422 MORE POT-POURRI 



correct French proverb is Tout vient d point a qui sait 

 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 sait (' Everything comes to 

 those who know how to wait '). Skill in waiting, 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 interpretation 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 great, 

 it may be an excessive, value on success. It distressed 



