, light, and love....
Higher and more important than the cultivation of man's outer ear, is
the culture of that inner sense of harmony whereby the soul learns to
perceive sweet accord in soundless things, and to discern within
itself harmonies and discords. The importance of wakening the inner
ear to this music of the soul can scarcely be exaggerated. Learning to
hear it within, the child will strive to give it outer form and
expression; and even if in such effort he is only partially
successful, he will gain thereby the power to appreciate the more
successful effort of others. Thus enriching his own life by the life
of others, he solves the problem of development. How else were it
possible within the quickly fleeting hours of mortal life to develop
our being in all directions, to fathom its depths, scale its heights,
measure its boundaries? What we are, what we would be, we must learn
to recognize in the mirror of all other lives. By the effort of each,
and the recognition of all, the Divine man is revealed in humanity....
Against the bright light which shines on the smooth white wall is
thrust a dark object, and straightway appears the form which so
delights the child. This is the outward fact; what is the truth which
through this fact is dimly hinted to the prophetic mind? Is it not the
creative and transforming power of light, that power which brings form
and color out of chaos, and makes the beauty which gladdens our
hearts? Is it not more than this,--a foreshadowing, perhaps, of the
spiritual fact that our darkest experiences may project themselves in
forms that will delight and bless, if in our hearts shines the light
of God? The sternest crags, the most forbidding chasms, are beautiful
in the mellow sunshine; while the fairest landscape loses all charm,
and indeed ceases to be, when the light which created it is
withdrawn. Is it not thus also with our lives? Yesterday, touched by
the light of enthusiastic emotion, all our relationships seemed
beautiful and blessed; to-day, when the glow of enthusiasm has faded,
they oppress and repulse us. Only the conviction that it is the
darkness within us which makes the darkness without, can restore the
lost peace of our souls. Be it therefore, O mother, your sacred duty
to make your darling early feel the working both of the outer and
inner light. Let him see in one the symbol of the other, and tracing
light and color to their source in the sun, may he learn to trace the
beauty and meaning of his life to their source in God.
Translation of Susan E. Blow.