gold. Not a single sob of the other is heard."

And something cried aloud within me:

"The one is a human actress. She is applauded because she is of the
same clay as those who listen to her. And they have need of the lie on
which the most beautiful roles are builded.

"But the other, she is an actress of God. She plays a part so great
and so sorrowful that she has not found one man who understands her
and who is rich enough to pay her.

"And the great actress has never attained, even in her most beautiful
roles, the true genius of sorrow which makes the little prostitute
rest her forehead upon me."




THE GOODNESS OF GOD


She was a dainty and delicate little creature who worked in a shop.
She was, perhaps, not very intelligent, but she had soft, black eyes.
They looked at you a little sadly, and then drooped. You felt that
she was affectionate and commonplace with that tender commonplaceness,
which real poets understand, and which is the absence of hate.

You knew that she was as simple as the modest room in which she lived
alone with her little cat that some one had given her. Every morning