What is it that I desire? What is it that I expect? What is the change of whose coming I feel as assured as of the rising of to-morrow’s sun? I look for a regeneration of woman’s instincts through consciousness. She, who has conquered the world, will then renounce the world. The old corruption will be swept away. Woman is the keeper of redemption; it is her work to lead man back to the gate of his being. We are waiting in pain for the new liberation. Love alters everything, it melts the whole world and makes it afresh. Love is the sun of our spirits and the wind. Is there, indeed, this glad hope of things changing? Changing? They have got to change. The weeds of our mistakes have so grown up that they are choking us. Yes, whether from inside or from out, I do not know yet, but there is change and awakening coming. Motherhood will triumph. Life is going to be made new before long. FOOTNOTES [1] _The Position of Women in Primitive Society._ [2] See note at the end of the chapter. [3] The number recorded as killed up to November 9, 1914, was 109,723. [4] H. G. Wells, _Mankind in the Making_, p. 88. [5] The towns with the highest percentages are as follow: Morley 31, Chadderton 32, Bacup 38, Stockton 34, Liverpool 38, Salford 32, Stockport 39, Mansfield 49. [6] These quotations are taken from the _Report of the Board of Education_, p. 70. [7] Night work in the textile trades was prohibited for women by the factory legislation of 1844. The custom disappeared gradually in Great Britain and other countries. Then it was finally banished by international agreement from twelve European countries at the International Conference of Bonn, 1906. [8] The three systems of employment adopted are as follows— One shift of 13-14 hours (the overtime system); Two shifts of 12 hours; Three shifts of 8 hours. The report strongly recommends the universal adoption of the 8-hour shift system. [9] See _The Truth about Woman_ (pp. 247-270), where this difference between the sexes is treated from a different point of view. [10] “The Insects’ Homer,” by Maurice Maeterlinck, _Fortnightly Review_, October 1912. [11] Fabre, “The Leaf Cutters,” _English Review_, March 1915. [12] These cases are taken from Pycraft, _The Infancy of Animals_, and the different works of Fabre, _Social Life in the Insect World_, _The Life and Love of the Insect_, _Insect Life_, etc. [13] See article by J. Arthur Thomson in _The New Statesman_, November 1915. [14] Not all the scarabees live to see the adult growth of their children. This is done, as Fabre’s observations have established by the _Spanish Copris_ and some related dung-beetles, which are unique among non-social insects, inasmuch as the mother survives to see the emergence and complete metamorphosis of the family for whom she and her husband have so unremittingly toiled.