From "The Voices of Song."




THE WOMAN WHO UNDERSTANDS


"Is this the little woman that made this great war?" was Lincoln's
greeting to Harriet Beecher Stowe. Often a woman is responsible for
events by whose crash and splendor she herself is obscured. Often too
she shapes the career of husband or brother or son. A man succeeds and
reaps the honors of public applause, when in truth a quiet little woman
has made it all possible--has by her tact and encouragement held him to
his best, has had faith in him when his own faith has languished, has
cheered him with the unfailing assurance, "You can, you must, you will."


_Somewhere she waits to make you win, your soul in her firm, white hands--
Somewhere the gods have made for you, the Woman Who Understands!_

As the tide went out she found him
Lashed to a spar of Despair,
The wreck of his Ship around him--
The wreck of his Dreams in the air;
Found him and loved him and gathered
The soul of him close to her heart--
The soul that had sailed an uncharted sea,
The soul that had sought to win and be free--