in dissatisfaction with others,--is no less common,--unreasonable
dissatisfaction with one’s self. This lowering, depraving tendency to
self-contempt requires for its establishment as a fault of temper, long
protraction or permanence of illness: but when once established, it is
as serious a fault of temper as can be entertained. Where religious
faith and trust are insufficient for the need, this temper is almost a
necessary consequence of any degree of mental and moral activity in a
sick prisoner. The retrospect of one’s own life, from the stillness of
the sick room, is unendurable to any considerate person, except in the
light of the deepest religious humility; and the strongest faith in the
all-wise ordering of the moral world, is no more than sufficient to
counteract that sickening which spreads from the distressed body to the
anxious heart, when intervals of ease and lightness are few and brief.
When to the pains and misgivings of such perpetual retrospect are added
the burdens of a sense of present and permanent uselessness, and of
overwhelming gratitude for services received from hour to hour,--there
is no self-respect in the world that will, unaided, support cheerfulness
and equanimity.
Without self-respect, there can be none of that healthy freedom of
spirit which animates others to freedom, and exerts that influence which
is ascribed to “a good temper,” which removes hesitancy from the
transaction of the daily business of life, and so permits life to appear
in its natural aspect. Instead of this, where the spirit has lost its
security of innocence, unconsciousness, or self-reliance, and become
morbidly sensitive to failures and dangers,--where it has become
cowardly in conscience, shrinking from all moral enterprise, and
dreading moral injury from every occurrence, the temper of anxiety must
spread from the sufferer to all about him, whether the causes of his
trouble are intelligible to them or not. Moral progress, or even holding
what he has gained, seems out of the question for one so shaken; for,
constantly feeling, as he does, that he cannot afford to do the least
questionable thing, and every act being questionable in one aspect or
another, he can only preserve one incessant shrinking attitude before
the fearful ghost of Conscience, instead of bestirring himself to prove
and use his new opportunities of spiritual exertion and conquest. This
abasement may co-exist with the most perfect sweetness and gentleness
of speech and manners, and the sufferer may enjoy great credit for not
being irritable, when he is in a far lower moral state than often
co-exists with irritability.
One effect, deplorably mean and perilous, of such a tendency, is
immediately opposed to the mood which prompts hasty words and
complaints. The sufferer’s spirits rise in proportion to the pain he
experiences. He is never so happy as when he feels his paroxysms coming
on,--not only because pain of body acts as relief from the gnawing
misery of his mind, but because every tangible proof that he is under
chastening and discipline, conveys to him a sense of his
dignity--reassures him, as a child of Providence. From this may follow
too naturally his learning to regard pain as a qualification for
ease--as a purchase-money of future good--a superstition as low and
depraving as almost any the mind can entertain.
To persons in health, and at ease, this detail of the tempers of a
sick-room may well appear fanciful, irrational, and shocking enough. But
the time may come when they may recognise it as true; and, meanwhile, it
will be their wisest and kindest way to receive it with belief. It may
possibly prove the key, even now, to a mystery which otherwise they can
make nothing of, when they see one under tedious suffering, gentle but
low when at ease--evidently borne down by speechless sadness--while, on
the first return of pain, the spirits rise, and the more restless is the
distressed body, the more at ease does the spirit appear. Such a state
may be morbid and perilous; but, the more it is so, the more desirable
it becomes that the attending friend should have an insight into the
case, and a respectful and tender sympathy with it.
As to the remedy, it is easy to say that it is to be found in a cheerful
trust in the Ordainer of our lot. While no one questions this, who can
show how this trust is to be made available at every need, when the
workings of the spirit are all confused, its vision impaired, and its
powers distorted? The only advice that even experience can give in such
an instance, is to revive healthy old associations, to occupy the morbid
powers with objects from without, and to use the happiest rather than
the lowest seasons for leading the mind to a consideration of its
highest relations. As the case is opposite to that most commonly
discoursed of in connexion with the sick-room, so must a wise
ministration be also opposite to common notions; the appeal must be, in
seasons of ease and enjoyment, to the sense of dependence on God; and,
in times of mental distress, to the principles of endurance and
self-mastery.
