PART V.. The Consolations of Affliction.

The Consolations of Affliction.

I. The Removal of Unhappiness.

Suffer we must. No position is exempt, no foresight can avoid it. Neither the self-abnegation of asceticism nor the visions of superstition relieve from that law. The latter do but deceive and the former atrophies the soul. Far better to seek in the strength of our own minds and in the helpful sympathy of others those sources of Consolation which will enable us to bear pain and grief and disappointment, without allowing them to pass into ennui, gloom, and the distaste for life. Calm reflection, clear reasoning, and the soothing kindness of those who love us, will prepare us to meet and bear the evils of life, without having recourse to the illusions of credulity or the aridities of stoicism.

The mind can be trained to forecast the probable good and ill of its career, and thus prepare itself for even the worst of fates, without being plunged into the hopelessness of despair. We can learn to suffer, and to find even suffering good. To a trained mind, no deprivation is an absolute misfortune.

What is more, this very training is the best of preservatives as well as the best of alleviatives; for by it we are prompted and enabled to take wise measures to avoid those evils which our forethought brings to our mind.

Consolation we all need, all must have, all should give, if we would develop the sweeter and nobler elements of our natures. He who through mistaken pride or stubborn distrust refuses to seek it, does but dwarf his powers and darken his perceptions to the beauties of the world around him. To impart and to receive the solace of sympathetic words and kindly offices belong to the highest ministrations of friendship and love and charity. Those characters in history around whose faces shines brightest the aureole of glory have been those who have soothed the sorrows and bound up the wounds of the despairing sons of men.

Fortunately, if evils are many, so are the sources of consolation. We may seek them in ourselves, from others, or from a correct comprehension of the laws of nature; and when these prove inadequate, we may still win the victory, by discovering that Sorrow itself is not an enemy but a friend, a veiled and ghostly guide, who leads us, as the spirit of Virgil led Dante, and as only Sorrow can lead, through the realms of gloom and woe to undreamed-of fields of serenity and light.

Only in hint and outline shall I sketch this part of my plan. It is too vast to attempt more. Some of the reflections which in the sadder hours of my own life I have found of avail I shall present in detached fragments; for the spirit in the shadow needs but a single ray to illume its path. The moods of sorrow are many, and one suggestion may soothe where a score of others find no application. What I offer are suggestions only, to be expanded by the reader as he finds one or another of them suitable to his own case.

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Two very consoling reflections are: First, how much of the unhappiness of life springs from preventable causes, and next, how little of it arises from actual evils. When we deliberately investigate, catalogue, and analyze what we ourselves and our neighbors are distressed about, we are inclined to say that the chief aim of human effort is not happiness, but rather that each shall make himself as unhappy as possible.

Look at the list! Desires and aims which are plainly inconsistent and contradictory with each other; hopes which reason clearly shows are doomed to disappointment, because they are unfounded or exaggerated; anxieties which are visibly causeless or useless; mistaken estimates of our own powers, which honest reflection would correct; envy of the supposed better fortune of others, when often they are more unhappy than ourselves; fears for a future which we may never reach; regret for a past which we can never recall; open-eyed abuse or neglect of opportunities; indulgence in passions or appetites which we know to be harmful; needless risk or sacrifice of health or liberty or money.

Think of how much of your unhappiness has arisen from one or other of these causes, and then take comfort in the thought how much it lies in your power to be far happier than you are.

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There is an advantage in the multiplicity of miseries. One deep vexation is often more fatal to happiness than several. It becomes a fixed idea, monopolizes the mind, and is more dangerous to its health, than when one is obliged “to take up arms against a sea of troubles.” Regret not, therefore, when clouds darken all the horizon; better this, than the single sky-specter, in whose bosom is the whirlwind, and on whose path follows destruction.

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When little matters annoy you, remember that it is a proof that your condition is a peculiarly happy one. Great sorrows leave no room for slight irritations. The man on the rack does not feel the prick of a pin.

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Tears are the medicinal waters provided by nature for healing the sickened spirit. They are the stream which by its overflowing renews the fertility of the wastes left arid by woe. But, like these greater streams, their excess brings devastation.

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Unhappiness is sometimes only a bad habit. Weeping eyes are quick to tears, and grief is a guest that stays on slight urging.

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Ill-fortune and plenty of it is the very stimulus some natures need to bring out the best that is in them. There is a dead weight about them, and bad luck is the only lever that will lift it. Without its prod, they would sink into lethargy and become like Chaucer’s

“Eclympasteyre, That was the God of Slep’ is heire, That slepte, and did none other worke.”

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There are two inconsistencies of grief which surpass all others: the one, when it leads us to regret that which we might have enjoyed, long after the time when we could have enjoyed it is past; the other, when it makes us the sadder to-day, because we enjoyed ourselves yesterday.

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There is something humorous in the two most popular methods of consolation. The one is, to show you how much worse off you might have been; the other, to remind you how much more wretched others are.

When I was a boy, I was consoled for cutting my finger by having my attention called to the fact that I had not broken my arm; and when I got a cinder in my eye, I was expected to feel more comfortable because my cousin had lost his by an accident.

The general opinion evidently is that the most agreeable consolation in sorrow is a contemplation of the greater misery of others; and the real ground of happiness is to know that others are suffering.

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When a man in adversity complains of the demeanor of others toward him, inquire of his actions toward them.

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Talk it over. “Pull not your hat about your brows.” Seek a sympathetic companion and pour your sorrows into his kindly ears; not so much for the consolation he may administer, but because sad emotions assume their right proportions only when shown to others. In the darkened room of the mind they loom up like giants, when in the light they may prove to be pigmies. But hide your sorrows from the general gaze; sometimes the effort will conceal them from your own.

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If we would only see it, there is a humorous side to nearly every occurrence; and if we did see it, what a preservative from despondency it would be!

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Whatever happiness we get, we believe it is our own by right; when we miss that which we expected, we consider ourselves robbed. What impertinence! Does any one really pretend that because he wants something he is therefore entitled to it? Because he covets my house has he a fee in it? Suppose we give up for a while coveting and wanting, and settle down to doing and thinking and bearing. Perhaps that is the best way out, after all.

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If you have no passions that you cannot conquer, you will have no griefs that you cannot bear.

