“I UNDERSTAND.

Hawke's Bay Tribune, Volume I, Issue 107, 20 April 1911, Page 11

“I UNDERSTAND.

F I was looking through some old letters- among them were some receivrii in time of sorrow that bereft life of much happiness : others written when some unexpected success crowned it with |ni<i< when <>ne black-edged one arrest* d my aeration. and as I re-read i.. emotions stirred my muni. '3ly Dear B.. — . tec ept mv sincerest sympathy. I understand In soirow. >our.> J. " A brief letter penned years ago by one long since called to a greater Understanding, ami still the I understand seemed to palpitate with life. love, and sympathy. 1 lave often thought since how much the real sorrows of life might be lessened and its joys intensified by a fuller understanding of what makes up our everyday lives. To most of us life is so filled with selfmade duties, sell-imposed tasks, self-sought pleasures, and idle diversions that in seeking to catch the will-o’-the wisp called happiness we lose sight of the sweeter and lovelier realities along the road. YVe are apt to feel that those who rejoice do not need us to increase their enjoyment, while those who —well, failure is everywhere, and disappointment as rife to-day as it was in the days of our first parents.

Of course we are vaguely pleased —we say to ourselves we are really glad—that joy has come to someone we know, and we may even go further and envy them their success, comparing their prospects and present felicity with our own tame affairs.

Of course, too, we are sorry that trouble has fallen to the lot of an acquaintance, but then everyone has her fair share .of tribulation — we have, or have bail ours —and so on and so forth. I: never occurs to us that an understanding of the fullness of life, asofitsbarrenness, which means an emanation of its joys which would mean more than mere individual enjoyment. To some there appears to be given in full measure and brimming over a life full of the enjoyable things of the earth; and to others there seems to be given but the dregs that are bitter, served in bitterest of cups, let the former may lack the one essential of true life, for life itself is a matter of give and take, and as they do not understand, neither do others unJerstand them. IThe empty life, drawing only bitrrness from self-knowledge of pain passes through the fires of sorrow ; but the sweet refining process due to human under.stamung has failed to purify it of the self-eentration that atrophies and destroys. Jiatiy women ai. coin with this understanding, and it constitutes that womaniv charm that attracts

all around it. Imps icvptibly it sways men and nations m great affairs, as in the more circumscribed concerns it influences and helps the wavering and the weak. But though the si rets of understanding and sympathy fructify in some cases without tilling or toil, mothers much cultivation and tender care are needed. Luckily the soil of the human soul lies fertile and ready for such sowing, and the understanding of human joy and sorrow is within the power of every woman. And the tilling and toiling are the means whereby many an ideally real woman is evolved. Circumstances cabin and confine the lives of the majority of women, so that their outlook must necessarily be nanrow. Yet an understanding of her fellow-creatures' needs will

strengthen her own life, and. help-

ing others from the fullness of her /knowledge of human pain and comfort, will enable her to expand beneath the warmth of others’ enjoyment while the tears of her sisters will cleanse away the corros.-on of cramping selfishness.—" Svdnev Herald.