{"collection":"philosophy-ethics","full_text_available":true,"graph_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/api/page/gutenberg_58685/graph","html_url":"https://unchartedknowledge.5gfusion.net/v2/page/gutenberg_58685","id":"gutenberg_58685","license":"Public Domain (US)","rights_basis":"gutenberg_metadata_copyright_false","source":"gutenberg","source_url":"https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/58685","summary":null,"tags":["Category: History - Other","Category: Philosophy & Ethics","Category: Psychiatry/Psychology","Suffering"],"text":"Produced by Richard Tonsing, Turgut Dincer, and the Online\nDistributed Proofreading Team at http://www.pgdp.net (This\nfile was produced from images generously made available\nby The Internet Archive)\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n\n                                  THE\n                           PRIVILEGE OF PAIN\n\n\n                                   BY\n\n                            MRS. LEO EVERETT\n\n\n                              INTRODUCTION\n                                   BY\n                          KATE DOUGLAS WIGGIN\n\n[Illustration]\n\n                                 BOSTON\n                        SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY\n                               PUBLISHERS\n\n\n\n\n                            Copyright, 1920,\n                      BY SMALL, MAYNARD & COMPANY\n                             (INCORPORATED)\n\n\n\n\n                              TO MY COUSIN\n\n                            BELLE HUNNEWELL\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\n\n\n\n                         THE PRIVILEGE OF PAIN\n\n\n\n\n                              INTRODUCTION\n\n\nA very suggestive and intriguing title is \u201c_The Privilege of Pain_.\u201d\nThose who know a good deal about the subject will doubtless raise the\neyebrow of incredulity, while those who have lived in blissful ignorance\nwill be curious if not wholly sympathetic. When I first heard the essay\n(since developed into this book) read before an audience of very\nthoughtful and discriminating women, I fancied, although it awakened the\nliveliest interest in all present, that there was not entire unanimity\nas to the essayist\u2019s point of view. Several invalids and semi-invalids\nwore an expression of modest pride in the eloquent plea that physical\nlimitations had not succeeded in stemming the tide of mental and\nspiritual achievement in the long history of the world\u2019s progress.\nRobust ladies, equal to eight hours\u2019 work, and if advisable, eight\nhours\u2019 play, out of the twenty-four, looked a trifle aggrieved, as if\nthe gift of perfect health had been underrated, and the laurels that had\nalways surmounted their shining hair and glowing faces might be wrested\nfrom them and placed on paler brows. They had no wish to shorten the\nlist of the essayist\u2019s heroes, (Heaven forbid!) but they evidently\nwished to retire to their private libraries and compile a roll of honor\nfrom the merely healthy.\n\nHowever there was no acrimony in the discussion that followed the\nreading of the paper nor any desire to withhold honor where honor was so\ngloriously due.\n\nThose who disbelieved in the validity of pain; those who were convinced\nthat mind is not only superior to, but able to win complete triumph over\nmatter; those who felt that laying hold of the Great Source of Healing\nand Power would enable them not only to deny but to defy pain, these\nnaturally were not completely in accord with the writer.\n\nMyself, I have always thought that the happy waking after dreamless\nsleep; the exultation in the new day and its appointed task; the sense\nof vigor and ability to do whatever opportunity offered; the feeling\nthat one could \u201crun and not be weary, could walk and not faint\u201d\u2014that\nthese were the most precious things that the gods could vouchsafe to\nmankind,\u2014and yet!\u2014What of the latent powers that wake into life when we\nlook into \u201cthe bright face of danger\u201d? Our bodies are not commonly the\ntemples that God intended them to be, and yet often an unquenchable fire\nburns within; an inner flame that incites to effort and achievement,\nturns the timid slave into the happy warrior. What if the strength born\nof overcoming should rescue dormant powers equal to those that exist\nwhere there is no effort save that engendered by abounding vitality?\nAfter all life is an obstacle race to most of us. Who knows whether the\nhorse could make a spectacular jump had he not often been confronted by\nbar, gate, hurdle and hedge? I wonder how many great things have been\ncarved, painted, written, conceived, invented, where the creative human\nbeing has never suffered, but has been sheltered, lapped in ease, the\nburden lifted from his shoulders? I wonder if the eye that is seldom wet\nwith tears is ever truly capable of the highest vision?\n\nI think that my own unregenerate watchword would be: \u201cAll for health and\nthe world well lost!\u201d so I am by no means a special pleader, even yet,\nfor the \u201cprivilege of pain\u201d; but Mrs. Everett\u2019s enthusiasm and the ardor\nof her conviction compels a new and more sympathetic understanding of\nher thesis.\n\nI have more often seen spiritual than intellectual exaltation follow\npain, but both were present in one woman, half-poet, half-saint, whose\nverses were written in intense suffering, as indeed were most of W. E.\nHenley\u2019s.\n\nWith closed eyes and pale lips she once quoted to me:\n\n                   \u201cAngel of Pain! I think thy face\n                   Will be in all the Heavenly Place\n                   The earliest face that I shall see\n                   And swiftest face to smile on me!\u201d\n\n\u201cHow is it possible for you to say it?\u201d I asked brokenly.\n\n\u201cBecause,\u201d she answered, \u201call dreams and all visions have come to me, as\nwell as all that I know of earth and heaven, through pain. It opens\nwindows in what would otherwise be blank walls!\u201d\n\nThe blind, deaf, dumb, maimed, crippled (if so be it the soul is strong)\nseem to develop a splendid fighting spirit unknown to those who,\napparently, have complete command of all their powers. Take one sense\naway and the others spring, full-armored, into more active service. Rob\nthem of a right hand and the underrated left becomes doubly skilful.