More than two years have passed since I met one of the girls returning from a girls' conference where the depths of her nature, unstirred before had been touched and quickened into life. A passion to serve had been awakened in her and as she told me of her new visions and desires I confess that I feared for her. Here she was, the embodiment of all the charm and power of youth with a soul on fire to accomplish great things, and the temperament which does _not_ accomplish great things. When the train stopped she was met by her father, a keen, common sense, average business man who often expressed the wish that his daughter would "get busy and do something." She went home to a mother large hearted and self-sacrificing, proud of her attractive daughter and doing so much for her that little remained for her to do for herself. On Sunday she went to a formal, dignified, self-satisfied church; she attended a Sunday-school where the teacher made the lesson interesting without requiring much from the girls; she spent the afternoon with a book, the piano, and the relatives and friends who came to call. Church, home, friends, seemed content with her just as she was. She meant to do so much and to some of her friends she told with great enthusiasm her plans for future work. But the days passed as other days had passed. What became of her passion to serve, to share in the work of making life easier and happier? What became of the cry in her heart for something to do to express the new life which had fired her soul? They died. Slowly the fire was quenched by inaction, the embers grew cold, the longings were quieted, life went on as before--so easy it is to _drift_.
She has the sympathy of every one of us, the girl who "_means to_," for we also intend to do, and fail. Perhaps she learns from our vocabularies the words and phrases which so often appear in her own. "Tomorrow," she says, and "I am going to," "I intend" and "I mean some day to." She enjoys the present but all that she hopes to _do_ she puts into the future. She does not realize at first that the future always has a day of reckoning and that suddenly when one least expects it, the future meets her in the present and says, "How about this and this and this which you were going to do? The time is past. What now?" Sometimes with bitter tears, often with deep regret, always in half guilty fashion the girl answers, "Well, I really meant to do it, only--"