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Show MYSTERIOUS ASIA OLD PIM'S MUM .She Is a Family Goddess, a Divine Oracle; Enjoys Great Honor. v This America of ours is the land of tho young girl, who hero enjoys ex-traordinnrj- liberties denied to her elsewhere else-where on the globe, or only beginning to be conceded, in imitation of ourselves. our-selves. It has often been said that, in marrying, tho American girl ends her period of full freedom, resigning herself to restrictions and limitations she has not hitherto known; while the French woman, in contrast, not only gains greater freedom through marriage, but sometimes marries solely in order to havo greater freedom. While America is the kingdom of the girl, Europe is the married woman's paradise, tho empire em-pire of tho wife. But venerable and most mysterious Asia is tho realm of tho mother, the old woman's kingdom. This is as true in India as it is in China or .lapan. The mother of grown sons enjoys extraordinary dignity and honor She is a family goddess, a divine oracle. Tho belief in her almost inspired wisdom is implicit, sincere, and final; and she is held to come by this wisdom through a kind of intuition, running ahead of the mind, and its experience; ex-perience; a kind of absolute faculty, well-nigh supernatural. It was Kwang-Su's Kwang-Su's filial reverence for tho Dowager Empress of China which put that great realm in her power for a generation, and, liko charitj-, covered a multitude of sins. It is the samo reverence for millions of far worthier women, the mothers of all Asia, which is the determining de-termining factor in many a drama, social, so-cial, political, and even dynastic. When wo were at Murshidabad, the good old Nawab hold the esteem and decided liking lik-ing of the whole English colony. lie was tho head of an immense acini-royal settlement, the young folk of his family oven having a college to themselves, so numerous were they. lie had a body of soldiers to keep guard at his palace, and unnumbered retainers, gorgeously colored as tho Arabian Nights. Yet this great and good man would never venture on any important act, without consulting his aged grandmother, a queenly old lady, who had boon the wifo of Nawab with far larger dominions domin-ions and powers-. ITo had for her- the deepest and most unfeigned veneration: and the words of this white-haired old lady, who had never seen the outer world and whoso views were all gleaned behind the veil in the seclusion of the harem, were to him very oracles. And much the samo is true of every household house-hold in India, whether Hindu or Mussulman. Mus-sulman. The father may reign, but the mother or the grandmother rules; rules, bo it said, in virtue of her life-long abnegation ab-negation and obedience, through a purely pure-ly spiritual quality of poise and stillness. still-ness. Harper's Weekly. |