dulum?

And it is as grandmothers that our mothers come into the fullness of
their grace. When a man's mother holds his child in her gladdened arms
he is aware (with some instinctive sense of propriety) of the roundness
of life's cycle; of the mystic harmony of life's ways. There speaks
humanity in its chord of three notes: its little capture of completeness
and joy, sounding for a moment against the silent flux of time. Then the
perfect span is shredded away and is but a holy memory.

The world, as we tread its puzzling paths, shows many profiles and
glimpses of wonder and loveliness; many shapes and symbols to entrance
and astound. Yet it will offer us nothing more beautiful than our
mother's face; no memory more dear than her encircling tenderness. The
mountain tops of her love rise as high in ether as any sun-stained alp.
Lakes are no deeper and no purer blue than her bottomless charity. We
need not fare further than her immortal eyes to know that life is good.

How strangely fragmentary our memories of her are, and yet (when we
piece them together) how they erect a comfortable background for all we
are and dream. She built the earth about us and arched us over with sky.
She created our world, taught us to dwell therein. The passion of her
love compelled the rude laws of life to stand back while we were soft
and helpless. She defied gravity that we might not fall. She set aside
hunger, sleep and fear that we might have plenty. She tamed her own
spirit and crushed her own weakness that we might be strong. And when we
passed down the laughing street of childhood and turned that corner that
all must pass, it was her hand that waved good-bye. Then, smothering the
ache, with one look into the secret corner where the old keepsakes lie
hid, she set about waiting the day when the long-lost baby would come
back anew. The grandchild--is he not her own boy returned to her arms?

Who can lean over a crib at night, marveling upon that infinite
innocence and candor swathed in the silk cocoon of childish sleep,
without guessing the throb of fierce gentleness that runs in maternal
blood? The earth is none too rich in compassion these days: let us be
grateful to the mothers for what remains. It was not they who filled the
world with spies and quakings. It was not a cabal of mothers that met to
decree blood and anguish for the races of men. They know that life is
built at too dear a price to be so lathered in corruption and woe. Th