Mal Moulée: A Novel

by Ella Wheeler Wilcox

After Dolores's departure, Helena referred to the subject of the diary.

"Dolores told me that you read it, Mamma, and I am really curious to know the contents of that mysterious book. She used to refer to it so often, and one time she would have shown it to me, because she said it contained truths which I ought to know; but I would not read it without your permission. Was Dolores's mother a greatly wronged woman, Mamma? and was her husband so very unkind to her? Dolores seemed to almost loathe his memory, and I fancied he must have been a very cruel man."

Mrs. Maxon took Helena's hand and drew her down on a low ottoman at her side. They were quite alone.

"No, my child," she said, gravely; "Mr. King was not a cruel man, and Mrs. King was not a greatly wronged woman. But their marriage was not a true and holy one, according to my idea of that sacred relation. In the early pages of the diary, written just before and just after the marriage, the young bride speaks constantly of her pride in having made a brilliant alliance. It seems she bettered her condition in a worldly sense, by her marriage, and it was this ambition, rather than a great love, which led to the union. During the first few months, the diary abounds with references to receptions, dinners, balls, where she had been admired and courted. Then begins a series of wild, despairing complaints against Providence and her husband and the world. Bitter, unreasoning denunciations of the marriage tie, and mournful regrets, as weak as useless, for her lost freedom. All this was occasioned by the knowledge that she was to become a mother. Her emotions seemed to culminate in violent anger toward her husband, and resentful wrath at a social system which she said was more brutal than the laws which govern brutes; since they are never compelled to bring undesired offspring into the world, with every instinct crying out against it. Almost insane with the intensity of these emotions, it is no wonder her daughter's mind was impressed with them. Now, my sweet child," continued Mrs. Maxon, drawing Helena closer to her side, "all this is very strange to you, I know, but it is a subject of vast importance to all our sex—to all the world; and I think you are at an age when you ought to understand it fully."

"That is what Dolores said, Mamma," interrupted Helena. "She said I ought to know these things, and she wanted me to read the diary."

"Yes, but I am glad you did not read it," her mother replied. "It would be like looking for a reflection of your own sweet face in a broken mirror. The diary presented important facts for your consideration, to be sure, but it presented them in a diseased and unnatural form. The subject of marriage and maternity, as treated in the diary, would have alarmed and shocked you, while in reality they are as sacred and beautiful as religion. It is of the utmost importance that our girls and women should think upon these subjects, and think of them as natural and holy events, before taking upon themselves the duties of wives and mothers. But it would have been a matter of lasting regret to me if you had gained your first ideas of these momentous questions from the diary. It is by her own mother a girl should be taught to understand these things in all their beauty and solemnity.

"In the case of Mrs. King, her first great error lay in the wrong motive which led to her marriage. It was ambition—not love or respect; and motherhood she regarded as a misfortune. She was evidently a woman of strong feeling, and therefore more capable of influencing the mind of her offspring. The child came into the world with the same intense hatred of the father, and rebellion against marriage, which had filled her mother's heart all these months."

"How very strange!" mused Helena, bewildered.

"Yes, strange, beautiful and terrible in the responsibility it places upon our sex, Helena. We make or mar the character of our offspring, often, by the thoughts we entertain during the prenatal period of their existence. You know I am an advocate for the widest education of woman; for her having all the doors of the professions, and arts, and trades, flung open to her, if she chooses to fit herself to enter them. Yet I am surprised and pained, often, as I see so many of the most interested and zealous workers in this cause, ignoring or misusing the grand and wonderful right and duty, ordained by heaven for woman—the right of moulding the mind, temper, and character of her children. You know, dear, do you not, the world-wide reputation which ancient Greece had in its glory for the beauty of its people?"