\nThese are soldiers in the \u201carmy with banners,\u201d and should be led and\nfollowed by acclaiming hosts.\n\nI have known hundreds of invalids more or less saintly, but I have had\npersonal friendship with only two completely joyous, triumphant\nones,\u2014Robert Louis Stevenson and Helen Keller. If \u201cone with God is a\nmajority,\u201d then two such conquering human creatures as these furnish\ninspiration for our generation, and Mrs. Everett in her eager search has\nfound hundreds of similar examples. For that reason I call this a\nunique, gallant, courageous, helpful little book, likely to give pluck\nand spirit to many readers handicapped by various ills! There is nothing\npatient, meek, or resigned in its pages; no air of being\ncrushed-but-still-smiling; it simply radiates a plucky, chin-in-the-air\natmosphere calculated to make an aching hand pick up its pen, brush,\nlump of clay or shovel and go to work; not grimly and doggedly, with\nlips set, but glowing in triumph over the secret adversary.\n\nThe magnificent company marshalled by Mrs. Everett has an exhilarating\neffect upon the hearer or reader. As I listened to instance after\ninstance of weakness gloriously transmuted into strength; of personal\ngrief and sorrow turned into joy for the whole world; of vast knowledge,\nspiritual and intellectual, amassed bit by bit in the very grip of\nphysical suffering, I remembered the poetic pronouncement in Revelation.\n\n\u201cHe that hath an ear let him hear what the Spirit saith unto the\nchurches; To him that overcometh will I give to eat of the tree of life\nwhich is in the midst of the paradise of God.\u201d\n\n                                                     KATE DOUGLAS WIGGIN\n\n New York, May, 1920.\n\n\n\n\n                                   I\n                          HEALTH AND STRENGTH\n\n\nSeveral years ago one of the New York papers published an interview with\na well-known physician, on the advisability of women being drafted for\nwar. He expressed himself in favor of their receiving military training,\nalthough, he casually remarked, \u201ca good many would undoubtedly perish.\nBut,\u201d he argued, \u201cif we blot out the individual equation and judge from\nthe standpoint of race, would their perishing be regrettable?\u201d He thinks\nnot. \u201cFor, objectors must remember,\u201d he continues, \u201cthat mental and\nmoral man gets his strength and efficiency only from the physical man. A\nsick man, just as a sick race, is the one that goes to the wall.\u201d\n\nThis outrageous statement was published at the very height of the world\nwar, when men without arms, legs, eyes, men permanently shattered in\nhealth, men who will hide all their lives behind masks, were crawling\nhome in hordes. And the worst of it is, that practically everybody\nagrees with his verdict.\n\nWe offer these heroes, who have sacrificed their splendid young bodies\non the altar of humanity, a few fine phrases about glory and honor, yet\nare smugly content to allow them to be crushed by our degrading\nconviction that the heights of achievement are no longer for them.\n\nNow if a sick race could exist at all, it might go to the wall as the\ndoctor prophesies; but when he narrows his contention to the individual,\nwhen he declares that \u201ca sick man goes to the wall,\u201d he is venturing a\nstatement which only a surprising ignorance can excuse.\n\nFor what is more surprising than for an educated man, a physician, to\nput forward a claim which can be refuted by anyone who has even a\nsuperficial knowledge of the past? Every one I have questioned has been\nable to recall at least one invalid who has attained celebrity. For\ninstance, all but the unlettered are familiar with the fact that both\nKeats and Robert Louis Stevenson were diseased.\n\nThe vast majority, however, even of cultivated people, do not seem to\nrealize what an extraordinarily large percentage of the greatest men and\nwomen have been physically handicapped. It is the joyous mission of this\nbook to prove to all invalids, but more especially to those living\nvictims of the Great War, that Keats and Stevenson, far from\nrepresenting isolated instances of achievement despite bodily\ninfirmities, are but members of a gallant army, some of whom have\nreached even greater heights in spite of more painful disabilities.\n\nThe relation of insanity to genius has not escaped the notice of\nscholars, who have already exhaustively dealt with it. I intend\ntherefore to confine myself to those giants of the past who have\nsuffered either from disease, mutilation or constitutional debility. If\nI have cited a few who have been afflicted with attacks of insanity, I\nhave selected only those whose best work was done after recovering from\nsuch seizures, and have carefully excluded all who have had to pay with\ntheir intellects the price of a too stupendous vision. I wish\nfurthermore to impress upon you that of all the illustrious men and\nwomen I shall enumerate there is not one whose fullest development was\nnot coincident with ill-health, or reached after joining the ranks of\nthe physically unfit.\n\nIf we scrutinize more closely this heterogeneous assemblage, we shall\ndiscover that it is composed of representatives of the most varied forms\nof human endeavor,\u2014Saint and philosopher, poet and scientist, author and\nstatesman, musician and artist, and, what is really astonishing, some of\nthe greatest soldiers and one, at least, of the greatest sailors are\namong them.\n\n\n\n\n                                   II\n                         SOLDIERS AND A SAILOR\n\n\nOf all vocations, the profession of arms is the one for which it might\nbe supposed that a perfect physique is the most essential.\n\nYet Alexander, C\u00e6sar, Alfred the Great, John of Bohemia, Torstensson, Le\nGrand Cond\u00e9 and his great rival Turenne, Luxembourg, Napoleon, General\nWolfe and finally Lord Nelson are proofs to die contrary.\n\nAlexander the Great, singular even among men of action for the splendor\nof his imagination, was an epileptic. So also was Julius C\u00e6sar. The\nlatter was often attacked by his malady on the very field of battle.