Part 9

Thus does my experience moralize for both parties. If, in ordinary life, there is no peace of mind for those whose happiness depends on the good opinion of everybody, much less can there be tranquillity of mind in the sick-room for such. When we are in the world, our presence breaks down mistaken or slanderous allegations, and we are sure to be seen as we are, and to be rightly understood, by large numbers of persons,--by all, indeed, whose opinion is of value to us. But, while sequestered in the sick-room, we are, in point of reputation, wholly at the mercy of those who speak of us. It is true, most persons are so humane, and those about us are so touched by our affliction, as that the best construction is put on our manners and conduct by the greater number of reporters. But it is strange and fortunate if there be not, among our acquaintance, some intrusive person whom we have to keep at a distance,--some meddler whom we have to check, some well-meaning mischief-maker, of impenetrable complacency, who will most affectionately and compassionately report us as sadly changed, unable to value our best friends, or to estimate the most important services. Whether charges like these arise, or old misrepresentations reappear, while we are invisible and defenceless, we may be miserable enough if we let such things trouble us. Those least in danger, as to temper, are persons of note, who have had former experience of the diversities of the world’s opinion. They can smile and wait. But it may be easily conceived that such incidents may be trying to invalids who are the subjects of notoriety for the first time,--of that sort of notoriety which affliction creates, through the universal sympathy of human hearts. Under so new an experience, the sufferer may feel more vexation by the accidental knowledge of one unjust representation of his state of temper, than cheered by a hundred evidences of the esteem and sympathy of those about him. For the evil there is no help; but there are abundant resources against the vexation,--the same resources which enable the humble and hoping Christian, whether strong or weak, rich or poor in outward blessings, to go through good or evil report with a heart tranquil in Divine Trust, and occupied with human love.

BECOMING INURED.

“Sunt homines qui cum patientiâ moriuntur: sunt autem quidam perfecti qui cum patientiâ vivunt.” ST. AUGUSTIN.

“No cruel guard of diligent cares, that keep Crowned woes awake, as things too wise for sleep: But reverend discipline, religious fear, And soft obedience find sweet biding here!

The self-remembering soul sweetly recovers Her kindred with the stars: not basely hovers Below--but meditates the immortal way Home to the source of light and intellectual day.” CRASHAW.

We hear, every day, benevolent and compassionate persons, in discussing the woes of sufferers, dwelling on the thought of such sufferers becoming inured; and we see them, if possible, reposing on this as the closing and conclusive idea. How natural this is! How often and how undoubtingly we did it ourselves, in our days of ease! But how differently it sounds now! How quickly do we detect in it the discharge and dismissal of uneasy sympathies! How infallibly do we see how far it may be true; and what a tale could we tell of what is included in the phrase, “becoming inured,” where it may be most truly applied! of what experience is involved in the process, where it is shortest and easiest!

I was lately speaking to a tender-hearted woman, who had known suffering, but not torment, of more than one case of persons who, dying slowly under a torturing disease, simply and naturally declared, shortly before death, the season of their illness to have been the happiest part of their lives. There are different ways of explaining this fact, which, though I always believed it, I did not till lately understand. My friend, however, found no difficulty. She said, in a tone of pitying tenderness, but of perfect decision, “O! they become inured to it.” I replied by some slight description of the suffering in the case which had impressed me most, and asked if she thought use and experience could soften pain like that. “O yes,” she again said, “they become inured to it. That is certainly the thing.”

Is it so? I am persuaded it is not. To the great majority of evils men may become inured; but not to all. To almost every kind, and to vast degrees of privation, moral and physical, they may become inured; and to chronic sufferings of mind and body; but I am convinced that there is no more possibility of becoming inured to acute agony of body than to paroxysms of remorse--the severest of moral pains. For the sake of both sufferers and sympathisers, it would be well that this should be thoroughly understood, that aid may not fall short, nor relief be looked for in the wrong direction.

The truth is, as all will declare who are subject to a frequently recurring pain, a familiar pain becomes more and more dreaded, instead of becoming lightly esteemed in proportion to its familiarity. The general sense of alarm which it probably occasioned when new, may have given way and disappeared before a knowledge of consequences, and a regular method of management or endurance; but the pain itself becomes more odious, more oppressive, more feared, in proportion to the accumulation of experience of weary hours, in proportion to the aggregate of painful associations which every visitation revives. When it is, moreover, considered that the suffering part of the body is, if not recovering, growing continually more diseased and susceptible of pain, it will appear how little truth there is in the supposition of tortured persons becoming inured to torture.

