Some people seem to thrust a disappointment aside, as one brushes mud from clothes; their attitude agrees with the saying that it is a poor coat that will not bear brushing, but it is possible that they never envisage the amount of brushing that a life-time calls for. Others can find a cynical satisfaction in disappointment: it affords support to pessimistic expectations, for one of the strangest possibilities of the human mind is to feel a disappointment that was halfexpected, and then to salvage a pleasure from contemplating bewrecked schemes. Such a hardness of the mind is a defensive armour of dangerous heaviness, and it may become the permanent covering of the spirit—a prison rather than a vesture.

Disappointments in a sequence accumulate a power of destruction which only a corresponding growth of resilience or a developing fortitude can counteract. Infinitely various are the means by which we evade or overcome the worst malignities of Fate. On the chessboard of life, whereon We range the black pieces of Despair and the white pieces of Hope, the most transparent cheating will satisfy us: White must win, of course. The first move is with Hope and the last also must be, or who would play this game? The calendar serves us well as a team umpire, though it can be a little stubborn soon after midsummer. Every twelvemonth the conventional division of time gives capital letters to a new year. This is as good as restoring the Queen to Hope; for what else is a New Year but to encourage Hope?