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The human body has a surprising ability to adapt its functions to the presence of permanent injuries and chronic maladies. Physicians call this the “tolerance of disease.” The healthy mind has a similar power to recover its cheerfulness in the presence of an abiding grief or after an irreparable loss.

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Indolence and Timidity are the jailers who rivet the fetters of Despondency. Courage and Activity will deliver us if we choose to summon them.

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As the scars of battle are, in the opinion of the pious, proofs of the protection of Heaven, so a keen sense of past calamities testifies to a capacity for future enjoyment.

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Between the leaves of the Book of Life why not press the violets, the lilies, and the roses which we find on our path, rather than the nettles and bitter weeds? We could then turn back its pages with satisfaction, and live again long-since-vanished joys.

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There are few more accurate standards of a man’s education, in the widest sense of the term, than the quality of the consolation he offers.

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Would you learn the Universal Catholicon, the Balm for all wounds, the Panacea for all sorrows? I will whisper it: Work――hard physical work, arduous mental work. Try it; it will dry your tears, renew your love of life, recall the light of hope, and exorcise the evil spirits.

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Strengthen the Will. If you have any earnest business in life, and are bound to carry it through, you will have no time for moping. If you have none, find some.

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Look before and after. Do not allow the present to cheat you. The impression of the moment always claims more than it deserves, because we have not time to modify it by other thoughts and images. A present danger frightens us, though we may know it is infinitesimally small; a parting brings tears, though we are aware it is for the good of all; offensive words hurt us, though they may proceed from a contemptible person. Hasten to evoke memories and summon hopes which will beautify the incident, and strengthen the mind. Remember the slightness of the peril, speak of the happy return, recall the praise you have received from worthy lips.

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The honey of life can be had only at the expense of some stings in its collection.

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Whatever happens, take it as a matter of course. You are not running the world, nor born to set it right. You are not half so much the master of your own actions as you think you are.

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Deal justly by yourself. Few do. They regret making that decision, or performing the other action, or neglecting such or such an opportunity. They reproach themselves for their hastiness or carelessness.

What folly! far worse results might have attended a different course. We can see but a very little way in life, and that very darkly. We can neither forecast events, nor predict our own decisions in new circumstances.

If we act at the time with reasonable prudence, we need never waste later moments in self-reproach. Any other decision than the one we adopted would likely enough have brought still more dismal consequences.

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Remember that you are never deserted by all until you have deserted yourself.

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Do not confound a decision with its results. The former may have been at the time the wisest possible, although the latter were disastrous.

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What you consider a life-long mistake, your biographer may regard as the most fortunate decision of your life.

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Grief lies in ambush. Its attack is like the spring of a lion. Its onset is the crisis that calls for the most heroic resistance. Despair seizes its victim in the first moments of a great sorrow.

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Life is like a game of whist. Luck deals the cards, but we have the lead. We may receive a poor hand, but by playing it carefully win the odd.

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Physical pain is an excellent antidote for mental pain. The hair shirt and the scourge were positive pleasures to the ascetic, because they distracted his thoughts from hell-fire.

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The incivility of others is a frequent source of keen pain to sensitive dispositions. Socrates’ advice was to look on an impolite person as on one deformed or repulsive in appearance; to be borne with when necessary, and fit to excite our pity rather than our anger. When some one asked Descartes how he met discourtesies he replied, “I try to live so high that they cannot reach me.” The impoliteness of small children does not hurt our feelings; we should look on the uncivil generally with the same consciousness of our own superiority.

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Grieve not at the ingratitude of others, even of your children. Much that looks like ingratitude is only forgetfulness. Again, what you think is a favor conferred, others may regard as a right respected. To some minds a sense of obligations received is really painful, and their ungrateful demeanor is an effort to escape this feeling. Perhaps you conferred the favor in a manner to induce such a feeling. When ingratitude pains you, overhaul your books and see if you find any debt of gratitude unpaid.

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Do you seek consolation for the loss of a loved one? Call to mind, not the pleasant hours you passed together, but the kind actions, the proofs of affection, you received from him. Thus his personality will be idealized, and will become a sweet memory instead of a bitter regret.

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I have repeatedly noticed, in my own life and in others, that the failure of a plan led to a success in another direction far greater than that anticipated from the original project. Two of the most eminent surgeons in the United States became physicians only in consequence of early failures in small business. When misfortunes happen, therefore, they may be paving the way for great successes. Our failure may be due to our superiority. Milton failed as a teacher of small boys, and Dr. Marion Sims as keeper of a country store. The Chipeways have a story of a man who could do no work, because he was so strong that he broke every tool he took up.

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Are you vexed by some persistent anxiety, haunted by some ugly thought? Learn the secret, that the only way to stop thinking of anything is to think of something else. You cannot banish care by an effort of the will; but you can drive it away by changing the associations of your ideas, by engaging in some occupation which demands your constant and close attention.

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Always keep in mind the uselessness of contending with the inflexible and inevitable processes of nature; but never let them become your masters when you can make them your servants.

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Resignation is the more of a virtue the less it is exercised. A healthy tree bends before the blast, but straightens itself the moment the wind lulls. Resignation to evils that can be avoided is indolence or apathy.

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When the world seems a desert to you and life a blank, reflect whether you have not had just such feelings before, and overlived them to enjoy happy days and smiling seasons.

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Seek sympathy for your losses from a woman, for your failures from a man. A woman will not understand why you tried, if you failed.

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Half of happiness is the recognition that we are happy; and half of misery is the forgetting how many causes of happiness we have.

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Be sure you are more doleful than you need be. There is no liar like low spirits. Melancholy is a sort of mental stagnation; and stagnant pools are soon filled with foul growths.

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You there, you on the verge of despair, sit down, take a pen, and write me off a list of your sorrows and misfortunes; and follow it with a faithful inventory of what you have left on the side of possible happiness, your faculties, your possessions, your friends and relatives, your acquirements, your tastes, your healthful activities, your probability of life, your reasonable expectations, not forgetting your duties to others and the gratification their fulfillment will give. Then I am ready to adjust the account.

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Plato says that nothing in human life is worth much trouble; certainly many things give us more trouble than they are worth.

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How small is your grief if you measure it by the standards of the universe! Look up at the calm and silent stars; they are billions of miles away. Notice that piece of sandstone; fifty million years have passed since the primeval tide washed its grains together. Is there not something in such thoughts that makes you a little ashamed of the preoccupation of your mind with its petty present cares?