The inuring process which I hold to be impossible in the cases mentioned is, however, practicable and frequent in almost all cases of inferior suffering. But, while all join in thanking God for this, there is a wide difference in the view taken of the fact by those who feel and those who only observe it. To the last, it is a clear and satisfactory truth, shining on the rock of futurity, which they can sit and gaze at from the window of their ease, commenting on the blessing of such a beacon-light to those who need it. To those who need it, meanwhile, it is far far off--sometimes hidden and sometimes despaired of, as the waves and the billows go over them, and the point can be reached only through sinkings and struggles, and fears and anguish, with scanty breathing-times between. Why is this not admitted in the case of the invalid as it is in that of the person losing a sense? One who is becoming blind or deaf is sure to grow inured in time; but through what a series of keen mortifications, of bitter privations! Every one sees and understands this; while in the case of the invalid, many spring to the conclusion, overlooking the process of discipline which has, in that case, as in the other, to be undergone. It should never be forgotten how different a thing it is to read off this lesson from the clear print of assertion or observation, and to learn it experimentally, at a scarcely perceptible rate, “line upon line and precept upon precept;” when every line is burnt in by pain, and the long series of precepts are registered by their degrees of anguish.

When the nature of the process has been sufficiently dwelt upon to be understood--that the hearts of the happy may be duly softened, and those of the suffering duly cheered by sympathy--then let all good be said of the inuring process; at least all the good that is true; and that is much. No wise man will declare that it is the best and healthiest condition for any one. No wise man will deny that the healthiest moral condition is found where there is the most abundant happiness. Happiness is clearly the native, heavenly atmosphere of the soul--that in which it is “to live and move and have its being” hereafter, and in proportion to its share of which, now and here, it makes its heavenly growth. The divinest souls--the loftiest, most disinterested and devoted--all unite in one testimony, that they have been best when happiest; that they were then most energetic and spontaneously devoted--least self-conscious. This must and may joyfully be granted. But, as the mystery of evil is all round about us, as we have no choice whether or not to suffer, we may be freely thankful next for the inuring process, as being the possible means, though inferior to happiness, of divine ends.

Far, indeed, does the sufferer feel from reaching those ends, when he contrasts his own state with that of the truly happy man. When he looks upon one so “little lower than the angels,” on his frame, so nerved and graced by health, his eye emitting the glow of the soul, his voice uttering the music of the heart, his hand strong to effect his purposes, his head erect in the liberty of ease, his intellect and soul free from perplexities and cares, and not only at leisure for the service of others, but restless to impart to them of his own overflowing good; when the sufferer contemplates such a being, and contrasts him with himself, he may well feel how much he has to do, to approach this higher order of his race. Aware of his own internal tremblings at the touch of the familiar pain, sinking in weakness before the bare idea of enterprise, abashed by self-consciousness, smarting under tenderness of conscience, perplexed and bewildered by the intricacy and vastness of human woe, of which his own suffering gives him too keen a sense, well may he who is in the bonds of pain look up humbly to him who walks gloriously in joy; and the humility might sink into abjectness if the matter ended here, if the inuring process were not at work. But herein is ample ground for hope now, and greatness in the future; and if a secondary, still a sufficient greatness.

The sufferer may well be satisfied, and needs be abashed before no mortal, if he obtains, sooner or later, the power to achieve divine ends through the experience of his lot. If, beginning by encountering his familiar pain, and putting down the dread of it by looking merely to the comfort of the reaction when it ceases, he attains at length to conquering pain by the power of ideas; if, ease of body being out of the question, he makes activity of spirit suffice him; if, his own future in this life being a blank, he becomes absorbed in that of other men; if, imprisoned by disease, kingdoms and races are not wide enough for his sympathies; if, as this or that sense is extinguished, or this or that limb is laid fast, his spirit becomes more alive in every faculty; if familiarity with pain enables him so to deal with it, as resolutely to cut off every morbid spiritual growth to which he has been made liable by pain; if, instead of succumbing to unfavourable conditions, he has struggled against dwarfage and distortion, and diligently wrought at the renewal of the inward man, while the outward frame was decaying day by day, he may surmount his humiliations, whatever cause for humility maybe left by so impaired an existence. For him the inuring process will have done its best.

For those who from constitutional irritability cannot become inured, there is, daily opening, and at shorter distance, the grave, where “the weary are at rest.”

For those on whom the inuring process acts amiss,--petrifying instead of vivifying the soul, we may and must hope, on the ground that they are in the hands of one whose ways and thoughts are not ours, nor within our ken. They are a mystery to us, like the cankered buds and blighted blossoms of our gardens. Or it may be, that there is no corruption or decay, but only torpidity, induced by the protraction of their polar night of adversity. It may be, that their life is only hidden away for a season, and that when the breath of the eternal spring shall dissolve their icy bonds, they may start forth as new-born, and their preceding deadness be mercifully counted to them but as a long dream.