\n\nAlfred, so justly called \u201cthe Great,\u201d was stricken in his twentieth year\nby a mysterious disease which caused him intense pain and from which he\nwas never afterwards free. The extent and diversity of his activities\nare, however, almost incredible. He excelled as a soldier, politician\nand administrator. He was also a scholar, and the revival of learning\nwhich took place under his reign was due solely to his efforts.\n\nKing John of Bohemia stands out as the most romantic and chivalrous\nfigure of the Middle Ages. He dazzled his contemporaries by his exploits\nand his reputation for valor has never been exceeded. He was overtaken\nby blindness at the age of forty-three, but, strapped to his horse,\ncontinued to lead his armies to battle. For six years this blind hero\nsuccessfully resisted all the attacks of the Emperor Louis and his\nallies. His heroic death at the battle of Cre\u00e7y was a fitting conclusion\nto a gallant life. According to Camden, the ostrich feathers and the\nmotto \u201cIch dien,\u201d borne ever since by the Prince of Wales, originally\nformed the crest of King John, and were first assumed by the Black\nPrince as a token of the admiration with which his antagonist inspired\nhim.\n\nCond\u00e9, known to history as \u201cLe Grand Cond\u00e9,\u201d was so delicate in\nchildhood that he was not expected to reach maturity, and his nervous\nsystem was \u201cat no time to be trifled with.\u201d During his innumerable\ncampaigns he was a constant martyr to fevers and other maladies, but\nthese seldom interfered with his untiring energy or his capacity for\nwork. He had also the power of arousing the enthusiasm of his followers.\nThey said of him: \u201cIn the midst of misfortune Cond\u00e9 always maintains the\ncharacter of a hero.\u201d\n\nTurenne is one of the captains whose campaigns Napoleon recommended all\nsoldiers to \u201cread and re-read.\u201d Physical infirmities and an impediment\nin his speech hampered his career in youth. However, by devoting himself\nto bodily exercises, he succeeded in a measure in overcoming his\nweaknesses, but to the end he never possessed a normal physique.\n\nCount Torstensson, the brilliant Swedish field-marshal, celebrated after\nGustavus Adolphus as the hero of the Thirty Years\u2019 War, and compared to\nNapoleon for the rapidity with which he was able to move his troops, had\nfrequently to lead his army from a litter, as his infirmities would not\npermit him to mount a horse. He is considered by experts to have been a\ngreater man than his opponent, Tilly, although the latter, strangely\nenough, has a more widespread reputation.\n\nA propos Luxembourg and William III (although the latter should be\nincluded among the statesmen), I will quote a passage from Macaulay. \u201cIn\nsuch an age (1694) bodily vigor is the most indispensable qualification\nfor a warrior. At the battle of Landon two poor, sickly beings, who, in\na rude state of society, would have been considered too puny to bear\npart in combats, were the souls of two great armies.\u201d And further on:\n\u201cIt is probable that the two feeblest in body among the hundred and\ntwenty thousand soldiers that fought at Neerwinden were the hunch-backed\ndwarf (Luxembourg) who urged forward the fiery onset of France, and the\nasthmatic skeleton (William III) who covered the slow retreat of\nEngland.\u201d\n\nNapoleon was an epileptic and Lord Nelson, at the height of his\nefficiency, had lost an arm and an eye and what is even more remarkable\nwas, so it is said, sick every time he went to sea or whenever the\nweather was exceptionally rough.\n\nGeneral Wolfe, although only thirty-two years old, was already a man of\nshattered health when he undertook his famous expedition against Quebec.\nIn spite of disheartening failures and the torture of an internal\nmalady, he finally won the decisive victory which wrested Quebec from\nthe French. During the battle he was twice wounded but refused to leave\nthe field until a third bullet pierced his lung. He survived only long\nenough to give a final order for cutting off the retreat and breathed\nhis last murmuring: \u201cNow, God be praised, I will die in peace.\u201d\n\nLet us consider for a moment what made these men pre-eminent. It was not\ncourage. C\u00e6sar and Napoleon were no braver than thousands of their\nfollowers. Nor was it the capacity for endurance. What then was the\nsecret of their power? I answer unhesitatingly,\u2014imagination. No leader\nhas been without it and the greatest leaders are the men who have had it\nto a superlative degree. Napoleon recognized its mysterious sway, for it\nwas he who said: \u201cImagination rules the world.\u201d Now, imagination is the\nvery quality we find most frequently allied to ill-health.\n\nI beg to call to your attention that with the exception of le grand\nCond\u00e9 and possibly Napoleon, not one of these men would have passed his\n\u201cmedical.\u201d\n\nIt is certainly curious that the profession of arms, the most physically\nexacting of all professions, is the only one whose greatest examples\nhave without exception been tainted with disease.\n\n\n\n\n                                  III\n                 ILL-HEALTH AND ITS RELATION TO GENIUS\n\n\n\u201cThe physical conditions which accompany and affect what we call genius\nare obscure, and have hitherto attracted little but empirical notice. It\nis impossible not to see that absolutely normal man or woman, as we\ndescribe normality, is very rarely indeed an inventor, or a seer, or\neven a person of remarkable mental energy. The bulk of what are called\nentirely \u2018healthy\u2019 people add nothing to the sum of human achievement,\nand it is not the average navvy who makes a Darwin nor a typical\ndaughter of the plough who develops into an Elizabeth Barrett\nBrowning.... The more closely we study, with extremely slender resources\nof evidence, the lives of great men of imagination and action since the\nbeginning of the world, the more clearly we ought to recognize that a\nreduction of all types to one stolid uniformity of what is called\n\u2018health\u2019 would have the effect of depriving humanity of precisely those\nindividuals who have added most to the beauty and variety of human\nexistence.... When the physical conditions of men of the highest\ncelebrity in the past are touched upon, it is usual to pass them over\nwith indifference, or else to account for them as the result of disease.