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Do you reflect sometimes that you are but one of fifteen hundred millions of human beings, fifty millions of whom die every year? Is it worth while passing your invisibly small share of life in worrying about trifles?

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The only malady all covet is the only one which is absolutely fatal,――old age.

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Death is the most and the least feared of any event. Seven of my most intimate friends committed suicide for various reasons, all good enough in their opinions. “No passion is so weak,” remarks Bacon, “but that a little pushed it will master the fear of death.”

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The visits of death seem always inopportune. Dickens tells of a visit he paid to an Old Man’s Home. He found that, in the opinion of the inmates, every old man died prematurely. They invariably said, “He brought it on hisself.”

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He who is haunted by the dread of dying makes himself miserable for fear he cannot make himself miserable longer.

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When death is natural, that is, in extreme old age, it is neither feared nor felt. That it is so little a thing when natural, suggests that at all times we may deem it too great.

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If we understood Death, we should no longer care for Life.

II. The Inseparable Connection of Pleasure and Pain.

The hard and strange lesson that I would teach in this chapter is, that dreams of unalloyed bliss are not merely fanciful, they are impossible of realization under any known conditions of life; that pleasure requires pain, joy demands sorrow, as the very condition of its existence; and that these pairs are inseparable twins, the presence of one being bound up in that of the other.

I here promulgate no new discovery in the science of mind, though it has been much overlooked by physiologists, and quite put one side by sanguine optimists in their rosy paintings of the future perfectibility and universal happiness of the human race. More than two thousand years ago Socrates dwelt upon this same uncanny blending of contraries. The jailer, as we are told in the “Phædo,” of Plato, removed the galling iron fetters from the philosopher’s ankles shortly before the cup of hemlock was handed him; and in this brief interval his friends gathered around him for the last farewell.

“And Socrates, sitting on the side of the bed, bent his leg and rubbed it with his hand, and in doing so said,――'How strange a thing, my friends, is that which is called Pleasure! and how oddly it is connected with what is called Pain! Pleasure and Pain do not come to man together; but if a person runs after the one and catches it, he almost immediately catches the other too, as if they were fastened together at one end. I think if Æsop had noticed this he would have compiled a fable to this effect: That the gods tried to reconcile these two opposites, and not being able to do this, fastened their extremities together so that when you take hold of one it pulls after it the other. And so it happens to me now; there was pain in my leg when the chain bound it, and now comes pleasure following the pain.’”

A law of physiology, a law of the whole universe, underlies these homely reflections of the ancient Greek.

On the one side, pleasure and pain are states of feeling totally opposed to each other both in sensation and in physical effect, pleasure being concomitant with an increase, pain with a decrease, of the vital functions; and yet, on the other, there is a unity, or, at any rate, a close analogy of action, under these contrary conditions of mental life. Each is a stimulus to new forms of mental change and biotic motion, though in the one instance the tendency of the new activity is toward a higher concentration of the individual life, and, in the other, toward its diminution or its disaggregation into other and lower forms.

A feeling of pleasure is an exaltation of sensation in some special set of nerves. These are stimulated to an unwonted exercise of their functions; but they can provide this disproportionate energy only by drafts on the general resources of the nervous system; and this must be paid back through exhaustion, fatigue, or, perhaps, actual pain.

A sensation of pain also demands for its presence special and unusual conditions of nervous activity, which also result in exhaustion of the powers of sensation, but, unfortunately, much later than in conditions of pleasure. Pain seems in some sort more our natural element, for we can bear it much longer than pleasure in equal degree. Generalizing on this fact, Schopenhauer reached the dismal conclusion――“The essential elements of all Life are pain and sorrow.”

The mere cessation of pain is in itself a pleasure of considerable degree, as in the case of Socrates relieved from the chafing of his irons; indeed, probably some of the intensest moments of delight are those experienced on a sudden relief from acute suffering, or during the reaction from long privations.

It may not be quite correct to say that all pleasurable sensations are immediately derived from or directly lead to others of a painful character. There are some belonging to the organic life, such as the satisfaction of the desire for food or for muscular exercise, in which mere repose or remission is enough to repay the nervous drafts. But how close these are to pain is visible from the acuteness of the pangs of hunger, or the painfulness of prolonged positions of restraint.

Even exalted esthetic and intellectual pleasures, which seem to leave no sting behind and to require no goad for their advance, constantly make unfelt though heavy drafts on the nervous centres, the results of which, under the various forms of cerebral and spinal exhaustion and degeneration, physicians are obliged to take cognizance of only too often.

So close is the analogy between the two antagonistic sensations, that the one becomes merged into the other without our being able to mark the dividing line between them. A moderate pain may by its active diffusion actually bring a surplus of pleasure, as Professor Bain has remarked; and that an acute sensation of pleasure may pass into one of pain is matter of common observation. Thus, Pain is born of Pleasure, Pleasure of Pain; and memory and association have a tendency to diminish the extremes of each by recalling to the mind the sources from which it sprang. Some physiologists, therefore, refuse to discriminate between such inseparable feelings, and prefer to regard them both as manifestations of the same, calling it the “Pleasure-Pain sensation.”

In all these respects what is true of these sensations also holds good of their analogues in the realm of emotions, as joy and sorrow, mirth and sadness, hope and fear, and the like. Each of these exercises, and by exercising exhausts, some fibres of the nervous system, and thus tends to develop its contrary.

The general law which, as far as it goes, explains these facts is that of the alternation or periodicity of the manifestations of force. This is the fundamental law of the Universe, beyond which no analysis has proceeded. Force, or Power, or Energy, wherever we discern it and under every one of its exhibitions, expresses itself in undulatory or rhythmical movements, pulsations of the primal potency, vibrations of the central harmony, of the universe. In the rise and fall of sensation and emotion the sequences of height and depth are as closely related as are the proportions of the crest and trough in the waves of the ocean, or those of the vibration of the strings of a musical instrument.

Such considerations as these, drawn from the unalterable laws of nature and life, show how short is the sight of those who look upon happiness as the uninterrupted continuance of pleasurable sensations, or would seek it in a ceaseless round of gayety. Far clearer was the vision of Pindar when he exclaimed, with the inspiration of a poet,――“Beneath every true pleasure hides the sense of a past pain.” The dark background of sorrow can alone give full relief to the bright figure of joy. Grief is a part of gladness, and that life is not happy which has no unhappiness. So Browning, with characteristic insight and strength, puts in the mouth of one of his intensest characters,――“Naught is lacking to complete our bliss, but woe.”