There is no danger, no false security to one’s-self, in hoping thus much for them; for one must be as far from reconciling one’s-self to their condition as from preferring dreams to contemplation, or the sleep of the frame to the life of the spirit.

POWER OF IDEAS IN THE SICK-ROOM.

“Turn you to the strong hold, ye prisoners of hope.” ZECHARIAH.

“Wherefore, for virtue’s sake I can be well content The sweetest time in all my life To deem in thinking spent.” LORD VAUX.

It is amusing (in a somewhat mournful way, however,) to sick people, to observe how children and other inexperienced persons believe, notwithstanding all explanation and assurance, that it must be a very pleasant thing to be ill--gently ill, so as not to be groaning with pain, or confined to bed. They derive an impression of comfort and luxury from what they see, which it is impossible to weaken by descriptions of suffering which they have never felt, and cannot conceive of. They see the warm room in winter, with its well-cushioned couch, and think how comfortable it must be never to have the toes frozen, or a shower of sleet driven in one’s face. The fire in the chamber all night--the flowers and books that lie strewed about all day--the pictures on the walls--the dainty meals--the punctual and careful attendance--these are things which make illness look extremely pleasant to the healthiest people, who are those that have the keenest relish for pleasure. Few of such are there who have that insight of sympathy which drew from my little friend at my elbow the sighing exclamation--“Ah! but there is the unhealthiness! that spoils everything!”

Even if the ordinary run of inexperienced persons could see the whole of our day, I should not expect them to understand the matter much better. If they saw us turn from the dainty meal, and wear a look of distress and fear, in the midst of everything that to them indicates comfort and security, I imagine that they could only wonder, till they knew for themselves how bodily distress excludes pleasure from outward objects, and how the mental weaknesses which prevail amidst an unnatural and difficult mode of life convert the most innocent and ordinary occurrences into occasions of apprehension, or of self-distrust or self-disgust.

If they must witness the painful and humbling aspect of the mode of life, it is much to be wished that they might also see another fact belonging to it--to them, perhaps, no less mysterious than the misery; but not the less salutary for that, as it may teach them that there is much, both of good and evil, in our condition, which it will be wiser in them to observe than to judge of.

The benign mystery which I would have them witness is, the power of ideas over us. A child knows something of this in his own way. In wartime, little boys leave their pet plays to run about and tell everybody the news of a great battle. A child cannot eat the best dinner in the world on the day of first going to the play. The doll is thrown into a corner, when news comes of any acquaintance being burnt out in the middle of the night; or when anecdotes are telling of any old martyr who suffered heroically. In their own way, children are conscious, when reminded, of the power of ideas; but they cannot conceive of our way of experiencing the same force--to us so renovating! If it is at times surprising to the most enlightened and sympathising of our companions, it may well be astonishing to those in the early stages of observation.

They see, with a sort of awe, how priceless are certain pictures to us, in comparison with all others. They hear us speak of the landscapes, the portraits, the graceful and beautiful images which adorn the walls; but they observe how, when restless and distressed, we steal a glance upwards at one picture, and find something there which seems to set us right--to rally us at once. If such a picture as the CHRISTUS CONSOLATOR of Scheffer be within view of the sick-couch--(that talisman, including the consolations of eighteen centuries!--that mysterious assemblage of the redeemed Captives and tranquillised Mourners of a whole Christendom!--that inspired epitome of suffering and solace!)--it may well be a cause of wonder, almost amounting to alarm, to those who, not having needed, have never felt its power. If there were now burnings or drownings for sorcery, that picture, and some who possess it, would soon be in the fire, or at the bottom of a pond. No mute operation of witchcraft, or its dread, could exceed the silent power of that picture over sufferers. Again--if the inexperienced chance to see us in an unfavourable hour, when our self-control cannot rise beyond constraint--when our words are fewest, however gentle the voice--when our posture is rigid, because we will not be restless, and our faces tell the distress we think we are concealing; if, at such a time, the post comes in, how miraculous must seem the change to one who does not know what we have just read in letters or newspapers--and, perhaps, could not understand its efficacy, if he had seen. He sees us start up on the couch, hears us become voluble, and talk in a free and joyous tone;--beholds us eat and drink, without thinking what is put before us;--perhaps is surprised at a flow of tears, which seems to dissolve the misery, whatever it was; and finds, to his amazement, that all this is caused by something to him so dry as the appointment of a committee in the House--a speech on some hustings--an improved quarter’s revenue;--or, perhaps, something not dry, but merely curious, and to him anything but moving,--a new appearance attending an eclipse--an arrangement for embanking the Nile, or cutting through the Isthmus of Panama, or some vast discovery in science or the arts. He may, again, see the relaxation yet more complete,--may perceive, without a word being spoken, that we are well for the hour,--the eye swimming in happiness, the voice full of gentle joy; so that he is convinced that illness does not “spoil everything.” In this case, some comfort has come, too sacred to be told,--at least then; some news or appeal from the primary christians and confessors of our day,--the American abolitionists,--some opening to us for doing some little service,--or, as not seldom happens, some word of true sympathy which rouses our spirit, as the trumpet stirs the war-horse,--some sudden light showing our position on our pilgrim path,--some hint of our high calling,--some apt warning of a pregnant truth, administered by a wise and loving comforter.

