depression, the thrill of joy, the throb of pain, the awakening, the
wonder, the purpose, and the longing! It was all a dream--all but the
form and the face of one girl graduate, and the title of her essay,
"The Real and the Ideal."

I do not know what large and lofty sentiments she uttered; I only
remember the way she looked them. I did not hear the words she read;
but I still feel the absolute fitness of her theme--how real her simple
white frock, her radiant face, her dark hair! And how ideal!

I had seen perfection. Here was the absolute, the final, the ideal,
the indispensable! And I was fourteen! Now I am past forty; and upon
the kitchen clothes-dryer hangs the Dustless-Duster.

No, I have not lost the vision. The daughter of that girl, the image
of her mother, slipped into my classroom the other day. Nor have I
faltered in the quest. The search goes on, and must go on; for however
often I get it, only to cast it aside, the indispensable, the ultimate,
must continue to be indispensable and ultimate, until, some day--

What matters how many times I have had it, to discover every time that
it is only a piece of cheesecloth, ordinary cheesecloth, dyed black and
stamped with red letters? The search must go on, notwithstanding the
clutter in the kitchen closet. The cellar is crowded with
Dustless-Dusters, too; the garret is stuffed with them. There is
little else besides them anywhere in the house. And this was an empty
house when I moved into it, a few years ago.

As I moved in, an old man moved out, back to the city whence a few
years before he had come; and he took back with him twelve two-horse