These are not mere paradoxes and literary refinements on scientific facts. All who have entered sympathetically into the deep and tender emotions of the human heart have felt and seen this mysterious and inseparable connection. It is so beautifully set forth in reference to one of the saddest griefs of life by Leigh Hunt, that I must quote his words. They are in his essay on the “Deaths of Little Children.”

“Pain softens into pleasure as the darker hue of the rainbow melts into the brighter.… Made as we are, there are certain pains without which it would be difficult to conceive certain great and overbalancing pleasures. We may conceive it possible for beings to be made entirely happy; but in our composition, something of pain seems to be a necessary ingredient in order that the materials may turn to as fine an account as possible. The loss of children seems to be one of those necessary bitters thrown into the cup of humanity. If none at all ever took place, we should regard every little child as a man or a woman secured; and it will easily be conceived what a world of endearing cares and hopes this security would endanger. The very idea of infancy would lose continuity with us. Girls and boys would be future men and women, not present children. They would have attained their full growth in our imaginations, and might as well have been men and women at once. On the other hand, those who have lost an infant are never, as it were, without an infant child. They are the only persons who, in one sense, retain it always; and they furnish their neighbors with the same idea. The other children grow up to manhood or to womanhood and suffer all the changes of mortality. This one alone is rendered an immortal child. Death has arrested it with his kindly harshness, and blessed it into an eternal image of youth and innocence.

“Of such as these are the pleasantest shapes that visit our fancy and our hopes; they are the ever-smiling emblems of joy; the prettiest pages that wait upon imagination; lastly, 'Of these are the Kingdom of Heaven.’”

Something akin to the sweetness of these touching reflections is found in Sir Richard Steele’s essay on “The Death of Friends,” whose stately and gracious style seems ever treading a minuet at the court of good Queen Anne:――

“When we are advanced in years, there is not a more pleasing entertainment than to recollect the many we have parted with that have been dear to us.… It is necessary to revive the old places of grief in our memory, to lead the mind unto that sobriety of thought which poises the heart and makes it beat with due time, without being quickened by desire or retarded by despair from its proper and equal motion.”

Thus it is that sadness is ofttimes a necessary and the best preparative for gladness. The blacker the shadow, the brighter is the light that casts it. In all pleasurable feelings there must be the alternations from exercise to remission and repose; and in proportion as such feelings are keen, will pain take the place of simple exhaustion. When the waves of emotion are but ripples on the surface of life, stirred by the zephyrs of light desires, the remission will be but a passing sense of fatigue; but when the sensitive heart is shaken to its depths by the mighty winds of passion, then the reaction will be not less profound, and the moments of wild joy will be repaid to the uttermost by periods of dejection and despair. In such temperaments there is danger of the morbid persistence of the period of depression, and ready recourse must be had to diversion and occupation to avoid this considerable peril.

There is a singular but comforting contrast in the influence of time on pleasure and pain and the mental states which correspond to them.

Through repetition and habitual exercise we may become passionately fond of what at first was painful or disgusting. Witness the use of tobacco and all other so-called “acquired tastes.” The physician becomes enamored of the studies of the hospital ward and the dissecting room; persons who are at first sight repulsive become tolerable and then companionable; studies which we take up with dislike later on fascinate us.

How different with pleasures! Their tendency is not upward but downward, gravitating ever toward the lower and painful strata of sensation. Those built on a foundation of previous pain alone escape a merely evanescent existence. How quickly facile loves are sated! Ennui arrives never earlier than when enjoyment is gratuitous. The law, alas, holds good even for our dearest joys; as Mrs. Browning wrote:――

“Entertain Your best and gladdest thoughts but long enough, And they will all prove sad enough to sting.”

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Time, transmuter of all things, turns delight into disgust, and aversion into love, but his metamorphoses constantly warn us that permanence is related to painfulness and duration depends on endurance.

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Pain is more natural to us than pleasure. We bear it better. Bad fortune is easier sustained than good. The hour of prosperity is more trying than that of adversity. These are commonplaces, and speak for the universal recognition of this feature of mind.

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Our first language is wailing, and our most hilarious laughter brings tears.

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Do you say that had the Creative Hand been yours, pain would not have been in the world? Compel my belief in your words by seeing you relieve all pain now in your power to relieve.

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The abrupt ending of any deep emotion is unpleasant, even though a sad one. When we have been sailing in the clouds, the descent to earth is always a shock.

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Any action, however trifling, assumes an immeasurable significance when we know it is performed for the last time. It evokes the idea of the Irrevocable and the Infinite, of Death and Destiny. Our souls hear the distant dirge, Vale, vale, eternumque vale.

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We can always explain our merriment, but often not our melancholy. Glee is concrete and affirmative; dejection is vague and negative; and the negative is unlimited.

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The drama of life is a tragedy, for its last scene is always that of the death of the title-role. We take the greatest interest in the spectacle, but rarely care to remember the denouement.

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If you love life so much, why complain of ennui? There is nothing like it for lengthening the hours, and thus giving you longer to live.

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The more pleasant the moments, the swifter they fly. Perfect happiness would destroy Time.

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Many pleasures, like Barbary figs, are gathered at the cost of bleeding fingers.

III. The Education of Suffering.

What is suffering? What is sorrow?

Nought but the wounds in our conflict with the imperfections and limitations of life, with the elements of death and annihilation, with the powers of falsehood and hatred. The inappeasable thirst in the human heart for the fullness of existence, for complete happiness, could only be satisfied with all love and all truth, and we should need the term of all time in which to attain them.

Pain and grief are, therefore, evident proofs of the capacity for broader conditions of being; and at the same time they are the guides, pointing out what to avoid and what to seek, in order to attain this end of all desire.

This is true of all organic existence; but man alone is capable of Sorrow, a passion allied to the most exalted moods of mind, presenting to it the image of infinity, defining and educating his desires by the clear exhibition of their painful limitations, and thus revealing to his perceptions new though arduous paths, which will lead him to a loftier evolution and broader horizons.

He finds that sorrow is an initiation into the hidden mysteries of life. Through its draped portals he enters the Temple of Sadness, there to learn “the elder truths, and the secrets that cannot be spoken.” He must be bathed in the fountain of tears and be branded with the blade of adversity before he is established in the novitiate of the order of Our Mother of Sorrows.

