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.
I will not dwell on the reflection. A glimpse into this hell ought to
suffice, (though we to whom imagery comes unbidden, and cannot be
banished at will, have to bear much more than occasional glimpses;) a
glimpse ought to suffice to set all to work to procure for every one of
these sufferers, bread and warmth, if possible, and as soon as
possible; but above everything, and without the loss of an hour, an
entrance upon their spiritual birthright. Every man, and every woman,
however wise and tender appearing and designing to be, who for an hour
helps to keep closed the entrance to the region of ideas,--who stands
between sufferers and great thoughts, (which are the angels of
consolation sent by God to all to whom he has given souls,) are, in so
far, ministers of hell,--not themselves inflicting torment, but
intercepting the influences which would assuage or overpower it. Let the
plea be heard of us sufferers who know well the power of ideas,--our
plea for the poor,--that, while we are contriving for all to be fed and
cherished by food and fire, we may meanwhile kindle the immortal
vitality within them, and give them that ethereal solace and sustenance
which was meant to be shared by all, “without money and without price.”
It seems but just (if we may venture so to speak), that there should be
the renovating power in ideas that I have described, for our worst
sufferings arise from an unmitigated power of ideas in another sort. I
am not qualified by experience to speak of severe continued bodily
torment, but all testimony seems to concur with all our experience,
that there is no such instrument of torture as a besetting thought. The
mere description of the suffering, given by those who know it, seems to
have wrought upon the general mind, for a kind of shudder goes round
when it is mentioned, though it can no more be conceived of by the gay
and occupied, than the continual dropping of water on the head can be
imagined by him whose transactions with the element consist in a plunge
bath every morning. It is known, however, that herculean men have shrunk
to shadows under the infliction, that it has reduced heroes to tremble
at the whispering wind, or the striking of the clock, that it turns the
raven-hair gray, lets down genius into idiocy, and starves the most
vigorous life into an atrophy. How then are the sick to meet this woe,
which comes upon them with force exactly proportioned to their weakness!
If every sick prisoner in our land were questioned, and could and would
answer truly, I believe all would reply (all who have minds) that their
worst pangs are in the soul. For the moment,--for the hour,--no agony
is, I know, to be compared with some pains of body; but when the
question is of months and years (including the seasons of delicious
reaction from bodily pains), I am confident that the peculiar misery of
our condition--subjection to a besetting thought--will be owned to
absorb all others. Whether the thought relate to any intellectual
matter, or whether it be self-abasement and self-weariness at the
perpetually-recurring apparition of sins, follies, trifling old
misadventures and misbehaviour, or whether some more serious cause of
remorse, the tormenting and weakening effects are much alike; the cold
horror at waking up to the thought in the middle of the night, knowing
that we shall sleep no more; the misery of opening our eyes upon a new
day, with the spell of the thought full upon us; the dread of giving
ourselves up to thinking, and yet the inability to read, while the enemy
is hovering about the page; the faint resolution, broken almost as
surely as formed, not to speak of this trouble to our nearest and
closest friend, and the ending in speaking of it, in our agony, to many
besides. O! there is no aching, no shooting or throbbing pain of fibre
or nerve that can (taken with its alternations) compare in misery with
this! Even the anticipation becomes in time the worst, though the bodily
pain is known to be real and unavoidable, while the ideal one is clearly
seen to be baseless, or enormously exaggerated. The close observer of a
sick sufferer may see the drops stand on the forehead, and the quiver
pass over the lip, at the bare thought of the certain return of a
periodical pain; but worse to endure is the sickening of the soul, at
the certainty that at such an hour we shall be under the spiritual
dominion of a haunting demon, the foe, as foolish as cruel, whom we defy
now with our reason, but shall then succumb to in every faculty. Here is
an ordeal for the proud! yet it is not less fearful to the humble; for
the humble can no more dispense with self-respect than the proud.
Some may wonder at such a history of an unknown trouble,--some who, when
anything harasses them, mount a horse, and gallop over the sea-sands or
the race-course, or visit their friends or the theatre, or resort to
music, or romp with children. Let them remember that we cannot do these
things,--that the very weakness which subjects us to these troubles,
forbids our escape from them. We know, as well as they, that if once we
could feel the open air upon our brows, our feet on the grass, our
bodies in exercise and vigour, all would be well with us; but, as we
cannot use these remedies, the knowledge is of no immediate avail. If we
can get to the window and look abroad, that is well, as far as it goes;
but we are most subject to our tyrant in the night, and in
midwinter,--at times when we cannot look abroad; and it may even happen,
too, that the tyrant dims the sun at noon-day, and blots out the
landscape, or renders us blind to it. What then is to be done? We evade
the misery, when we can, by stirring books, (the most objective that can
be had), or by seeing what we can of the world by the telescope, or by
resorting to some sweet familiar spring of poetry; but this last
expedient is impaired by the fear of mixing painful associations with
pleasures too sacred and dear to be endangered. Or we defy the foe in
reckless anguish, or we endure in silent patience.
But there is something far better to be done,--not always; but still,
not seldom. We can turn the forces of ideas against themselves--meet
them with their own weapons. We can call in the power of an idea to
overcome the tyranny of another idea; and then we come off conquerors,
and with a soul-felt joy.
It is a joy to recur, in memory or imagination, to any moral conflict,
past or possible, in which all our faculties are needed, and wherein
that force is at least conceived to be employed which must otherwise
corrode us. But if any such enterprise actually presents
itself--confronts us at the moment--how great is the blessing! It may
bring toil and difficulty to ourselves, and doubt and blame from others;
but if it be clear to ourselves, how keen is the sense of life it gives
at some seasons, though it may overpower our weakness at others! It
seems hard, when we are feeble and suffering, to have irksome labour to
do, to have to oppose the wishes and feelings of some whom we love, and
to arouse argument when our longing is for unbroken and lasting rest:
but, if our duty be but clear to ourselves, (or for the most part clear,
with doubts only in our most sickly hours,) what a new position we find
ourselves in, permitted once more to take the offensive side against
evil, in alternation with the weary perpetual defensive posture! Happy
they, who have been brought up in allegiance to Duty, more or less
strict; and happiest they whose loyalty has been the strictest! In the
hour of nature’s feebleness, and apparent decay, they find themselves
under the eye and hand of the Physician of souls, who has for them a
cordial of heavenly virtue--of heavenly virtue for them, but of no
virtue to such as have let their moral nature take its chance, and who,
in their hour of extreme need, are no more capable of spiritual
enterprise than of a bodily flight beyond the precincts of their pain.
They must languish in self-corrosion; while they who happily find how
Duty gives “power to the faint,” “mount up with wings as eagles.” With
every emergency of singular or unpopular moral action, every occasion
for saying with courage a true word, or advocating a neglected
cause--with every opportunity, in short, of spiritual enterprise, they
soar afresh, and their eyes kindle anew in the light of life.