The Montgomery advertiser., 1905-08-06
ny MARGARET B. sANGsTER.

fCopyright, 1905. by Joseph B. Bowles.)
 Once in . while we fail. do we not, girls7 There is something on which we have set our hearts. some perfectly right and desirable thing, but we can not get it. We have tried faithfully to the best of our ability. But ws are disappointed. We feel very much as we would If we saw somebody else climbing, without the least trouble. to the top of a mountain. while we kept sliding back to the bottom.
 Everybody cannot be equally success full, and friend or a classmate oIten seems to gain without much enort whatever she wants, while we lose. " is so in many departments of life out side of the schoolroom. It Is not only that another girl wins the gold medal for proficiency. while we have not even . mention on the honor list; that another always has reports enriched with a double A. while we have only B or c, but there are other failures that try our hearts quite as much.
 Another girl makes a friendship where we have only . slight acquaint- ance or goes off on splendid trip to Europe. while we stay at home with out change of scene. The fact Is. If we choose to disturb ourselves about them, the small disappointments of life are endless. The great ones. too. oc- cur now and then. It is test of character to meet discouragements bravely and to refuse to be downcast and blue, when we fail in an attempt through no fault of our own.
 As I write I am thinking of girl friend who has had an experience which will show her mettle and disclose in its later effect the sort of girl she is. Elizabeth is a quick and clever girl. who learns without taking much trouble. and who has a reputation in her family circle for extraordinary genius. She has always been expected to carry off all the prizes in sight. Her father amuses his friends by the un- conscious vanity which prompts him to boast of Elizabeth's sprightliness, and he Is continually repeating her witty speeches and telling any listener whom he can buttonhole the story of her latest triumphs. Her mother has less to say and Is more tactful, but in her quiet, unobtrusive fashion, she is just as proud of her daughter and just as convinced of her superior talents as her good husband is. Both these peo- pie, without meaning 1t, have puffed up Elizabeth from her cradle, with the result that she has come to depend en- tirely too much on her quickness and has omitted the hard study which at certain points Is indispensable You may imagine the family consternation and chagrin when Elizabeth failed to pass her senior examinations and was told that she would have to take her last year over if she is finally to be graduated.
 A year does not look very long to your father and mother, because as people grow older the years seem fair ly to rush along like waves in mill race, but 1t seems a tremendous thing to a girl of 1T. It looks to her like a long level stretch of eternity. If we fail in anything when we are young we are tempted to fancy that we never can make up our loss. That is one treason why young people are blue when they ought to see everything in roso- color. Once we allow ourselves to be discouraged. we are handicapped. g. Wo are very apt in such moods to discour- age others. If a girl in Elizabeth's position happens to be preparing to teoch. or has in mind a determination to be an artist. or journalist. she says to herself. T may as well give 1t up. There is no use in keeping on. shall Lever attain what I wish.
 Never Is a word one hears on the lips of schoolgirls much oftener than one ought.
 Looking over a closet one day in which a middle-aged woman had pack ed away many treasures of her girl hood, I came upon a lot of old school books. In one of them found written In very black letters. underscored. too. on the margin of several pages the word Despair. ""TIave you any idea, |" I said to the owner of the books. why or when you wrote this word on these pages?" -."
 "Oh," she said, with laugh, when ! was IA had moods I often used to think that I had almost reached the jumping-of place of the world. and if I failed in a lesson felt as if the dis grace were inscribed upon me in let ters so large that everybody could see them. I suppose I scribbled that one day when was blue"
 woman who has been widely known as a successful writer told me that her first work during the first year ef her struggle to enter the profession ,Swas invariably returned. Stories, $poems, essays" she said. "all come hur- rying back. declined with thanks" and she added. T used literally many a time to wet my pillow with tears. Yet the oftener I failed the more deter mined I became not to fail. I would just pull myself together and work harder next time"
 Tn the case of student who, either through illness or lack of painstaking