"This shall be the chief glory of our house for ever; when a thousand
years have gone by, and we that are now living, like those that have
been, are mingled with the nature we come from, and speak to our
children only in the wind's voice, and the cry of the passage-bird,
pilgrims shall still come to these sun-bright fields, to rejoice, and
worship the Father of the world, and bless the august Mother of the
house, from whose sacred womb ever comes to it life and love and joy,
and the harvest melody that shall endure for ever."
Chapter 6
The reading went on, not of course "for ever," like that harvest melody
he spoke of, but for a considerable time. The words, I concluded, were
for the initiated, and not for me, and after a while I gave up trying to
make out what it was all about. Those last expressions I have quoted
about the "august Mother of the house" were unintelligible, and appeared
to me meaningless. I had already come to the conclusion that however
many of the ladies of the establishment might have experienced the
pleasures and pains of maternity, there was really no mother of the
house in the sense that there was a father of the house: that is to say,
one possessing authority over the others and calling them all her
children indiscriminately.
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