Could yon slender reed, which is swayed by the slightest breeze, stand the fierce onslaught of a tempest? No, but it bends gracefully before it and escapes unhurt where stouter stems have been snapped asunder. And, to take a simile from the bird world, all the herons, the different species of the _Ardeidæ_, which have ordinarily a slow and heavily flapping flight, when alarmed or pursued by their natural enemies, have a habit of easing themselves. They will disgorge the food which they have just swallowed in order to lighten themselves for more rapid flight. This reminds me of a little incident in my own life. Some years ago I was in a collision at sea; the bow of a large steamer ran into the stern of the vessel in which I was, when both were going at top speed, and both vessels went down beneath the waters almost as soon as we passengers, most of us in our night clothing, had got free in the small boats. Over fifty lives, unfortunately, were lost that night, but only one woman out of very many others perished. That need not have been, but she was timid, and she would not risk the leap that other women had had to make down into the boat which waited for her ten feet below. As soon as the boat in which I was, arrived, a few hours later, alongside of a rescuing steamer, the women were most of them taken up into this by means of a rope and band fastened round the waist, but I climbed up a rope ladder which was overhung on the side of the ship. In order to grasp this firmly with both hands I had to lose my hold of a bag I had contrived to save, in which were some valuables very dear to me. I put it down on the boat seat, and of course I never saw it again. My precious things were lost, but my life was saved. A poor lady who was in the same wreck suffered a still greater loss, and she was one of those conservative sensitive natures who find it so hard to adapt themselves to changeful circumstances. She has never recovered her mental balance since that terrible night. To preserve a trustful, cheerful frame of mind under adverse circumstances, to be able to adjust one’s resources, one’s capabilities to the exigencies of a life so liable to changes, is a gift for which the possessor cannot be too grateful to the Giver of all good gifts. Science has been defined by someone as “the discovery of the changeless in the ever-changing.” I was sitting in a weak, fatigued state of mind once in a train at a great terminus. We were waiting for the moment of departure, and not being drawn up to the end of the platforms, trains moved constantly on either side of us. To my tired head—I had lately come off the sea, which had been a rough one—I did not seem able to make out whether it was our train or the other that was in motion when this occurred. Presently my eyes found a refuge in the contemplation of a massive column within sight. So long as they rested there, all was simple. I saw it was the others that were in motion, and we were quiet.