Girls and Women | Page 3

and I dare
not fold it away in a napkin." Her lover agreed to this, though it was
hard for him. They worked apart year after year. At last she was a free
woman, with money enough to live without work at all, and with fame
enough to work when and where she pleased. But gradually she cared

less and less for the objects of her lover's life. She would not own to
herself that she had failed in constancy to him. She always thought she
was glad to see him when he came to the city. But he felt the difference
in her, though he tried not to see it. She was far more beautiful than
when he had first loved her; but in the days when she was so plain and
had worn shabby dresses there had been an expression about her mouth
which he missed now. The lovely face was still eager with longing, but
it had lost the look of aspiration. Reluctantly, he admitted the change in
her. At last he told her what he felt, that she had ceased to love him.
She had deceived herself so far that she had not realized how idle her
excuses were for putting off the marriage from year to year. When the
separation came she felt a sharp pang--as much of mortification at her
own failure as of wounded love. Yet she consented to the separation,
and she seemed to be happy after it. She thought her life had been
tragic, and that she had made a heroic sacrifice of her love to the
necessity which her genius laid upon her to do a certain work in the
world.
I should be afraid to say that she was altogether wrong. There are, no
doubt, some women who are meant to serve the whole world rather
than the little domestic circle. And yet she did give up what she had
believed the best part of herself. And her pictures, though they were
admired, lacked an indescribable something of which her first crude
sketches had given promise. I do not think that, after all, they did very
much to interpret beauty to the world. She had two aims in life, both
good, but she placed the first second, and the second first. Perhaps, on
the whole, she was happier for the choice she made. But she missed
something better than happiness which is always missed by those who
make the lower aim their object--she missed the aspiration for higher
happiness.
I have seen many successful lives led by women who as girls showed
very moderate abilities, simply because they had one definite aim. I
knew a girl who became an excellent actress. She was a pretty girl with
a little talent. She was not poor, but she had an ambition to be on the
stage. She had the good sense to see that she was not a genius, but she
also had courage enough to persevere in using the ability she had. For

the first ten years she made so little apparent headway that even among
her acquaintances many people did not know she had ever acted at all.
In the mean time she had studied hard. She knew many popular plays
by heart, and had carefully watched other actresses. She was acquainted
with a number of theatrical people. She had always been at hand when
a manager wanted an extra peasant girl, or when a waiting maid was ill.
She had joined a small troupe traveling through the bleakest and
roughest parts of the Northwest in midwinter. By and by she was fitted
to be of use in a stock company. Then, after a few more years, she
achieved what she had been striving for. She was able to take the
slighter characters in the plays of Shakespeare. No one excelled her
here. No great actress would take so small a part, and no small actress
was willing to take such pains. Her power was unique and she was
indispensable. Her name was seldom on the play-bills, but she added
something to the culture of the world by making the interpretation of
Shakespeare more complete.
Her success came first from having a definite aim, and second, from
understanding herself sufficiently to aim at something within her power;
but happily it was also the highest thing within her power. She was
both humble and aspiring. She showed her humility in shrinking from
no drudgery, and satisfied her cravings for the ideal by doing the
smallest thing in the best way possible to her. She enjoyed even her
drudgery because she put the best of herself into it, but, more than that,
she knew it was leading her exactly in the direction she wanted to go. If
the drudgery had led to nothing