more fail
life than the river can fail to reach the sea.

"'Your little individual experience, my little individual
experience,--what are they? They are nothing more than the tiny bubbles,
swirls, ripples, and breaks on the surface of the great volume of water
that flows so inevitably onward. The bit of foam, the tiny wave caused
by twig or branch or blade of water-grass, or the great rocks and cliffs
that make the roaring whirlpools and rapids,--do they stay the waters,
or turn the river back on its course, or in any way prevent its
onward flow? No more can the twigs of circumstances, or the boughs of
environment, or the grasses of accident that make the tiny waves of our
individual experiences,--or even the great rocks and cliffs of national
or racial import,--such as wars, and pestilence, and famine,--finally
check or stay the river of life in its onward flow toward the sea of its
final and infinite meaning.'"

He went again to the window, and stood looking out into the night as
though listening to the voices.

"Why, Auntie Sue," he said, turning back to the old gentlewoman,--and
his face was radiant with the earnestness of this thought,--"Auntie Sue,
there are as many currents in our river out there as there are human
lives. A comparatively few great main or dominant currents in the river
flow--a comparatively few great dominant currents in the river flow of
life. But if you look closer, you will see that in each one of
those established principal currents there are countless
thousands--millions--of tiny currents all turning and twisting across,
and back, and up, and down in every direction,--weaving
themselves together,--pulling themselves apart,--criss-crossing,
clashing,--interlacing,--tangled and confused,--and these are the
individual lives. And no matter what the conflict or confusion; no
matter what direction they take for the moment, they all, ALL, go to
make up the river;--they, all together, ARE the river,--and they all
together move onward,--ceaselessly, inevitably, irresistibly."

He paused to stand smiling down at her, as she sat there in her low
chair beside the table with the lamplight on her silvery hair,--there in
the little log house by the river.

"That is what you have made your river mean to me, Auntie Sue; and that
is what I would give to the world."

With trembling hands, the gentle old teacher reached for her
handkerchief, which lay in the sewing-basket on the table beside her.
Smilin