“Again the play of pain
Shoots o’er his features, as the sudden gust
Crisps the reluctant lake.”
_Byron._
(_Throb_--_throb_--_throb_--) Oh this marrow-piercing, jaw-torturing,
peace-destroying pain!--(_throb_--_throb_--_throb_--) Sure the rack
were a plaything, lunar-caustic a balsam, aqua-fortis the very essence
of pleasure, compared with this soul-and-body-distracting torment--this
anguish double-refined, this agony of agonies. “A little patience,
my dear sir,” interrupted a soothing voice. ‘Patience!’ exclaimed I,
‘talk of patience to a cubless bear, a dinnerless wolf, an officeless
demagogue--but not to me. Would you look for moderation in a maniac?
wisdom in an idiot? gentility in a clown? Who expects patience of a man
driven to distraction by the tooth-ache?--(_Throb_--_throb_--_throb_--)
Oh! that arrow-like pang----the most excruciating of all!--And I
clapped my hands to my jaws, and springing from my chair, shrieked in
agony. “Let’s see your tooth,” grumbled a rough unfeeling voice--and
before me stood a veteran Esculapian, with his lancet and forceps
fearfully conspicuous. ‘On with your instrument, Doctor,’ exclaimed
I, ‘and out with it, though I die under the operation.’ My head was
soon made stationary between two brawny hands, and my jaws extended
to their widest angle; the knife had unbared the offending dental,
and the dreaded instrument was ready for its work--but suddenly the
pain subsided--my feelings changed--I looked on the ‘cold iron’ with
horror--‘No! I’ll not have it out now;’--and the man of forceps left me.
Again felt I the pangs of a ‘jumping’ tooth-ache.
Powders--drops--essential oils--remedies of every genus and species
were tried in vain. Even red-hot iron was of no avail--the nerve was
fire-proof. Throwing myself into a rocking chair, with elbows on my
knees and hands on my jaws, I leaned over the fire in moody anguish.
“The mind,” say physicians, “exerts a sympathetic influence upon the
body.” ‘Perhaps then,’ thought I, ‘the disease may not be wholly
physical, after all;’--and I began to reflect that suffering often
apparently finds relief in association and sympathy. The hard-featured
mariner takes delight in tales of naval misery; the veteran warrior,
in descriptions of battles; the love-lorn maiden, in ‘doleful tales
of love and woe;’ the disappointed suitor in dark maledictions and
long-drawn vituperations, against all that bear the name of woman.
With this in mind, I glanced at my book-case for some treatise adapted
to my own circumstances. Nothing presented itself more to the point
than the ‘Works of Robert Burns.’ His ‘Address to the Tooth-ache’
was soon before me. I read it from beginning to end with profound
attention. The difficult Scotticisms were explained in the glossary. I
sought the meaning of every word--I entered fully into the spirit of
the piece. How beautiful!
“My curse upon thy venom’d stang,
That shoots my tortur’d gums alang;
An’ thro’ my lugs gies monie a twang,
Wi’ gnawing vengeance;
Tearing my nerves wi’ bitter pang,
Like racking engines!
When fevers burn, or ague freezes,
Rheumatics gnaw, or colic squeezes,
Our neighbor’s sympathy may ease us,
Wi’ pitying moan;
But thee--thou hell o’ a’ diseases,
Ay mocks our groan!
Adown my beard the slavers trickle!
I throw the wee stools o’er the meikle,
As round the fire the giglets keckle
To see me loup;
While raving mad I wish a heckle
Were in their doup.
O’ a’ the num’rous human dools,
Ill har’sts, daft bargains, _cutty-stools_,
Or worthy friends rack’d i’ the mools,
Sad sight to see!
The tricks o’ knaves, or fash o’ fools,
Thou bear’st the gree.
Where’er that place be priests ca’ hell,
Whence a’ the tunes o’ mis’ry yell,
And ranked plagues their numbers tell,
In dreadfu’ raw,
Thou, Tooth-ache, surely bear’st the bell
Amang them a’!
O thou grim mischief-making chiel,
That gars the notes of _discord_ squeel,
Till daft mankind aft dance a reel
In gore a shoe-thick;
Gie a’ the faes o’ Scotland’s weel
A towmond’s Tooth-ache!”
Never before had it appeared in half so favorable a light. Never
before was I so thoroughly convinced that to appreciate the beauties
of an author, we must enter into his feelings--possess his spirit.
This I could now do perfectly. And those brief stanzas--where was
there ever such genuine poetry as in them? Byron, in comparison, was
fustian; Milton bombast; Shakspeare a mere poetaster, and Homer a
sleepy-head--‘_quandoque bonus dormitat Homerus_.’
The effect was astonishing. Ere I had finished the fifth reading, my
sufferings were so much alleviated, that I could even recognize my
own countenance in a mirror--though still somewhat distorted. After
the tenth reading, however, the kindly influence ceased. In vain
did I persevere; the fifteenth perusal was accomplished; but all to
no purpose. The twang--twang--twang--and the gnawing, wrenching,
screwing sensation still continued. Again I leaned over the fire in
silent despair. I revolved in my mind the poem I had just read--the
sentiment--the meter--the rhyme. A thought struck me. This eternal
snap, snap, snap, said I to myself, is meter; this perpetual recurrence
of similar pains is rhyme; these momentary cessations of agony are
intervals of stanzas. Surely the tooth-ache, thought I, is a poetical
subject. Coleridge lay open on my table. My eye rested on a scrap of
rhythmical Latin.
“Dormi, Jesu! Mater ridet,
Quae tam dulcem somnum videt,
Dormi Jesu! blandule!
Si non dormis, Mater plorat,
Inter fila cantans orat
Blande, veni, somnule.”
The hint was sufficient. Ainsworth and the glossary soon enabled me to
metamorphose Burns’s Scotch into Monkish Latin. If the meter appear
sometimes lame, or the syntax barbarous, the blame be on the torturing
pulsations that guided the movement--on the disorganizing twinges that
convulsed my whole mental fabric.