426 MORE POT-POURRI 



When women turn to practical work, their high hopes 

 are even more frequently disappointed than those of men 

 so many things weight their career, and the sense of 

 failure is so frequently all that they reap. 



Have you thought, in your moments of triumph, 



Oh you that are high in the tree, 

 Of the days and the nights that are bitter 



So bitter to others and me ? 

 When the efforts to do what is clever 



Result in a failure so sad, 

 And the clouds of despondency gather 



And dim all the hopes that we had ? 



Have you thought when the world was applauding 



Your greatness, whatever it be, 

 Of the tears that in silence were falling 



Yes, falling from others and me ? 

 When the hardest and latest endeavours 



Appeared to be only in vain, 

 And we've curtained our eyes in the night-time 



Indiff 'rent to waking again ? 



Those who just miss their lives are those I pity. It 

 seems to me that, of all bad teaching, the worst is to live 

 only in the present and try in no way to look to the 

 future. 



Great sorrow or trouble, or loss of money or sickness, 

 seem mercifully to preserve in some women certain 

 qualities of youth which always remain attractive to men, 

 even far on into middle life. Such misfortunes embalm 

 the qualities which the more ordinary experiences and 

 pleasures of life destroy. Hence the unexpected and 

 deep love episodes at an age when young people imagine 

 such a thing is impossible. I remember quite well think- 

 ing at eighteen : ' What does it matter what women of 

 thirty do ? ' Has not the world been lately given an 

 example of this kind of love, for which it will eternally be 

 the richer, in the Browning love-letters ? 



