433 MORE POT-POURRI 



correct French proverb is Tout vient d point d qui sail 

 attendre, which, however, does not alter the sense. I 

 have always considered it one of the most untrue sayings 

 with an appearance of wisdom that there is. The only 

 thing that surely comes to those who wait in this 

 manner is death. Stating this opinion of mine the 

 other day, someone else maintained that they took it in 

 another sense, and that the crux of its meaning lay not 

 in the word attendre, but in the word sail ('Everything 

 comes to those who know how to wait ' ) . Skill in wait- 

 ing, how to utilise to a given end all events that occur 

 such waiting brings about the coming of desired 

 things. This was perhaps the original meaning of the 

 saying ; it is certainly not the accepted popular inter- 

 pretation of to-day. 



One of the virtues that I think is over -praised at all 

 ages, in women especially, is constancy. Constancy is 

 splendid, and much to be admired where two people are 

 constant ; but where it is one-sided, and neither wanted 

 nor appreciated by the other sex, I think it is rather of 

 the same order as the non- changing of opinions in 

 Blake's comparison in 'Heaven and Hell': 'The man 

 who never changes his opinion is like standing water, 

 and breeds reptiles of the mind.' 



Mr. Henry James says, with a strength that is almost 

 crushing to us women, who cling with such persistency 

 to our delusions : ' Illusions are sweet to the dreamer, 

 but not so to the observer, who has a horror of a fool's 

 paradise.' 



Shelley gives us strength by saying : ' The past is 

 death's, the future is thine own. Take it while it is 

 still yours, and fix your mind, not on what you may 

 have done long ago to hurt, but on what you can now 

 do to help.' 



Jowett, like most teachers of the young, placed a 



