you fail, you may still be among the
elect of whom we have spoken. Many a brave man has had to come to it
at last. But there are the complacent toddlers from the start.
Favour them not, ladies, especially now that every one of you carries
a possible marechal's baton under her gown. 'Happy,' it has been said
by a distinguished man, 'is he who can leave college with an
unreproaching conscience and an unsullied heart.' I don't know; he
sounds to me like a sloppy, watery sort of fellow; happy, perhaps, but
if there be red blood in him impossible. Be not disheartened by
ideals of perfection which can be achieved only by those who run away.
Nature, that 'thrifty goddess,' never gave you 'the smallest scruple
of her excellence' for that. Whatever bludgeonings may be gathering
for you, I think one feels more poignantly at your age than ever again
in life. You have not our December roses to help you; but you have
June coming, whose roses do not wonder, as do ours even while they
give us their fragrance--wondering most when they give us most--that
we should linger on an empty scene. It may indeed be monstrous but
possibly courageous.

Courage is the thing. All goes if courage goes. What says our
glorious Johnson of courage: 'Unless a man has that virtue he has
no security for preserving any other.' We should thank our Creator
three times daily for courage instead of for our bread, which,
if we work, is surely the one thing we have a right to claim of Him.
This courage is a proof of our immortality, greater even than
gardens 'when the eve is cool.' Pray for it. 'Who rises from
prayer a better man, his prayer is answered.' Be not merely
courageous, but light-hearted and gay. There is an officer
who was the first of our Army to land at Gallipoli. He was
dropped overboard to light decoys on the shore, so as to deceive
the Turks as to where the landing was to be. He pushed a raft
containing these in front of him. It was a frosty night,
and he was naked and painted black. Firing from the ships was
going on all around. It was a two-hours' swim in pitch darkness.
He did it, crawled through the scrub to listen to the talk of the
enemy, who were so near that he could have shaken hands with them,
lit his decoys and swam back. He seems to look on this as a gay
affair. He is a V.C. now, and you would not think to look at him
that he could ever have presented such a disreputable appearance.
Would you? (indicating Colone