Page 399 - The Story of My Lif

the flowers that bloom on it, watered with tears and fed by a bleeding heart.

Beside the tomb sits a weary soul, rejoicing neither in the joys of the past nor in
the possibilities of the future, but seeking consolation in forgetfulness. In vain
the inspiring sea shouts to this languid soul, in vain the heavens strive with its

weakness; it still persists in regretting and seeks a refuge in oblivion from the
pangs of present woe. At times it catches some faint echo from the living,
joyous, real world, a gleam of the perfection that is to be; and, thrilled out of its
despondency, feels capable of working out a grand ideal even “in the poor,
miserable, hampered actual,” wherein it is placed; but in a moment the
inspiration, the vision is gone, and this great, much-suffering soul is again
enveloped in the darkness of uncertainty and despair.

It is wonderful how much time good people spend fighting the devil. If they
would only expend the same amount of energy loving their fellow men, the devil
would die in his own tracks of ennui.

I often think that beautiful ideas embarrass most people as much as the company
of great men. They are regarded generally as far more appropriate in books and
in public discourses than in the parlor or at the table. Of course I do not refer to
beautiful sentiments, but to the higher truths relating to everyday life.

Few people that I know seem ever to pause in their daily intercourse to wonder
at the beautiful bits of truth they have gathered during their years of study. Often
when I speak enthusiastically of something in history or in poetry, I receive no
response, and I feel that I must change the subject and return to the commonest
topics, such as the weather, dressmaking, sports, sickness, “blues” and “worries.”
To be sure, I take the keenest interest in everything that concerns those who
surround me; it is this very interest which makes it so difficult for me to carry on
a conversation with some people who will not talk or say what they think, but I
should not be sorry to find more friends ready to talk with me now and then
about the wonderful things I read. We need not be like “Les Femmes Savantes”
but we ought to have something to say about what we learn as well as about
what we MUST do, and what our professors say or how they mark our themes.