THE EGG
[THE EGG.]
The wise ignorance, the clear-seeing instinct of our forefathers gave utterance to this oracle: "Everything springs from the egg; it is the world's cradle."
Even our original, but especially the diversity of our destiny, is due to the mother. She acts and she foresees, she loves with a stronger or a weaker love, she is more or less the mother. The more she is so, the higher mounts her offspring; each degree in existence depends on the degree of her love.
What can the mother effect in the mobile existence of the fish? Nothing, but trust her birth to the ocean. What in the insect world, where she generally dies as soon as she has produced the egg? To obtain for it before dying a secure asylum, where it may come to light, and live.
In the case of the superior animal, the quadruped, where the warm blood should surely stir up love, where the mother's womb is so long the rest and home of her young, the cares of maternity are also of minor import. The offspring is born fully formed, clothed in all things like its mother; and its food awaits it. And in many species its education is accomplished without any further care on the part of the mother than she bestowed when it grew in her bosom.
Far otherwise is the destiny of the bird. It would die if it were not loved.