into a great state of "feeling" because we had to have such miserable
daubs instead of real works of art. If she saw us gazing on an Abbey or
Angelo picture she would weep tears to think we couldn't have such
pictures instead of those hideous bright chromos on our walls. It would
never occur to her that we might be privately comparing her Abbeys and
Angelos with our chromos, _and wondering how anybody could possibly see
beauty in the Abbeys and Angelos_.

About nine-tenths of women's so-called "sympathy" is just about as
foolish and misplaced as that. If "B. B." would go up and get acquainted
with some of those small youngsters she sees gazing into the shop
windows she would find some of her illusions dispelled. She would find
among them less "longing" than she thinks, and more wonder and criticism
and pure curiosity--such as she would find in her own heart if she were
gazing at a curio collection.

I remember a large family of very small boys that I used to "feel" for,
very deeply. Poor little pinched, ragged looking fellows they were, and
always working before and after school hours. I gave them nickels and
dimes and my children's outgrown clothes, and new fleece lined gloves
for their blue little hands. They kept the clothes hung up at home and
the gloves stuffed in their pants pockets. And one day I discovered that
every one of those small youngsters had a _bank account_--something I
had never had in my life! They lived as they _liked_ to live, and I had
been harrowing my feelings and carrying their (?) burdens for nothing.

This world is _not_ a pitiful place. It is a lovely great world, full of
all sorts of people, every one of whom _exactly fits into_ his
conditions.