Other tempers of the sick-room are more easily understood by those
without. The particularity about trifles is one. This, though often
reaching a point of absurdity, should be scrupulously indulged, because
no one but the sufferer can be fully aware of the annoyance of want of
order in so confined a space and range of objects. A healthy person, who
can go everywhere at pleasure, leaving litters to be put away by
servants during absence, can have no idea of the oppression felt by a
feeble invalid, when looking round upon the confusion left in one little
room by careless visitors,--chairs standing in all directions, books
thrown down here and there, and work or papers strewed on the floor. It
is easy to laugh at such trifles--easy to the invalid himself at times;
but if any healthy person will recal his feelings during convalescence
from any former illness, he will remember the sort of painful sympathy
with which he saw the servants going about their work--how his frame
ached at hearing of a long walk, or even at seeing his friends sitting
upright upon chairs. If he considers what it must be to have this set of
feelings for life, he will think the particularity of the invalid not
only worth indulging, but less absurd than in the eye of reason it
appears; and if it be too much to expect of men, it may be hoped that
women visiting the sick may be careful to leave the spaces of the room
clear, not to shake the sofa or the table, to put up books upon their
shelves, and leave all in such a state that the invalid may, immediately
on being left alone, sink down to such rest as can be found.
No one challenges this particularity when it relates to hours. The most
careless observer must know that it is illness of itself to a sick
person to have to wait for food or medicines, or to be put off from
regular sleep. Meantime, the invalid cannot keep too careful a watch
upon the increase of his own particularity--his refuge in custom. There
is something shocking to us invalids, when we fix our meditation upon
this, in our attachments to our own comforts, and cowardice about
dispensing with them. I have myself observed, with inexpressible shame,
that, with the newspaper in my hand, no details of the peril of empires,
or of the starving miseries of thousands of my countrymen, could keep my
eye from the watch before me, or detain my attention one second beyond
the time when I might have my opiate. For two years, too, I wished and
intended to dispense with my opiate for once, to try how much there was
to bear, and how I should bear it: but I never did it, strong as was the
shame of always yielding; and I have now long given up all thoughts of
it. Moreover, though as fully convinced as ever of the moral evil and
danger of being wedded to custom and habits, I have now a far too
decided and satisfactory impression that the sick-room is not the place
for a conquest of that kind, and that it is enough if the patient breaks
through his trammels when he casts off his illness, and emerges again
into the world, which is the same thing as acquiescing in the invalid
for life being a life-long slave to custom and habit. Bad as this is, I
do not see how it is to be helped; for the suffering and injury caused
by irregularity of methods, and uncertainty of arrangements in the
sick-room, seem to show that freedom of this kind does not belong to an
invalid life: and perhaps the most that ought to be required or desired
of the sick person is, rather to welcome than complain of any necessary
interruption to his ways, by a change of nurse, or other accidental
interference with ordinary comforts,--not to extend his particularity
beyond the bounds of his own little domain, and no more to expect the
healthy and active to be, in their own homes, as strict and punctual as
himself, than to desire the servants to leave off rubbing tables and
lighting fires, because it makes his frame ache to think of such work.
If he can preserve sympathy enough in the impulses of the active abroad,
he may hope for indulgence in his particularity at home.
There are other liabilities which may be clear to observers, or easily
conceivable when mentioned. I hardly know whether we may allude, under
the head of Tempers, to the despair which I believe to be universally
felt (however discountenanced), by all, on the assault of very severe
pain. The reason may speak, and even through the lips, of hope and
courage; but the _sensation_ of which I speak is peculiar, so
peculiarly connected with bodily agony, that I cannot but believe it
felt wherever bodily agony is felt. It has nothing to do with the
courage of the soul; affords not the shadow of contradiction to
patience, fortitude, religious trust. I mean simply that when extreme
pain seizes on us, down go our spirits, fathoms deep; and, though the
soul may yet be submissive and even willing, the sickening question
rises,--“How _shall_ I bear this for five minutes? What _will_ become of
me?” And if the imagination stretches on to an hour, or hours, there is
no word but _despair_ which expresses the feeling. The by-standers can
never fully understand this suffering; no, though they may themselves
have suffered to extremity. The patient himself, in any interval, when
devoutly ready to endure again, cannot understand, nor believe in his
late emotion, or fancy that he can feel it again. As it is thus peculiar
and transient, there could be no use in mentioning it, except for two
possibilities; that some sufferer may, in the moment of anguish,
remember that the sensation has been recognised and recorded; and that
attendants, on witnessing a sudden abasement of high courage, on seeing
horror of countenance succeed a calm determination, may remember, at the
right moment, that there is that passing within of which they can have
no conception, and certainly no right to judge.