Once admitted to her chosen band, he looks back without regret at his earlier and placid joys. His sorrow lives on within him as a new and indestructible force of character, expressing itself in added strength of will, clearness of perception, and breadth of sympathies. It has imparted to life another meaning, one more male and heroic, and yet tender, such as no pleasures can suggest or beget. The years may be paler, their flowers fewer, their grave-mounds more numerously strewn across his pathway; over them he steps with steady tread, his eye fixed on the work which he has learned is for him to do, asking neither about its rewards nor its results.

This is the spirit of those teachers and lovers of their kind, who have taken as their own the sorrows of the race; it is the spirit of those martyrs to liberty who have fallen to free their country from the yoke of tyrants; and of those sufferers for truth’s sake who have been tortured and burned by the Churches rather than live by lying recantations.

History constantly proves that the worthiest prizes of life, its loftiest virtues, and its most ennobling ambitions, are sold only at the price of suffering. The great world-religions, Buddhism and Christianity, began with proclaiming this final fact of life; and to its instinctive recognition by the experience of all mankind are due their conquests over the faiths which held out the allurements of material success and physical pleasure. The spirit of Christianity is the spirit of sadness. To it the house of mourning is ever better than the house of mirth. The Cross is the symbol of suffering; the steps are blood-stained that mount to Calvary; anguish and death are at its summit; for suffering and death are the signs, the admonitions, and the entrance to the Infinite.

Art acknowledges the same inspirations as its highest. Sad emotions attract most potently because they arise from the unplumbed depth of the soul, and suggest its limitless dimensions. They attest the words of the poet, that “Man’s grief is but his grandeur in disguise.” There is always a strange attraction about scenes of suffering; the appetite is always keen “to sup full of horrors;” our emotions are more profoundly stirred by the spectacle of pain and anguish than by that of any imaginable pleasure.

Therefore the works as well as the lives of great artists have been full of sadness. The group of the Laocoon struggling in the deadly coil of the serpent; the agony of the crucifixion; the tragedies of love and jealousy and devotion,――these have been the chosen themes of painters, sculptors and dramatists; chosen because they mark graphically the struggles of our common nature with its limits, ennobled by its ambition to leap beyond them.

Every soul knows, unconsciously and instinctively, that sorrow is the only teacher of what is most valuable in life. It alone develops fortitude, and therefore it commands the respect of all; it alone teaches sympathy, and therefore it enlists the admiration of all. No character is ripe which has not crispened under its sharp breath; none is of finest temper but those forged by its heavy blows. The noblest lives are sad; but those who have quaffed the severe joy of sorrow care little for the light froth of pleasure.

The quality of high energy is developed only by affliction. Wrestling with it, the sinews of the mind are trained. We must go forth and seek new supports in life, when we have lost those which we loved and depended upon. By such an effort, we reconcile ourselves to the loss, gain a victory over fate, strengthen our minds, and reach an air of wider freedom. The blast may beat at the gate, but all is quiet within. There is a habit of sadness which is not gloomy, which may share and admire the delights of life, but which is ever ready to meet the storms of misfortune with serenity and fortitude. Such a habit of mind lifts one above the threats and disturbances of the ceaseless struggle for existence into the companionship of ideas and powers which the poet rightly calls celestial:――

“Wer nicht sein Brod mit Thränen ass, Wer nicht die kummervollen Nächte Auf seinem Lager weinend sass, Der kennt euch nicht, ihr himmlischen Mächte.”

There is a ministry of grief, a compensation in calamity, a remedial property in misfortune, sweet uses in adversity, which need but to be recognized and cherished for the sting to be blunted, and what seems at first a grief without an element of alleviation, to become in time the foundation of a higher happiness. How often may one exclaim with Cleopatra, in the midst of her immeasurable losses:――

“My desolation, Does begin to make a better life.”

We need occasionally some violent and painful shock to waken us from the lethargy of pleasant custom, to break the shackles of agreeable and enervating habit, to tear us by the roots from the soil in which we lazily vegetate, and transplant us into fresh and richer fields. The beautiful elements in a noble character are woven together by the experience of afflictions, as the pearls which form the design of a brooch are held in place by the thread of iron on which they are strung.

The affections which are deep and pure leave behind them when they are severed by fate a happiness which is comparable to that of their enjoyment. Our sorrow for such is accompanied with an inexpressible sense of consolation, the firm and sweet assurance――“’Tis better to have loved and lost, than never to have loved at all.”

This compensation flows, from the nature of affection itself, because it is essentially unselfish, and ever seeking objects outside the circle of egoistic instincts. It is Love that teaches us that Joy and Sorrow are twins; and at the same time sharply defines what are the true objects of affection. Its sweet waters pour inexhaustible streams of consolation for the wounds of Fate, but not for those of Fortune. For the loss of money or rank or other mere externality it offers no such assuagement, for it deems all such losses beneath its sovereign notice. The solace for these must be sought in fortitude and courage and resignation. Only of the loss of such lower means of happiness as these is the saying of the poet true, that “A sorrow’s crown of sorrows is remembering happier things.” Rather let us say, the only sorrows we should not be ashamed of, are those which turn into joy. The griefs that embitter and harden, follow loves that are lowering.

Noble sorrow is the teacher of sympathy. The sense or the memory of our own pain awakens the desire to relieve the pain of others. Compassion and Pity are the offspring of grief. It also teaches tolerance, charity for the imperfections of others, and a knowledge of the limitations and deficiencies of our common nature, without which knowledge the successful endeavor for any of the higher aims of existence is not possible. The sense of physical suffering has been the guiding principle in the evolution of organic forms from the monad up to man. His future and higher evolution, that of his spirit-powers, will come from his mental suffering and the lessons he will draw from it.

* * * * *

Thus, at the end of our wide wandering in pursuit of Happiness, we look back and see that it is absent from nothing in life, not even from pain and sorrow; nay, that when all else has gone, when youth and health and fortune and love have left us, when we look forward despairingly to nought but loneliness and suffering, our very despair may prove to be divine, “begotten by the finite upon the infinite,” and from its depths we may draw a rapture unknown to common pleasures, and taste the sweet waters of a bliss which is celestial.

