Page:Hermione and her little group of serious thinkers (1923, c1916).djvu/181

 SYMPATHY

F course, we're out of town for the summer—everybody's out of town, now—but I motor in once or twice a week to keep in touch with some of my committees.

Sociological work, for instance, keeps right up the year around.

Of course, it's not so interesting as in the winter. You see more striking contrasts in the winter, don't you think?

A couple of girl cousins of mine from Cincinnati have been here. They're interested in welfare work of all sorts.

"Hermione," they said, "we want to see the bread line."

"My dears," I said, "I don't mind showing it to you, but it's nothing much to see in summer. It's in the winter that it arouses one's deepest sympathies."

And one must keep one's sympathies aroused. Often I say to myself at night: "Have I been sympathetic today, or have I failed?"

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