442 MORE POT-POURRI 



has to be accepted, not cavilled at, by a girl who under- 

 stands life when she marries a man who is not very 

 young, and who has knocked about the world. She 

 would scarcely wish him to tell her details of passing 

 love affairs ; but I would go so far, without any insult 

 to him, as to recommend that a girl who knows what she 

 is doing should solemnly, and in all tenderness and love, 

 just before marriage, put the question to the man she 

 is engaged to whether his particular past entails any 

 serious ties upon him. By this I mean that she should 

 know whether he has children whom he ought to edu- 

 cate and look after, in order that she may not only 

 face the fact, but also help him to do his duty by them. 

 No secret should come between them, especially not one 

 which, if ignored, might perhaps bring forth future 

 trouble. If he has no such ties, so much the better for 

 everybody. If he has, she who is about to marry him 

 should share the troubles and privations that they entail. 

 So many problems in this life are solved by courage. 

 Facing such a position does not make it, whereas ignor- 

 ing it may weave difficulties and misery. 



Optimism I have always believed to be the right rule 

 of conduct both for men and nations. Yet there is truth 

 in what I have somewhere read that it must not be an 

 optimism without intelligence. It should not be that 

 kind of optimism which, to keep cheerful, must blot out 

 menace by looking another way, and obliterate coming 

 peril by turning the back. Neither in private nor in 

 public life should it be the spurious optimism which is 

 part dullness of perception, part moral weakness, part 

 intellectual timidity, part something worse I mean, 

 refusal to recognise approaching danger because open 

 recognition would have to be followed by the worry or 

 expense of prevention. 



As I said before, it is so difficult to generalise not 