\nThe peculiarities of Pascal, or of Pope, or of Michelangelo are either\ndenied, or it is presumed that they were the result of purely morbid\nfactors against which their genius, their rectitude, or their common\nsense more or less successfully contended. It is admitted that Tasso had\na hypersensitive constitution, which cruelty tortured into melancholia,\nbut it is taken for granted that he would have been a greater poet, if\nhe had taken plenty of out-door exercise.\u201d\n\nThese are the conclusions of Mr. Edmund Gosse, and they are even more\nradical than mine. It is, however, true that in sickness the\nperceptions, physical, mental and spiritual, become supernormally acute,\nand this extreme sensitiveness to impression is one of the attributes of\ngenius. It follows, therefore, that imagination is stimulated by\nsuffering, but not that suffering creates genius or is even inseparably\nallied to it.\n\nThe most universal concomitant of genius is the power of concentration\nand there is nothing that so fosters that quality as ill-health. By\nforcing us to limit our activities, our human contacts, it automatically\neliminates everything that is not the basic essential of each\nindividual.\n\nWe may dream of an absolutely balanced man, one equally supreme in mind,\nbody, and spirit, but I do not believe it possible for such a being to\nexist. It seems to be a law that we must purchase and develop one\nfaculty at the expense of another. Only by excessive application to one\nrestricted form of activity can we excel in it. Genius is not eccentric,\nit is concentric. The all-round man is the mediocre man. To perfect even\na rose, you must mutilate the bush.\n\nOf all the great men of imagination Leonardo da Vinci and Goethe seem to\nhave been the most superabundantly healthy. This was certainly true of\nLeonardo in his youth, but I cannot help feeling that when he painted\nMona Lisa\u2019s smile, Pain, the great teacher, was not unknown to him.\nHowever, I may be mistaken, and if so, he is the most complete man in\nthe whole history of art, science or literature, for he enjoyed the\nadvantages of health without forfeiting the hypersensitiveness of\nsuffering.\n\nThere is no doubt, however, about Goethe. He kept his splendid physique\nto the last, and Goethe was unquestionably a very great man. His\ngigantic intellect is curiously stimulating. No one else of whom I know,\nwith the exception of Leonardo, has had such a multiple outlook on life.\nThat amazing eye of his dissected as well as comprehended all that it\nrested upon, and it rested upon almost everything tangible. But the very\nuniversality of Goethe\u2019s genius is one of its limitations. He gives so\nmuch, and yet\u2014there it is, he knows no \u201chalf-lights.\u201d He never leads one\nto those shadowy regions where the soul is in travail; he knows nothing\nof that mysterious tract which lies beyond the last outpost of the\nintellect. His imagination even in its wildest flights is curiously\nearthbound. I feel that he was too healthy.\n\n\n\n\n                                   IV\n                            AMONG THE POETS\n           \u201cTHEY LEARN IN SUFFERING WHAT THEY TEACH IN SONG\u201d\n\n\nHorace was a man of feeble health; Milton was blind; Pope deformed.\nGeorge Herbert, to whom we owe so many of our most beautiful hymns and\nanthems, was consumptive. John Donne had an enormous influence on\nEnglish literature, although, according to Mr. Edmund Gosse, his\ninfluence was mostly malign. He was praised by Dryden, paraphrased by\nPope, and then completely forgotten for a century. His versification is\noften harsh, but \u201cbehind that fantastic garb of language there is an\nearnest and vigorous mind, and imagination that harbors fire within its\ncloudy folds and an insight into the mysteries of spiritual life which\nis often startling. Donne excels in brief flashes of wit and beauty, and\nin sudden, daring phrases that have the full perfume of poetry in them.\u201d\nIzaak Walton was his admiring friend and first biographer. Donne was\nconstantly ill during the years of his greatest creative activity, yet\nthis is what he once said, speaking of his illnesses: \u201cThe advantage you\nand my other friends have by my frequent fevers is that I am so much the\noftener at the gate of heaven; and, by the solitude and close\nimprisonment they reduce me to, I am so much the oftener at my prayers,\nin which you and my other dear friends are not forgotten.\u201d\n\nIt was owing to ill-health that Coleridge first took opium under the\nguise of a patent medicine.\n\nWilliam Cowper early showed a tendency to melancholia, but it was not\nuntil he was almost thirty that the prospects of having to appear at the\nbar of the House of Lords, preliminary to taking up the position of\nclerk\u2014a mere formality\u2014drove him completely insane. He attempted suicide\nand was sent to an asylum where he spent eighteen months. At the age of\nforty-two he had another attack from which it took him almost three\nyears to recover completely. Nevertheless we find him three years later\nmaking his first appearance as an author with \u201cOlney Hymns,\u201d written in\nconjunction with a friend. This was followed by a collection of poems,\nwhich was badly received, one critic declaring that \u201cMr. Cowper was\ncertainly a good, pious man, but without one spark of poetic fire.\u201d It\nwas not until 1785 when he was already fifty-four years old and had been\ntwice declared insane that he published the book that was to make him\nfamous. It is entitled: \u201cThe Task, Tircinium or a Review of Schools, and\nthe History of John Gilpin.\u201d Cowper is among the poets who are\nepoch-makers. \u201cHe brought a new spirit into English verse. With him\nbegins the \u2018enthusiasm for humanity,\u2019 that was afterwards to become so\nmarked in the poetry of Burns, Shelley, Wordsworth and Byron.\u201d\n\nKeats suffered from consumption and it is interesting to note that the\nprogress of his disease coincided with the expansion of his genius.\n\nChatterton is the most astounding and precocious figure in the whole\nhistory of letters. He was only seventeen years and nine months old when\nstarvation drove him to commit suicide, \u201cbut the best of his numerous\nproductions, both in prose and verse, require no allowance to be made\nfor the immaturity of their author.