Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1919-05-26
Life'S Problems
Are Discussed
By Mrs. Wilson woodrow

There was a neat pile of unopened
letters on my desk, and just as reach
ed for the paper cutter to unseal them l
said to myself:
II know what is in every one of
them. I one form or another they will
all contain the appeal: Please, Madam
Spider sitting weaving your web of
words. tell us how we may win our
hearts desire One of them will eX-
press the longing for companionship ;
another asks only success and how to
gain it; a third will yearn for the love
which is withheld, and a fourth could
reach the stars if only he were able to
to obtain the necessary education"
Yet in every unsatisfied longing
lies the seed of accomplishment We
wouldn't want whatever our hearts are
set on IL it were not in our power to Sc
cure it.
But the trouble with most of us is
that we see only one way to Fortune s
happy gate" We concede that all roads
lead to Rome, but we ignore the lanes
and the by-paths which are open to Us
and fix our gaze solely on that one
highway which has a hedge between us
and it so high. that we cannot climb over.
woman told me story of her own
experiences which illu. trates this fact.
She said that as a young girl she
went to A large city to cultivate her
voice She knew no one, the few peo-
pie whom in time she met did not at
tract her. and she was desperately
lonely.
This led to acute inconsistencies. She
began to lose interest in her studies !;
her voice, even her health was affected
by her mental state, and she was many
times on the verge of giving up and go
ing home. But her pride was involved
and she tried to stick it out.
AS a recourse from this depression,
she followed a quaint little impulse ahd
began to write letter a day to an inn
aginary friend. And gradually she
found the composition of these letters
SO absorbing that she forgot all about
being lonely. She had dreaded going
alone and walking the streets, and she
had dreaded even more remaining in her
room. But now that feeling passed.
After her lesson was over and when she
was not practicing, she had something
to do that interested her.
She took the greatest pains with those
letters. trying to make them natural ana
charming and full of color and incident.
She related bits of her past life, the
happenings of her present. She descrlb-
ed her new impressions. the things she
saw and heard, the people she encoun-
tered.
Then came the desire to answer these
letters, so she created a correspondent
whose communications r2ust be, OF
course, in an entirely different vein.
This correspondent she decided, should
be a traveller, and consequently she be-
gan to study maps and books of travel.
She kept this up. During the time
that elapsed, she had made several con-
genial acquaintances. To a few of them
she showed her letters, and finally one
who was connected with a magazine
urged her to try her hand at fiction.
She did so, began to sell her stories and
ultimately found her career switched
from one form of expression to quite
another.
AS it turned out her guardian angel
must have known what he was about:
for her voice. after a good deal of time
spent in it's cultivation, proved to be
nothing remarkable.
The main point, however. is tina she
got to "Rome-not along the highway
upon which she had set out to travel,
but by a little. winding path which
caught her fancy.
Suppose that she had ignored that
impulse to write the imaginary letters.
she would have stupidity crushed an un-
suspected talent.
She was not taking any time from