on the eve of angrily breaking up this world and Such is not the beginning it all over again. philosophy of our poet. person in the epilogue. He speaks in his own He says For me the genial day-the happy crowd, This faith runs through all his works-nor is it anywhere more beautifully expressed than in his very latest volume, in the second and third stanzas of "The Children's Hospital." Still the poem of "The Princess" is not an exhaustive solution of the question treated. All men Millions of women pass cannot or do not marry. unwedded through life. In many cases the sweetness of their nature overflows in general usefulness to others, in some cases it sours with disappointment. Millions of women have gone to dishonoured graves-" even God's providence seeming estranged "—victims to an artificial state of society. Here are questions for more favoured ones to consider of profounder import than sun-flowers or china-pigs. Of what avail is mere knowledge before these profound social and moral problems. The ultimate outcome of all knowledge is mystery. The sources of being are hidden behind an impenetrable veil. We juggle with words and play with them as children with counters, getting out of them such meanings only as we ourselves first put in. The intellect is finite, but the affections are infinite. We know in part and we prophesy in part. Our prophecies shall fail and our knowledge vanish in a clearer dawn, but Love, of which woman is the priestess, abideth for ever. |