\u201d Chatterton\u2019s audience has never\nbeen a large one for the reason that with a few exceptions all his poems\nare written in Fifteenth Century English. Among the discriminating,\nhowever, he holds a very high place. His genius and tragic death are\ncommemorated by Wordsworth in \u201cResolution and Independence,\u201d by\nColeridge in \u201cA Monody on the Death of Chatterton,\u201d by D. G. Rossetti in\n\u201cFive English Poets,\u201d and Keats dedicated \u201cEndymion\u201d to his memory.\n\nI have hesitated as to whether I had a right to include Chatterton among\nmy examples, because I can find no record of his having suffered from\nactual disease. On the other hand he was so abnormal that I feel that I\nhave no right to ignore him. From his earliest years he was subject to\nfits of abstraction during which he would sit for hours in seeming\nstupor from which it was almost impossible to wake him. For a time he\nwas even considered deficient in intellect.\n\nThomas Hood was a chronic invalid; his most famous poem, \u201cThe Bridge of\nSighs,\u201d was written on his death-bed. Byron and Swinburne were also\nphysically handicapped.\n\nW. E. Henley was not only a poet but a trenchant critic and a successful\neditor. A physical infirmity forced him at the age of twenty-five to\nbecome an inmate of an Edinburgh hospital. While there he wrote a number\nof poems in irregular rhythm describing, with poignant force, his\nexperiences as a patient. Sent to the _Cornhill Magazine_, they at once\naroused the interest of Leslie Stephen, the editor, and induced him to\nvisit the young poet and to take Robert Louis Stevenson with him. This\nmeeting in the hospital and the friendship which ensued between\nStevenson and Henley were famous in the literary gossip of the last\ncentury. Henley\u2019s reputation will rest on his poetry, and the best of\nhis poems will retain a permanent place in English literature. As a\nliterary editor he displayed a gift for discovering men of promise, and\n\u201cViews and Reviews\u201d is a \u201cvolume of notable criticism.\u201d\n\nSidney Lanier, one of the most original and talented of American poets,\nwas consumptive, and Francis Thompson, author of \u201cThe Hound of Heaven,\u201d\nwrote his flaming verse under acute pain.\n\nThe Sixteenth Century was the heyday of poets. Princes regarded them as\nthe chief ornament of their courts and disputed among themselves the\nhonor of their company. Ronsard\u2019s life, therefore, was exceptionally\nfortunate. He enjoyed the favor of the three sons of Catherine de\u2019\nMedici, more especially of Charles IX, after whose premature death the\npoet retired from Paris. Ronsard is celebrated as the chief glory of an\nassociation of poets who called themselves the \u201cPl\u00e9iade.\u201d His own\ngeneration bestowed upon him the title of \u201cPrince of Poets.\u201d Ronsard\nbecame deaf at eighteen and so he became a man of letters instead of a\ndiplomatist. His infirmity is probably responsible for a \u201ccertain\npremature agedness, a tranquil, temperate sweetness\u201d which characterizes\nthe school of poetry he founded.\n\nJoachim du Bellay was destined for the army and his poetry would most\nprobably have been lost to the world if he had not been attacked by a\nserious illness which seemed likely to prove fatal. It was during the\nidle days of his convalescence that he first read the Greek and Latin\npoets. He was also a member of the \u201cPl\u00e9iade\u201d and some of his isolated\npieces excel those of Ronsard in \u201cairy lightness of touch.\u201d\n\nMoli\u00e8re is the greatest name in French literature. The facts as to his\nyouth and early manhood are so wrapped in uncertainty, that it is\nimpossible to say when the frailty of his health first became manifest.\nWhen he emerges from obscurity we find him already subject to attacks of\nillness and forced to limit himself to a milk diet. His best work,\nhowever, was still undone. \u201cTartuffe\u201d was not written until 1664 when\nMoli\u00e8re was already forty-two years old, and \u201cLe Misanthrope\u201d was\nperformed a year later. Although it had probably long been latent, he\nfirst showed unmistakable symptoms of consumption in 1667. In spite of\nthe ravages of disease, and the continual strain of an impossible\ndomestic situation, he produced \u201cLe Bourgois Gentilhomme\u201d three years\nlater, followed by \u201cLes Fourberies de Scapin.\u201d \u201cLe Malade Imaginaire\u201d\nwas written shortly before his death, and it was while acting the title\nr\u00f4le that he ruptured a blood vessel. He died a few hours afterwards,\nalone, except for the casual presence of two Sisters of Charity.\n\nScarron, poet, dramatist and novelist, lived twenty years in a state of\nmiserable deformity and pain. His head and body were twisted; his legs\nuseless. He bore his sufferings with invincible courage. Scarron was a\nprominent figure in the literary and fashionable society of his day. His\nwork, however, is very unequal. That the \u201cRoman Burlesque\u201d is a novel of\nreal merit, no competent critic can deny. It was republished during the\nnineteenth century, not only in the original French but in an English\ntranslation. Scarron is also of interest as the first husband of the\nlady who as Mme. de Maintenon became the wife of Louis XIV.\n\nBoileau was the youngest of fifteen children. He is said to have had but\none passion, the hatred of stupid books. He was the first critic to\ndemonstrate the poetical possibilities of the French language. His two\nmasterpieces are \u201cL\u2019Art Po\u00e9tique\u201d and \u201cLutrin.\u201d \u201cAfter much depreciation\nBoileau\u2019s critical work has been rehabilitated and his judgments have\nbeen substantially adopted by his successors.\u201d He suffered all his life\nfrom constitutional debility.\n\nSchiller was a leading spirit of his age, yet from his thirty-second\nyear \u201cevery one of his nerves was an avenue of pain.\u201d Nevinson, however,\nconsidered \u201cit possible the disease served in some way to increase\nSchiller\u2019s eager activity and fan his intellect into keener flame.\u201d\nCarlyle also writes of the poet that \u201cin the midst of his infirmities he\npersevered with unabated zeal in the great business of his life. His\nframe might be impaired, but his spirit retained its fire\nunextinguished.\u201d Schiller wrote some of his noblest and greatest plays\nduring the periods of his most acute suffering. When he died it was\nfound that all his vital organs were deranged.