I might add, as a justification for allusion to so painful a subject,
that it may teach us to honour, in some less faint degree, the strength
of soul of those who, with any composure, die of sheer pain,--of the
most torturing diseases. If, amidst successive shocks of this despairing
sensation, their power of reaction, in the intervals, remains
unimpaired, and they retain their spiritual dignities to the end, no
degree of admiration can transcend their claims.
One strong peril to temper, in the case of a permanent invalid, I do not
remember to have seen noticed, while, I am sure, none can be more worthy
of being guarded against. By our being withdrawn from the disturbing
bustles of life in the world; by our leisure for reading and
contemplation of various sides of questions, and by our singular
opportunities for quiet reflection, we must, almost necessarily, see
further than we used to do, and further than many others do on subjects
of interest, which involve general principles. Through the post, we
hold the best kind of correspondence with the society from which we are
withdrawn; we have the opinions of the wise, and the impressions of the
active, transmitted to us, stripped of much of the passion and prejudice
in which they would have been presented in conversation. Instead of one
newspaper or pamphlet, we now have time to look over several, and can
hear all sides. Far removed from the little triumphs or disappointments
of the day, which warp the judgments of all men who have hearts to feel,
whatever may be their abstract wisdom; endowed with long night hours of
wakefulness, when our spirit of Humanity is all alive; permitted
sequestered days, when our review of historical periods may be
continuous, and when some great new idea, a stalactite of long
formation, at length descends to our level, and touches our heads, or a
diamond of thought, slowly distilled, drops into our hand as we
penetrate and explore;--when some such gain--the guerdon of our
condition--is frequently occurring, it cannot be but that--unless we are
fools, our judgments of things must be worth something more than
formerly. If formerly we associated with our equals, it cannot be but
that we must now see further than they, on such questions of the time as
interest us.
Such divergences of opinion as hence arise require care on the part both
of sick and well, if a perfectly just and generous understanding is to
be preserved between friends.
The liability of us sick is double. We are in danger of forgetting,
amidst the inevitable consciousness of our own improved insight and
foresight, that the activities of life have a corrective as well as a
disturbing influence; and that transient incidents and emotions which do
not reach us, may form real elements of a great question for the week or
the year, though lost in our abstract view of it. In this way, our
judgment may involve great imperfections, which it behoves us to
remember all the more, the less we can supply them. A worse liability is
that to our tempers, of impatience at others not seeing so far as we do.
There is something strange, disappointing and irritating, in finding
those whom we have always regarded as sensible and clear-headed, holding
some expectation which we see to be unreasonable, and offering to our
consideration some fallacy or misty notion, whose incorrectness is to
us as distinct as a cloud in the sky. While religiously careful not to
fret ourselves “because of evil doers,” being so expressly desired, we
are sadly prone to the far worse weakness of fretting ourselves because
of mistaken thinkers. We long to send by a carrier-pigeon the answer or
refutation which seems to us so clear: the post is too slow for us; and
if we do not disburden our minds of their weight of wisdom, we are apt
to spend the night in reiterating to ourselves our triumphant arguments,
in the strongest and most condensed language we can find, till,
exhausted by such efforts, at last the thought occurs to us whether
truth cannot wait,--whether, supposing us ever so right intellectually,
we are not morally wrong in our perturbation. This confession looks
foolish and humbling enough in black and white; but I cannot escape
making it, if, as I intend, I complain of some little injustice on the
other hand, sustained by us.
Where such divergences of opinion arise, men of activity (and women, no
less) are apt, whatever may be their abstract respect for closet
speculators, and reverence for sequestered sufferers, to speak with
regret, or at least with respectful compassion, of the warping
influences of seclusion and illness, as particularly illustrated by the
case in point. They attribute all differences to these causes, and never
doubt that the old agreement would exist, by the invalid’s views being
the same as their own, but for the distorting medium through which the
sick are compelled to regard events; or but for the influence which
certain parties have obtained over his mind, by service or sympathy.
This may be more or less true, in individual cases. Still, it is for the
interests of truth and temper to remind the healthy and busy that the
warp may possibly not be all on one side, and the enlightenment on the
other; and that there may be influences in the life of the meditative
invalid which may render his views more comprehensive, and his judgments
more, rather than less, sound than heretofore. If there is any
practicable test of this, it must be looked for in his habitual tone of
mind and life. Unless this proves perversion or folly, his mind must, in
justice, be held as at least as worthy of consideration as at any former
season of his life. If his fundamental opinions have undergone no
change, but rather enlargement with special modifications, they are
decidedly worthy of more respect than ever.
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.