If I were asked whether there is any one idea more potential than any other over every sort of suffering, in a mode of life like ours, most hearers of the question would make haste to answer for me that there is such a variety of potential ideas, suited to such wide differences of mood of mind and body, that it must be impossible to measure the strength of any one. Nevertheless, I should reply that there is one, to me more powerful at present than I can now conceive any single idea to have been in any former states of my mind. It is this; that it matters infinitely less what we _do_ than what we _are_. I can conceive the amazement of many at this announcement,--of many even who admit its truth, and feelingly admit it, as I myself did when it was first brought home to me from the printed page of one friend by the heart-breathing voice of another. I care not who wonders, and who only half understands, while there are some few to whom this thought may be what it is to me. No one will be so short-sighted as to apply it as an excuse for indolence in the active and healthy,--so clear is it that such cannot _be_ what they ought to be, unless they _do_ all they can. But perhaps it is only the practised in human sorrows who can see far enough into the boundless truth of this thought to appreciate its worth to us. Suffice it here that it has the power I ascribe to it, and that we whom it _has_ consoled long to administer it when we see old age restless in its infirmity, activity disappointed of its scope or instruments, or the most useful agents of society, the most indispensable members of families paralysed by disease. We long to whisper it in the dungeons of Spielberg, where it opens a career within the narrowest recess of those thick walls. We long to send a missive to every couch, of the sick, to every arm-chair of the aged and the blind, reminding them that the great work of life is ours still,--through all modes of life but that of the madhouse,--the formation of a heavenly soul within us. If we cannot pursue a trade or a science, or keep house, or help the state, or write books, or earn our own bread or that of others, we can do the work to which all this is only subsidiary,--we can cherish a sweet and holy temper,--we can vindicate the supremacy of mind over body,--we can, in defiance of our liabilities, minister pleasure and hope to the gayest who come prepared to receive pain from the spectacle of our pain; we can, here as well as in heaven’s courts hereafter, reveal the angel growing into its immortal aspect, which is the highest achievement we could propose to ourselves, or that grace from above could propose to us, if we had a free choice of all possible conditions of human life. If any doubt the worth of the thought, from the common habit of overlooking the importance of what is _done_ in its character of index of what the agent _is_, let him resort at once to the fountain-head of spiritual exemplification, and say whether it matters most what Christ was or what he did.

The worth of this particular thought is a separate consideration from that of the worth of any sound abstract idea to sufferers liable to a besetting personal recollection, or doubt, or care. But, before I speak of this, I must allude to a subject which causes inexpressible pain whenever it occurs to us sick prisoners. I have said how unavailing is luxury when the body is distressed and the spirit faint. At such times, and at all times, we cannot but be deeply grieved at the conception of the converse of our own state, at the thought of the multitude of poor suffering under privation, without the support and solace of great ideas. It is sad enough to think of them on a winter’s night, aching with cold in every limb, and sunk as low as we in nerve and spirits, from their want of sufficient food. But this thought is supportable in cases where we may fairly hope that the greatest ideas are cheering them as we are cheered; that there is a mere set-off of their cold and hunger against our disease; and that we are alike inspired by spiritual vigour in the belief that our Father is with us,--that we are only encountering the probations of our pilgrimage,--- that we have a divine work given us to carry out, now in pain and now in joy. There is comfort in the midst of the sadness and shame when we are thinking of the poor who can reflect and pray,--of the old woman who was once a punctual and eager attendant at church,--of the wasting child who was formerly a Sunday-scholar,--of the reduced gentleman or destitute student who retain the privilege of their humanity,--of “looking before and after.” But there is no mitigation of the horror when we think of the savage poor, who form so large a proportion of the hungerers,--when we conceive of them suffering the privation of all good things at once,--suffering under the aching cold, the sinking hunger, the shivering nakedness,--without the respite or solace afforded by one inspiring or beguiling idea.