\n\nHeinrich Heine, another immortal, spent eight years of his agitated\nstruggling life on what he called \u201ca mattress-grave.\u201d \u201cThese years of\nsuffering seem to have effected what might be called a spiritual\npurification of Heine\u2019s nature, and to have brought out all the good\nside of his character, whereas adversity in earlier days had only\nemphasized his cynicism.\u201d Though crippled and racked with constant pain,\nhis intellectual and creative powers were no whit dimmed. His greatest\npoems were written during these years of suffering from which he found\nrelief only in death.\n\nPetrarch suffered from epilepsy, and Alfieri, one of the greatest of the\nItalian tragic poets, was a martyr to pain. So likewise was Leopardi,\nauthor of some immortal odes; the latter was, furthermore, deformed. It\nwas said of him that \u201cPain and Love are the two-fold poetry of his\nexistence.\u201d\n\nCamoens, the greatest of Portuguese poets, lost his right eye attempting\nto board an enemy ship. After a life of incredible hardship, he died in\na public almshouse worn out by disease.\n\nThere are hardly any women poets, which is rather curious, as it is\nalmost the only career that requires neither training nor paraphernalia,\nyet among this handful we find four, three of them being of real\nimportance, namely: Mrs. Browning, Christina Rossetti and Emily\nDickinson. Mrs. Browning was a chronic invalid and wrote her greatest\npoems, \u201cSonnets from the Portuguese,\u201d while actually on her back. Mr.\nEdmund Gosse says of Christina Rossetti, \u201cAll we really know about her,\nsave that she was a great saint, was that she was a great poet.\u201d She was\nalso a great sufferer.\n\nThe most curious event of American literary history was the sudden rise\nof Emily Dickinson into a posthumous fame. This strange woman, who\nshunned publicity with a morbid terror and never left her \u201cfather\u2019s\nhouse for any house or town,\u201d nevertheless bequeathed to the world poems\nwhich for life and fire are unexcelled. She was an invalid. In 1863 she\nwrites: \u201cI was ill since September, and since April in Boston for a\nphysician\u2019s care. He does not let me go, yet I work in my prison, and\nmake guests for myself. Carlo (her dog) did not come, because he would\ndie in jail and the mountains I could not hold now, so I brought but the\ngods!\u201d\n\nFrances Ridley Havergal wrote some of her most beautiful hymns on a sick\nbed.\n\n\n\n\n                                   V\n                               NOVELISTS\n\n\nThe first name I find on my list of novelists who have been subject to\nill health is that of Cervantes. He did not start life an invalid,\u2014far\nfrom it. He seems to have been a youth of unusual vigor. But when only\ntwenty-three years old he was severely wounded and lost his left hand in\nbattle\u2014\u201cFor the greater glory of the right,\u201d as he gallantly exclaimed.\nAfter that he spent five years in slavery and he escaped from the Moors\nonly to languish at various times in a Spanish prison. Hardship, and\nprivations doubtless, and also his old wounds, had completely shattered\nhis health when he finally sat down to create his immortal \u201cDon\nQuixote.\u201d The first part was published when he was fifty-eight years\nold, the last when he was sixty-nine.\n\nWhen Fielding wrote \u201cTom Jones,\u201d he had been for years a martyr to gout\nand other diseases: Gibbon predicted for this work \u201ca diuturnity\nexceeding that of the house of Austria!\u201d It is curious that this book,\nwhich bubbles over with the joy of life, was written at a time when\nFielding was plunged into the deepest melancholy.\n\nSwift suffered from \u201clabyrinthian vertigo.\u201d\n\nLaurence Sterne, creator of \u201cTristram Shandy,\u201d was consumptive, as he\nsays of himself, \u201cfrom the first hour I drew breath unto this that I can\nhardly breathe at all.\u201d Sterne, no longer young, was increasingly\nsuffering during the years he brought forth the numerous volumes of his\nunique book.\n\nSir Walter Scott was not only lame from infancy but is an inspiring\nexample of what can be accomplished under conditions of extreme physical\nsuffering. When he was forty-six years old began a series of agonizing\nattacks of cramps of the stomach which recurred at frequent intervals\nfor two years. But his activity and capacity for work remained unbroken.\nHe made his initial attempt at play-writing when he was recovering from\nthis first seizure. Before the year was out he had completed \u201cRob Roy.\u201d\nWithin six months it was followed by \u201cThe Heart of Midlothian,\u201d which\nfilled four volumes of the second series of \u201cTales of my Landlord,\u201d and\nhas remained one of the most popular among his novels. \u201cThe Bride of\nLammermoor\u201d and \u201cThe Legend of Montrose\u201d were dictated to amanuenses,\nthrough fits of suffering so acute that he could not suppress cries of\nagony. When Laidlaw begged him to stop dictating he only answered, \u201cNay,\nWillie, only see that the doors are fast. I would fain keep all the cry,\nas well as all the wool to ourselves, but to give over work, that can\nonly be when I am woolen.\u201d\n\nMme. de La Fayette lost her health a year before her epoch-making novel,\n\u201cLa Princess de Cl\u00e9ves,\u201d was published. She lived fifteen years\nafterwards, \u201c\u00e9tant de ceux,\u201d as Sainte-Beuve says, \u201cqui tra\u00eenent leur\nmiserable vie jusqu\u2019\u00e0 la derni\u00e8re goutte d\u2019huile.\u201d \u201cLa Princesse de\nCl\u00e9ves\u201d is not only intrinsically a work of real merit, which is still\nread with pleasure, but is important because it is the first novel of\nsentiment, the first novel, in the sense we moderns use the word, that\nwas ever written.\n\nLe Sage was a handsome, engaging youth, but it was not until he was\nthirty-nine years old that he made his first success with the \u201cDiable\nBoiteux.\u201d Already his deafness was rapidly increasing; and he was\nsixty-seven years old and had long been completely deaf when the last\nvolume of the masterpiece, \u201cGil Blas,\u201d appeared.