List of points

Disappointment. You're downhearted. Men have just taught you a lesson! As long as they thought you did not need them, offers came pouring in. The possibility that they might have to help you with hard cash — a few miserable pennies — turned their friendship into indifference.

Trust only in God and in those who, through him, are united with you.

You say you've failed! We never fail. You placed your confidence wholly in God. Nor did you neglect any human means.

Convince yourself of this truth: your success — this time, in this — was to fail. — Give thanks to our Lord… and try again!

So you have failed? You — be convinced of it — cannot fail. You haven't failed; you have gained experience. On you go!

That was a failure, a disaster: because you lost our spirit. — You well know that, as long as we act from supernatural motives, the outcome (victory? defeat? bah!) has only one name: success.

Pay little heed to what the world calls victories or defeats. How often the victor comes out defeated!

You are worried. Listen: happen what may in your interior life or in the world that surrounds you, never forget that the importance of events or of people is very relative. Take things calmly; let time pass; and then, as you view persons and happenings dispassionately and from afar, you will acquire the perspective that will enable you to see each thing in its proper place and in its true size.

If you do this, you will be more objective and you will spare yourself many causes of anxiety.