* * * * *

Who would wish to escape suffering himself, when suffering makes up so large a part of the experiences of his fellow men? Who would seek by any base flight to avoid Sorrow, when Sorrow alone can teach him the highest meaning of Life?

* * * * *

History is ever ready to point out how nations have been benefited by calamities, and churches by persecutions. Why not believe that the same rule holds good in our own lives?

* * * * *

Think what we should miss if all went smoothly with us! Without pain, we should not know pity; without danger, we should not develop courage; without receiving injuries, no chance to show forgiveness; without affliction, no opportunity for fortitude; without ingratitude, no means of proving disinterestedness; without injustice, no occasion for forbearance; without violence, no training in self-control. Really, it seems that to encounter misfortunes must be the finest fortune in life!

* * * * *

The surgeon restores a stiffened joint or an atrophied muscle by painful manipulations. Nothing but painful experiences will restore a sluggish mind to activity and enjoyment.

* * * * *

To forget even for a short time those we have loved and lost seems a lack of fealty to them; but if their influence is ever present with us to our good, our joy is a worthier memorial to them than would be endless repining.

* * * * *

The memory of a great sorrow obliterates the slight asperities of daily life.

* * * * *

The mingling of tears is a transfusion of spirit. A sorrow in common is the strongest of covenants.

* * * * *

The only complete satisfaction of the sense of living is its sacrifice.

* * * * *

The sweetest joys are consoled sorrows.

INDEX.

Abderrhaman, Sultan, 27.

Adversity, consolations of, 253.

Advice, slight value of, 188; effect of, 193.

Afflictions, consolations of, 248.

Age and youth compared, 34, 225; not synonymous with wisdom, 35; sorrows of, 76.

Angelo, Michael, 78, 177, 235, 246.

Anger, destructive to happiness, 147.

Anthropology, its aim, 54.

Apathy, as a calmative, 146.

Architecture, the best, 86.

Argument never convinces, 188.

Aristotle, quoted, 10, 11, 13, 17, 167, 222.

Art of happiness, the, 9, 54; of pleasure, 38; the aim of, 149; inspirations of, 154.

Asceticism, the blunders of, 24, 128.

Association required, 216.

Bacon, Lord, quoted, 51, 85, 108, 145, 217, 221, 234, 261.

Bain, A., quoted, 41, 148, 206, 211.

Bentham, J., quoted, 10, 27.

Beauty, the power of, 67; the ideal of, 68; results of, 69; the burden of, 236.

Benevolent emotions, pleasures of, 213.

Berkeley, Bishop, quoted, 126.

“Blues,” how to relieve, 74.

Books, what kind to read, 160.

Brillat-Savarin, quoted, 133.

Bronte, Charlotte, 189.

Browning, Robert, quoted, 46, 267; Mrs., quoted, 270.

Bruno, Giordano, quoted, 171, 173.

Buddha, words of, 21, 61.

Buddhism, aspirations of, 21; advice of, 143, 274.

Burke, quoted, 215.

Business principles, how studied, 42; precepts, 124, 217.

Calculus of probabilities, the, 93, 105.

Chagrin, the feeling of, 193.

Chamfort, quoted, 213.

Chance, the laws of, 92; the logic of, 94; the slaves of, 103.

Chaucer, quoted, 252.

Cheerfulness, how cultivated, 72.

Chief end of man, the, 175, 212.

Child, the mind of a, 79.

Chinese proverb, a, 80.

Christianity, influence on position of woman, 31; spirit of, 22, 275; aim of, 178.

Christian fatalism, 143; doctrines, 172, 173.

Church of the future, the, 179, 232.

Civility, its value, 107, 223.

Civilization, does not increase pleasure, 28; motive of higher, 29.

Climate, its influence, 88-90.

Clothing, purposes of, 81-83.

Coleridge, Hartley, 105; S. T., 70.

Colonna, Vittoria, 78, 235.

Colors, their effect, 83, 90.

Common-places admired, 192.

Comradeship, explained, 230.

Confidence, delights of, 218.

Confucius, quoted, 100.

Congenital traits, 59.

Conscience, what it is, 209.

Consolations of affliction, 248.

Contentment, falsity of, 40; not happiness, 22, 116.

Conversation, rules for, 223.

Cookery, French, 136.

Correspondence as an art, 164.

Cosiness, the delights of, 86.

Country, the love of, 83, 90.

Courage, the value of, 146.

Cowley, A., quoted, 84.

Criminals, psychology of, 209.

Cromwell, anecdote of, 192.

Culture, the true end of, 40.

D’Alembert, quoted, 46.

Damocles, story of, 196.

Dante, quoted, 247.

Death, reflections on, 261, 262.

Decalogue, the, discussed, 208.

Decision of character, 188.

Demonic force, the, 107.

Depression, fits of, how cured, 75, 254.

Descartes, quoted, 168.

Despair, how avoided, 260.

Despine, Dr., quoted, 207.

Despondency, remedies for, 74, 75, 254.

Destiny, the rule of, 102.

Diary, benefit of keeping, 165.

Dinner, a well-served, 135.

Disraeli, quoted, 161.

Divorce discussed, 243.

Dogmatic doctrines considered, 170, 178.

Dress, the philosophy of, 82, 91.

Dualism, of morals, the, 209.

Duty as related to happiness, 206, 207, 215; the sense of, 209.

Eating as an art, 136.

Economy, its uses, 122.

Education, of woman, 33, 200; should be free, 199; the true moral, 204, 205, 212.

Egotism, not individuality, 194.

Emerson, R. W., 182.

Emotions, pleasures from, 142.

Energy, excessive, 113; developed by affliction, 276.

Ennui, analysis of, 44; good in, 272.

Epictetus, quoted, 19, 25, 39.

Epicurus, quoted, 206.

Error more agreeable than truth, 56, 167.

“Essay on Man,” Pope’s, 54.

Essenes, the ancient, 244.

Esthetic emotions, the, 149.

Ethics dissevered from happiness, 206.

Eudæmonics, 11.

Evidence, the study of, 43.

Evolution, the secret of, 20; strange law of, 169.

Executive ability, what it is, 42.

Faith, abuse of, 174.

Fame, a doubtful pleasure, 168.

Family traits, 60; love of the, 244.

Fear, prevention of, 39; definition of, 142, 145; avoidance of, 145.

Fellowships, what they are, 228.