\n\nVauvenargues was a soldier until he had both of his legs frozen during a\nwinter campaign. This injury, from which he never recovered, forced him\nto leave the army. An attack of small-pox completed the ruin of his\nhealth, and thenceforth he led a secluded life devoted to literary\npursuits. It is mainly as a novelist that Vauvenargues occupies a place\nin French literature, although his other works were held in high esteem\nby his contemporaries.\n\nEdmond and Jules de Goncourt are names famous in French literary\nhistory. \u201cLearning something from Flaubert, and teaching almost\neverything to Zola, they invented a new kind of novel, and their works\nare the result of a new vision of the world.... A novel of the Goncourts\nis made up of an infinite number of details, set side by side, every\ndetail equally prominent.... French critics have complained that the\nlanguage of the Goncourts is no longer the French of the past, and this\nis true. It is their distinction, the finest of their inventions, that\nin order to render new sensations, a new vision of things, they invented\na new language.\u201d (Mr. Arthur Symons.) Their journal is a gold mine from\nwhich present-day writers still carry away unacknowledged nuggets. M.\nPaul Bourget said of them: \u201cLife reduced itself to a series of epileptic\nattacks, preceded and followed by a blank.\u201d\n\nDostoievsky is considered by many critics the greatest of the great\nRussian novelists.\n\nHis health was completely shattered by his spending four years in a\nSiberian prison as a political offender. This terrible experience,\nhowever, served to create \u201cRecollections of a Dead House\u201d and \u201cBuried\nAlive in Siberia.\u201d\n\nAnton Chekhov, the Russian novelist and short story writer, was only a\nlittle over twenty when he began to suffer from attacks of blood\nspitting. Although he believed that these came from his throat they were\nundoubtedly due to consumption. He was also a martyr to digestive\ntrouble and headaches.\n\nChekhov possessed to an unusual degree the nervous energy which so\nfrequently accompanies disease. He was a remarkably prolific author, so\nmuch so that in one of his letters he prophesies that he will soon have\nwritten enough to fill a library with his own works. Literature was,\nhowever, not his only pursuit. He also practiced medicine, although he\nrefused to receive any remuneration for his services. He was public\nspirited and altruistic and organized an association for the relief of\nSiberian prisoners.\n\nHis books enjoy an immense vogue and have been translated into every\nlanguage.\n\nWhatever may be the future of English fiction, Charlotte Bront\u00eb\u2019s novels\nwill always command attention, by reason of their intensity and\nindividuality. She suffered from permanent bodily weakness with various\ncomplications.\n\nSome critics consider Emily Bront\u00eb superior to her sister. \u201cWuthering\nHeights\u201d is a \u201cthing apart, passionate, unforgettable.\u201d This remarkable\nbook was written while its author was dying of consumption.\n\nThat super-woman, known to fame as George Eliot, suffered all her life\nfrom frequent attacks of illness. In spite of her physical limitations\nshe was capable of the most prolonged and intense application. Her\nnumerous novels, dating from her thirty-sixth year, are only a part of\nher widespread intellectual activities.\n\nJacobsen, the great Danish novelist, unfortunately too little known in\nthis country, was, like so many others, cut off from his chosen or\ndestined profession and driven into literature by ill health. During the\nworst phases of his sufferings he produced books that in their way have\nnever been surpassed.\n\nI must mention here, though she belongs to no category, that\nextraordinary child, Marie Bashkirtseff, who, dying of consumption at\ntwenty-four, left behind her several pictures of great promise (two of\nthem are in the Luxembourg Gallery, I believe) and her \u201cJournal,\u201d a\nremarkable production which created a sensation thirty years ago and\nwhich has lately been republished.\n\nRobert Louis Stevenson\u2019s life is so well-known that I need only to\nrecall him to your memory.\n\nHenry James was so delicate that he was forced to remain a spectator of\nthe Civil War, in which his younger brothers fought. Mr. Edmund Gosse\nwrites the following description of a visit to Henry James when the\nlatter was already thirty-two years old. \u201cStretched on a sofa and\napologizing for not rising to greet me, his appearance gave me a little\nshock, for I had not thought of him as an invalid. He hurriedly and\nrather evasively declared that he was not that, but that a muscular\nweakness of the spine obliged him, as he said, \u2018to assume a horizontal\nposture during some hours of every day in order to bear an almost\nunbroken routine of evening engagements.\u2019\u201d It is recorded that in one\nwinter he dined out one hundred and seven times. What amazing assiduity!\nHis health gradually grew stronger, but for many years it seriously\nhandicapped his activity.\n\nI should like to linger a moment with Lafcadio Hearn. He is known to the\nworld at large as the foremost interpreter of the old and new Japan. He\nmarried a Japanese wife and this gave him a peculiar insight into the\ncustoms as well as the psychology of his adopted countrymen. His books\nshow a unique understanding of the Oriental mind and their literary art\nis exquisite. He not only suffered from ill health, but in addition lost\nthe sight of one eye in early youth and ever after went in fear of total\nblindness. Yet, far from regretting his afflictions, this is what he\nsaid about them: \u201cThe owner of pure horse-health never purchased the\npower of discerning the half-lights. In its separation of the spiritual\nfrom the physical portion of existence, severe sickness is often\ninvaluable to the sufferer, in the revelation it bestows of the\npsychological undercurrents of human existence. From the intuitive\nrecognition of the terrible but at the same time glorious fact, that the\nhighest life can only be reached by subordinating physical to spiritual\ninfluences, separating the immaterial from the material self,\u2014therein\nlies all the history of asceticism and self-suppression as the most\nefficacious measure of developing religious and intellectual power.\u201d\nThat is what experience had taught one who was certainly not a\nreligionist.\n\n\n\n\n                                   VI\n          PHYSICAL PERFECTION AND ITS RELATION TO CIVILIZATION\n\n\nI am persuaded that it is impossible to banish suffering from the world.