A few moments later Anna sallied out from the house with Frieda, both carrying well-stored dinner pails.
“No matter,” said Anna, smiling at the sudden diversion from her poetic inspiration; “it is better to live brotherhood than to sing brotherhood. But some day, maybe, yet, I shall sing.”
CHAPTER XXXI
Heaven’s gift takes earth’s abatement!
He who smites the rock and spreads the water,
Bidding drink and live a crowd beneath him,
Even he, the minute makes immortal,
Proves, perchance, but mortal in the minute,
Desecrates, belike, the deed in doing.
—Robert Browning.