Herland

But this succession of misfortunes was too much for those infuriated virgins. There were many of them, and but few of these would-be masters, so the young women, instead of submitting, rose in sheer desperation and slew their brutal conquerors.

For five or ten years they worked together, growing stronger and wiser and more and more mutually attached, and then the miracle happened—one of these young women bore a child.

There you have the start of Herland! One family, all descended from one mother! She lived to a hundred years old; lived to see her hundred and twenty-five great-granddaughters born; lived as Queen-Priestess-Mother of them all; and died with a nobler pride and a fuller joy than perhaps any human soul has ever known—she alone had founded a new race!

As I learned more and more to appreciate what these women had accomplished, the less proud I was of what we, with all our manhood, had done.

she cared most to hear about,

Do you mean, for instance, that with you no mother would work for her children without the stimulus of competition?"

we value them, all right, "in their place,"

was theirs of course, raised to its highest power;

Here at last was Motherhood, and though it was not for all of them personally, it might—if the power was inherited—found here a new race.