Fichte, quoted, 17, 77.

Ficinus, M., quoted, 141.

Fifine at the fair, 46.

Fine arts, pleasures from, 151.

Fixed opinions, folly of, 187.

Fontenelle, quoted, 78.

Food-taking, as a rite, 134.

Fox, George, 32, 232.

Foster, John, quoted, 189.

Friendship explained, 232; rules for, 233; of men and women, 235.

Frivolity of old men, 80; its usefulness, 225.

Fuller, Thomas, quoted, 115, 131.

Furniture, its place in life, 83.

Gambler, the guileless, 97.

Gamblers, superstitions of, 98; true spirit of, 106.

Games, pleasures of, 153.

Gibbon, quoted, 27, 128.

Goethe, quoted, 34, 102, 107, 151, 220, 276.

Good taste, what it is, 152.

Good and evil, how to distinguish, 213.

Government, the use of, 198; theories of, 199; aim of, 204.

Grief, inconsistencies of, 252.

Habit, its tyrannical power, 48.

Halevy, quoted, 129.

Hamilton, Sir William, 57.

Happiness, as the aim of life, 9; definitions of, 15, 77, 105, 109, 167, 168; the distribution of, 26; in relation to health, 65; in relation to beauty, 69; washwoman’s ideal of, 109; and success, 116; how related to riches, 125; complete, not attainable, 143; whence derived, 195; two theories of, 196; independent of morality, 206.

Hatred, as an emotion, 148.

Hazlitt, Wm., quoted, 113.

Health in relation to happiness, 65.

Hearing, the pleasures of, 137.

Hedonism, 11.

Herbert of Cherbury, quoted, 148.

Herder, quoted, 88, 110.

Heredity, the laws of, 59.

Hobbes, quoted, 162.

Holland, Sir Henry, 161.

Home, what makes a, 83; the love of, 87.

Homesickness, 87.

Hope, definition of, 142, 145; in disease, 73.

House, building a, 85.

Humanity, the ideal of, 170.

Humboldt, W. Von, quoted, 34, 235, 244.

Hume, quoted, 16, 26.

Hunt, L., quoted, 268.

Hygiene, science of, 65.

Ibsen’s drama, 63.

Ideal and real, relations of, 53; attraction of, 67; aim of art, 176; ideal truth, 177; of humanity, 170.

Ignorance, the bliss of, 56.

Imagination, the, its cultivation, 149.

Immortality of the soul, 174, 179.

Incivility, how to be received, 257.

Incompatible desires, 144, 250.

Inconsistencies of grief, 252.

Individual, the true aim of, 183.

Individuality, cultivation of, 181; traits of, 194.

Ingratitude, how to regard, 258.

Insincerity has no limit, 217.

Insurance, value of, 101.

Intellect, pleasures derived from, 156; why cold, 167.

Intense application, danger of, 113.

Johnson, Dr., quoted, 22, 26, 46, 65, 110, 184, 234, 241.

Joy, a cry of nature, 20; and sorrow are twins, 277.

Kant, quoted, 16, 25, 141, 195, 206.

Knowledge, the most useful, 40; its relation to liberty, 199.

Labor, as a source of pleasure, 110; unions, their weak points, 230.

Lamb, Chas., quoted, 162.

Lamps, new for old, 124.

Land, ownership of, 84.

Leisure, its real use, 117.

Letter-writing, 164.

Liberty, the true, 197.

Life, meaning of, 17, 56; normal duration of, 76; love of, 77.

Literary clubs, 163.

Littré, quoted, 39.

Locke, quoted, 16.

Logic of chance, the, 94.

Longevity, how attained, 76.

Love, of neighbor, 18; the emotion of, 67, 239; of money, 127; and marriage, 238, 246, 247.

Love-feasts, 134.

Luck and its laws, 92-96; value of, 106.

Making a living considered, 114.

Mal des montagnes, the, 89.

Malaise, the seat of, 72.

Malloch, quoted, 223.

Man, the science of, 54; in art and science, 150; evolution of, 169; chief end of, 175, 212; very human, 228.

Many-sidedness of character, 190.

Marriage, effect on woman, 32; various forms of, 240; French system of, 242; unhappiness in, 243.

Meditation as a pleasure, 162.

Melancholy, causes of, 272.

Men who outlive themselves, 77.

Mill, J. S., quoted, 32, 158, 244.

Milton, J., quoted, 244.

Minor arts, the, 151.

Mirabeau, quoted, 197.

Misanthropy, causes of, 194.

Mission of the species, the, 191.

Mitchell, Weir, quoted, 80.

Moderation, the rule of, 129.

Money and how made, 122; the love of, 127, 226.

Morality, explained, 195; not identical with happiness, 206; no general code of, 207; motive in, 214.

Moral life not the highest aim, 175, 212; sense, distinct from morality, 209; pleasures of the, 209.

Motherhood, its attraction, 240.

Muscular sense, the, 130.

Music, enjoyment of, 137.

Mutuality of interests, 229.

Nature, is equitable, 62, 80; the charms of, 138; emotions excited by, 150; peculiarities of, 154, 155.

Necessity and chance, as arbiters of destiny, 58.

Newton, Sir Isaac, 116, 184.

Novalis, quoted, 134, 178.

Novel reading as a narcotic, 168.

Obstinacy, 187.

Occupations of necessity and choice, 109.

Odors, the power of, 132.

Old age, its false claims, 34, 35; how attainable, 75, 76; considered, 79; coveted, 261.

Opinion, its might, 186.

Ordinary people, preferable, 220.

Over-conscientiousness, 114.

Over-sensitiveness, pains of, 185.

Pain, profitless, 39; relations to pleasure, 16, 55, 263, 266; as an antidote, 257; more natural than pleasure, 271.

Paley, quoted, 26.

Pascal, quoted, 10, 45, 93, 109.

Peace the reward of virtue, 215.

Penn, William, quoted, 88.

Periodicity, the law of, 48, 267.

Perseverance, how useful, 116, 186.

Personality, the joy of, 182.

Personal liberty, attacks on, 199.

Philosophies, the folly of, 142.

Philosophy and Happiness, meanings of, 54.

Piety and morality, 175; as the last passion, 180.

Pindar, quoted, 267.

Places, love of, 87.

Plato, quoted, 9, 10, 19, 34, 203, 247, 261, 263.

Platonic friendships, 235.

