There was no pleasure, no service, no honor in all the land that Celis might not have had.

Almost like the breathless reverence with which, two thousand years ago, that dwindling band of women had watched the miracle of virgin birth, was the deep awe and warm expectancy with which they greeted this new miracle of union.
All mothers in that land were holy.

To them, for long ages, the approach to motherhood has been by the most intense and exquisite love and longing, by the Supreme Desire, the overmastering demand for a child.
Every thought they held in connection with the processes of maternity was open to the day, simple yet sacred.

Every woman of them placed motherhood not only higher than other duties, but so far higher that there were no other duties, one might almost say.

All their wide mutual love, all the subtle interplay of mutual friendship and service, the urge of progressive thought and invention, the deepest religious emotion, every feeling and every act was related to this great central Power, to the River of Life pouring through them, which made them the bearers of the very Spirit of God.
Of all this I learned more and more--from their books, from talk, especially from Ellador.