He never thinks of such a thing.  He merely circles around the pleasant light, sunning himself in it without much thought one way or another, only feeling that it is pleasant; but meanwhile Mrs. Moth sits at home in darkness, mending the children’s clothes, which is not exhilarating.  Many a woman who feels that she possesses her husband’s affection misses something.  She does not secure his fervor, his admiration.  His love is honest and solid, but a little dormant, and therefore dull.  It does not brace, and tone, and stimulate.  She wants not the love only, but the keenness and edge and flavor of the love; and she suffers untold pangs.  I know it, for I have seen it.  It is not a thing to be uttered.  Most women do not admit it even to themselves; but it is revealed by a lift of the eyelash, by a quiver of the eye, by a tone of the voice, by a trick of the finger.

But what is the good of saying all this, if a woman cannot help herself?  The children must be seen to, and the work must be done, and after that she has no time left.  The “mother of a young and increasing family,” with her “pale, thin face and feeble step,” and her “multiplied and wearying cares,” is “completely worn down with so many children.”  She has neither time nor spirit for self-culture, beyond what she may obtain in the nursery.  What satisfaction is there in proving that she is far below where she ought to be, if inexorable circumstance prevent her from climbing higher?  What use is there in telling her that she will alienate her husband and injure her children by her course, when there is no other course for her to pursue?  What can she do about it?

There is one thing that she need not do.  She need not sit down and write a book, affirming that it is the most glorious and desirable condition imaginable.  She need not lift up her voice and declare that “she lives above the ills and disquietudes of her condition, in an atmosphere of love and peace and pleasure far beyond the storms and conflicts of this material life.”  Who ever heard of the mother of a young and increasing family living in an atmosphere of peace, not to say pleasure, above conflicts and storms?  Who does not know that the private history of every family with the ordinary allowance of brains is a record of incessant internecine warfare?  If she said less, we might believe her.  When she says so much, we cannot help suspecting.  To make the best of anything, it is not necessary to declare that it is the best thing.  Children must be taken care of, but it is altogether probable that there are too many of them.  Some people think that opinion several times more atrocious than murder in the first degree; but I see no atrocity in it, and there is none.  I think there is an immense quantity of nonsense about, regarding this thing.  For my part, I don’t credit half of it.  I believe in Malthus,—­a great deal more than Malthus did himself.  The prosperity of a country is often measured by its population;