I think some of my hearers may demur to the view I expressed that the set-back due to militancy is the only serious one from which we have suffered. They may say that, for instance, the repeated attempts and repeated failures to get a bill through Parliament--failures which we cannot of course entirely attribute to the militants--are set-backs. But I do not think failures of this sort are set-backs at all. They are only waves on a rising tide. If in a rising tide we watch to see when a sand castle will be overwhelmed, we shall see one little wave after another approaching and receding without apparently affecting anything. One wave perhaps will get very near, and yet fail, and perhaps many succeeding waves will get even less near. But the failure of these waves does not set back the tide. That rises steadily all the time and ultimately and inevitably a wave does at length reach and overwhelm the castle. The analogy fails in one point. These waves that roll up the sandy shore have no real effect on the tide--they are mere ripples on its surface. But wisely conducted assaults on the suffrage citadel--such as attempts to pass bills or resolutions in Parliament--are more than this. They _do_ help the tide to rise. The effort is _not_ wasted even if it fails at the moment. The tide rises the faster for it. Of course such partial failures are very disappointing at the moment, especially to those who have worked hard to secure success. It is impossible for those who have thrown their whole energies into producing a wave which really will, they think, reach the castle at last, to see it roll back like its predecessors, without a sinking of heart, without a momentary feeling of hopelessness. It is depressing to have to begin again and roll up another wave, all the more because the energy needed to overcome what seems the stupidity of those who disagree with us might, we think, if set free by success be more profitably employed for the good of the world. It is difficult sometimes to keep up courage--for the young especially, for age brings more patience. But it is just because these partial failures are trying that we must restore our sense of proportion by contemplating from time to time the great progress that has been made on the whole, and so get courage for fresh effort. End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Progress of the Women's Suffrage Movement, by Eleanor Mildred Sidgwick