CHAPTER VI WIDOWHOOD AND WORK _Labor omnia vincit_ Alone! ’Tis often harder to live than to die. Schopenhauer says happiness is only a delusion of youth and childhood; anyway, my work now began. Hard work; collar-work, uphill and unceasing. The work of a professional woman, not the pleasant dipping into the inkpot as amateur fancy led. Despite advice showered on me I refused to give up my “home.” Many things were sold, the carriages and saddles among them, but I stuck to the “home.” The old family silver was sent to the bank, the ancestors’ china packed away; the house was let for two years until the worker should feel her feet. But those two years were destined to be more than doubled before I should sit down once more on my own hearth, among my beloved household gods. Now that I had to face the world on my own and take up my pen seriously, the few pounds that dilettante work had brought in before—to be distributed in charity—must be doubled and quadrupled. * * * * * A school-fellow—the native of Finland whom I have already mentioned—was staying with us in England that spring. She had often talked of her wonderful country—her beloved Suomi—with its eight hundred miles of coastline, and literally thousands of islands, ranging in size from tiny rocks to habitable portions of land. She had often done her best to persuade us to go there, but it seemed a long way and there was no particular reason for the journey. Now, when my husband had passed away, she persuaded me anew to pack my trunk and accompany her to Finland. Change of scene and thought would be good for me, and I could gather material for a book. We started within a week, and thus, on a brilliant morning early in June, in 1896, our vessel steamed into Helsingfors.