§ 22. We can hardly meet with a prettier token and illustration of affection than is to be found upon an ancient silver ring. It has a pelican feeding three young ones from the life-current oozing out of her breast; with the words: _Their Mother_. There is but little doubt that this was one of three rings given by a mother to her three children. The pelican is made an emblem of charity; and Hackluyt, in his Voyages, speaks of the “_Pellicane_”--“which is fain to be the lovingst bird that is, which rather than her young should want, will spare her heart-blood.” In no form or fashion could a mother’s love have been more beautifully and permanently displayed--pure as the metal, perfect as the emblem. It makes us feel that love _is_ indestructible; that it came from Heaven and returns thither. No matter what may have been the sorrows, the cares and the long-suffering of that mother; no matter though her heart dances no longer to the music of her children’s voices; no matter what were the earthly trials of those loved children; no matter though their home-nest has been torn down or that the snow of the world covers where the wings of the parent bird were spread; no matter though the grave has taken all, save this illustration of a divine emanation:--we feel that such love could not die and the throbbing from the poet’s soul comes upon our memory: “Oh when the mother meets on high The babe she lost---- Hath she not then, for pains and fears, The day of woe, the watchful night, For all her sorrows, all her tears, An overpayment of delight!”[372] § 23. This love between mother and child, from its undying purity, is always a pleasant thing to trace and to follow. In the _Household Words_,[373] a work in which there is more of usefulness, pleasure and beauty than in any other modern book, a ring plays a pretty part in a ballad of the youthful knight, Bran of Brittany. He was “wounded sore,” and “in a dungeon tower, helpless he wept in the foeman’s power.”