MRS. ERLYNNE EXERCISES THE PREROGATIVE OF A GRANDMOTHER

Lady Windermere, before Heaven your husband is guiltless of all offence towards you!  And I—­I tell you that had it ever occurred to me that such a monstrous suspicion would have entered your mind, I would have died rather than have crossed your life or his—­oh! died, gladly died!  Believe what you choose about me.  I am not worth a moment’s sorrow.  But don’t spoil your beautiful young life on my account!  You don’t know what may be in store for you, unless you leave this house at once.  You don’t know what it is to fall into the pit, to be despised, mocked, abandoned, sneered at—­to be an outcast! to find the door shut against one, to have to creep in by hideous byways, afraid every moment lest the mask should be stripped from one’s face, and all the while to hear the laughter, the horrible laughter of the world, a thing more tragic than all the tears the world has ever shed.  You don’t know what it is.  One pays for one’s sin, and then one pays again, and all one’s life one pays.  You must never know that.—­As for me, if suffering be an expiation, then at this moment I have expiated all my faults, whatever they have been; for to-night you have made a heart in one who had it not, made it and broken it.—­But let that pass.  I may have wrecked my own life, but I will not let you wreck yours.  You—­why, you are a mere girl, you would be lost.  You haven’t got the kind of brains that enables a woman to get back.  You have neither the wit nor the courage.  You couldn’t stand dishonour!  No!  Go back, Lady Windermere, to the husband who loves you, whom you love.  You have a child, Lady Windermere.  Go back to that child who even now, in pain or in joy, may be calling to you.  God gave you that child.  He will require from you that you make his life fine, that you watch over him.  What answer will you make to God if his life is ruined through you?  Back to your house, Lady Windermere—­your husband loves you!  He has never swerved for a moment from the love he bears you.  But even if he had a thousand loves, you must stay with your child.  If he was harsh to you, you must stay with your child.  If he ill-treated you, you must stay with your child.  If he abandoned you, your place is with your child.—­Lady Windermere’s Fan.

MOTHERHOOD MORE THAN MARRIAGE

Men don’t understand what mothers are.  I am no different from other women except in the wrong done me and the wrong I did, and my very heavy punishments and great disgrace.  And yet, to bear you I had to look on death.  To nurture you I had to wrestle with it.  Death fought with me for you.  All women have to fight with death to keep their children.  Death, being childless, wants our children from us.  Gerald, when you were naked I clothed you, when you were hungry I gave you food.  Night and day all that long winter