Play, measure of its value, 117.

Pleasure, definitions of, 15, 80, 264; and pain, how connected, 16, 55, 263, 265, 277; from reflection, 162.

Pleasure-pain sensation, the, 266.

Pleasures, relative value of, 21; sources of, 24.

Plot-interest, as a pleasure, 152.

Poetry, pleasure of reading, 161; of science, 177.

Polygamy, injurious results of, 241.

Politeness, its value, 222.

Politics, why avoided in society, 226.

Polycrates, story of, 97.

Pope, quoted, 54.

Poverty, the worst of, 127.

Prayer, the universal, 118; refreshes the mind, 180.

Property, as an incentive, 118.

Pursuit, the emotions of, 153; of happiness, explained, 54; conclusion of, 278.

Puzzles and riddles, pleasure of, 158.

Quakers, the, 176, 179, 232.

Quincy, Thomas de, quoted, 201.

Racial characteristics, 60.

Rasselas, quoted, 12, 110.

Reading, as an enjoyment, 139; rules for, 159.

Reason and religion, 177.

Recamier, Madame, her friendship, 235.

Recreations, the best, 115.

Reflection, pleasure from, 162.

Religion, happiness from, 169, 172; unhappiness from, 171, 173; true spirit of, 175; of the future, 176, 179, 232; why not mentioned in society, 226.

Remorse, the pains of, 147.

Reserve, value of, 189; a help to reputation, 226.

Resignation, the virtue of, 259.

Respectability, the revolt against, 45, 46.

Revenge, as a pleasure, 148.

Riches, effective and productive, 120; disappointments of, 126.

Risk, the emotions of, 153.

Room, the living, 83.

Rothschild, Baron, opinion of, 99.

Rousseau, quoted, 28, 84.

Rules for happiness, why studied, 54.

Ruskin, J., quoted, 187.

Schopenhauer, A., quoted, 44.

Science, the love of, 166; the aim of, 176; and religion, 177; of man, the, 54, 68.

Security, how obtained, 196.

Self-abnegation, 24.

Self-admiration, 191.

Self-complacency, 192.

Self, conception of, 17; the lord of, 61.

Self-conceit corrected, 186.

Self-consciousness, 17, 20, 52.

Self-control, 24.

Self-distrust, appropriate, 194.

Self-education, principles of, 36.

Self-publication, 226.

Self-realization, 17, 56.

Self recognition, 204.

Self-revelation not self-publication, 226.

Self-reverence, 189.

Self-sufficiency, 47.

Senancour, de, quoted, 43.

Seneca, quoted, 19.

Sensation the sense of existence, 140.

Senses, the pleasures of, 128.

Sex, origin of, 60.

Shakespeare, quoted, 50, 51, 62, 100, 103, 118, 121, 122, 157, 241, 277.

Sight, the pleasures of, 138.

Sincerity, importance of, 189.

Singularity, what it is, 192.

Small-talk, its value, 224.

Smell, the pleasures of, 132.

Smith, Adam, quoted, 210.

Smith, Sydney, quoted, 141, 201.

Social organization, the, 196.

Socialists, the dreams of, 115, 183.

Society, the basis of good, 219; maxims for success in, 220; the aim of, 220; the justice of, 227.

Socrates, quoted, 54, 86, 208, 263.

Solitude, its uses, 204.

Sophocles, quoted, 214.

Sorrow, as an educator, 273, 279, 280.

Sorrows of age, 76.

Spencer, H., quoted, 10, 36, 202.

Spinoza, quoted, 16, 17, 155.

State and individual, the relations of, 48.

Steele, quoted, 193, 269.

Success, what it is, 116; from failure, 259.

Suffering, the education of, 273.

Suicide, easy, 261.

Sympathy, whence to seek, 233, 236, 260.

Table-talk, rules for, 141.

Talleyrand, quoted, 223.

Tasso, quoted, 70.

Taste, the pleasures of, 133-137.

Tears, their use, 251.

Temperaments, the four, 71.

Tennyson, quoted, 202, 277, 278.

Thoreau, H., 35, 40.

Time, its value, 124, 142; relation to happiness, 272.

Tobacco, the pleasure of, 133.

Tolerance of others, 187; of pain and sorrow, 254.

Touch, the pleasures of, 131.

Truth, the search for as a pleasure, 156, 165; the spirit of, 166; alone gives happiness, 214; ideal, 177; gives freedom, 199.

Unhappiness, the removal of, 22, 248; as a habit, 252; in marriage, 243.

Uniforms, the value of, 82.

Unknown, the, 53.

Urbanity, value of, 56.

Variety in dress, 82; to be sought, 47; the rule of, 130.

Vauvenargues, quoted, 211.

Veracity a relative matter, 190.

Virtue, its relation to happiness, 206, 211; and vices, relations of, 214.

Waitz, Th., quoted, 28, 32.

War, destructive to virtues, 215.

Ward, L. F., quoted, 10.

Wealth, its meaning, 119.

Weather, how it affects us, 81, 88.

White race, higher sensation in, 63.

Whitman, Walt., quoted, 78, 140, 179, 182, 191, 194.

Will, motives of the, 16;

to strengthen, 255.

William of Normandy, his wit, 100; his birth, 102.

Woman, unfavorably placed for securing happiness, 30; education of, 33, 200; physical training of, 66; her clothing, 82, 91; intellectual pleasures of, 158; lack of justice, 33, 205; her attraction for man, 237, 240.

Work, measure of its value, 117; its healthful action, 255.

World, the, as our country, 90.

Xavier de Maistre, 83.

Youth not the happiest period of life, 34, 76; misanthropy of, 194; compared with age, 76, 80, 225.

Zola, E., quoted, 109.

Transcriber’s Note:

Words and phrases in italics are surrounded by underscores, like this. Dialect, obsolete and alternative spellings were left unchanged. Obvious printing errors, such as backwards, upside down, or partially printed letters, were corrected.

The following items were changed:

siécle to siècle …la maladie de la siècle… targe to target …misses the target… XVI. to XVI …Louis XVI stops at… brook to book …the oldest prayer-book… Sidney to Sydney …in the words of Sydney Smith… Bronté to Bronte …in Charlotte Bronte’s poem… that to than …anguish than by that… inmeasurable to immeasurable …her immeasurable losses… Shopenhauer to Schopenhauer, in the index