hey are unhappy, but they find a
diabolical joy in all misfortune where they see the confirmation of
their somber prophecies, the only satisfaction which is capable of
exalting them.

We have just said that a certain constitutional disposition is
necessary for such a deplorable change in feminine sentiments to be
produced; but this disposition is often only developed under the
influence of circumstances which we have indicated or analogous ones.

It is impossible for the life in common of two conjoints not to reveal
their reciprocal failings. But true love generally suffices to
definitely cement a union, provided that the wife finds a support in
the steadfast nature of her husband, which then serves as her ideal.
It is also necessary that the husband, finding sentiments of devoted
love in his wife, should reciprocate them. These conditions are
sufficient, if both devote their efforts to the maintenance of their
family and the social welfare.

=Maternal Love.=--The most profound and most natural irradiation of
the sexual appetite in woman is _maternal love_. A mother who does not
love her children is an unnatural being, and a man who does not
understand the desires of maternity in his wife, and does not respect
them, is not worthy of her love. Sometimes egoism renders a man
jealous of the love which his wife bears to his children. At other
times, the father may show more love for the children than their
mother; such exceptions only prove the rule.

The most beautiful and most natural of the irradiations of love is the
joy of parents at the birth of their children, a joy which is one of
the strongest bonds of conjugal affection, and which helps the couple
in triumphing over the conflicting elements in their characters, and
in raising the moral level of their reciprocal sentiments, for it
realizes the natural object of sexual union.

A true woman rejoices at the progress of her pregnancy. The last pains
of childbirth have hardly ceased before she laughs with joy, and
pride, at hearing the first cries of the newly born. The instinctive
outburst of maternal love toward the new-born child corresponds to a
natural imprescriptible right of the child, for it needs the continual
care of its mother. Nothing is so beautiful in the world as the
radiant joy of a young mother nursing her child, and no sign of
degeneration is more painful than that of mothers who abandon their
children without absolute necessity, to strange hands