\nAll we have so far accomplished is to exchange one form of suffering for\nanother.\n\nTake the case of women, for example, and the ailments to which they are\nsubject. Primitive woman was virtually free from these. She suffered\nlittle at childbirth. To-day the operation of even the normal female\nfunctions has become a serious matter. Science with all its strides has\nnot been able to cope successfully with the increasing burden which the\nconditions of modern life impose on woman\u2019s physique.\n\nI have chosen women as an illustration because they themselves would be\nthe first to insist that they had profited more than men from the\nadvance of thought and the perfecting of a social system that is largely\ntheir own creation. Well, compare this Flower of the Ages, as we see her\nin shops, offices, ball-rooms or even colleges, with an Australian\nbush-woman, and we will find that neither in health, strength nor\nendurance can she rival her savage sister. The woman of the bush is\ncapable of following her master all day with a baby on her back; of\nstopping for a brief period to produce another and of resuming her\nprogress, unimpeded by her additional burden.\n\nIt is well to realize that civilization, which has bestowed such\nincalculable benefits upon mankind, has done so largely at the expense\nof its physical welfare. Moreover, as men, and more particularly women,\nrise in the intellectual scale, they risk the sacrifice not only of a\nrobust, but of a normal, body. But what of it? \u201cWisdom is better than\nstrength; and a wise man is better than a strong man.\u201d Nor must we\nforget that while civilization has undoubtedly undermined our physique,\nit has also abolished the circumstances which made strength and\nendurance the supreme necessities of the battle of life. To be able to\nfollow her male with a child on her back\u2014to say nothing of the\ninteresting interlude\u2014is not a quality that would add either to the\nallurement or efficiency of the woman of to-day.\n\nLet me here cite four celebrated women who, differing from each other in\nevery other particular, suffered in common from ill health.\n\nThe first in order of time is Madame du Deffand who was for many years\nthe center of one of the most brilliant of the Eighteenth Century\nsalons. Her correspondence with Voltaire, La Duchesse Choiseul and\nHorace Walpole is immortal and has been frequently republished. Many of\nher letters to Voltaire and all of those to Mme. de Choiseul and Horace\nWalpole were dictated when she was over sixty-seven years of age, broken\nin health and totally blind.\n\nRachel was the daughter of a poor Jew pedlar, and from the age of four\nshe roamed the streets singing patriotic songs. A famous singing teacher\nheard her and, impressed by the crude power of the little creature,\noffered to teach her gratuitously. It is almost unbelievable to read of\nthe excitement this small, plain Jewess created. She still lives in\nhundreds of books and is an integral part of the history of her period.\nIf we can judge from contemporary praises, Rachel is the greatest\nactress of whom there is any record. She suffered from continual ill\nhealth and died of consumption in her thirty-seventh year.\n\nGrace Darling was the daughter of a lighthouse keeper, and with her\nfather braved almost certain death in attempting to save the survivors\nof the wreck of the _Forfarshire_. By well-nigh superhuman efforts they\nsucceeded in rescuing a great number. This gallant exploit made them\nboth famous. Grace Darling had always been delicate and died of\nconsumption four years later.\n\nFlorence Nightingale, immortal nurse and one of the most influential\nwomen in history, had at the time of her greatest activity a body so\nweak that it was a wonder how a woman in such delicate health was able\nto perform so much of what Sidney Herbert called \u201ca man\u2019s work.\u201d During\nmany years of important achievement she was altogether bed-ridden.\nWorking incessantly, writing, organizing, she was a power throughout the\nBritish Empire. Her influence has spread over the world; to her we owe\nthe first idea of training nurses.\n\nIt is really curious that physical fitness should have become an ideal\nonly after it had ceased to be the indispensable requirement of our\nenvironment. Piano-moving is perhaps the sole occupation to-day where\nstrength is the only qualification, and intelligence of no account\nwhatsoever; yet few of us aspire to become piano-movers!\n\nThe body is a most delicate machine and only in exceptional cases can it\nbe kept through life in perfect condition, without an immense\nexpenditure of time and trouble. Now, a perfect body should only be\nconsidered desirable, if it enables us to rise to greater heights of\nachievement. Countless people, however, regard health and vigor not\nmerely as the means but as the goal itself. They tend and exercise their\nbodies at the expense of every other form of activity. The\ndisproportionate amount of time, energy and aspiration that is wasted in\nattempting to perfect and preserve that which is inevitably doomed to\ndestruction is incredible. A child building a castle on the sand is\nengaged in a more durable occupation. For the child, while erecting its\ntunnelled and turreted fortress, is at least attempting to realize some\nhaunting dream of the heights, the depths, the mystery and magnificence\nof life. What matter the tide?\u2014the vision is indestructible.\n\nThe Greeks regarded a beautiful body as an end in itself, because their\ncivilization, by permitting its unveiling, allowed it to act as an\ninspiration to others. The nude, however, has no recognized place among\nus, and although it still serves to create beauty, it does so under\nrestricted and abnormal conditions. To be a model is not a title to\nfame, nor the ideal of our most enlightened contemporaries.\n\nI hope that I have proved conclusively that a splendid body is no longer\na necessary means of enabling us to rise to the greatest heights either\nof ambition or of service. Why, therefore, should we so morbidly covet\nphysical perfection?\n\n\n\n\n                                  VII\n                THE PHYSICALLY HANDICAPPED PHILOSOPHERS\n\n\u03a4\u1f78\u03bd \u03c6\u03c1\u03bf\u03bd\u03b5\u1fd6\u03bd \u03b2\u03c1\u03bf\u03c4\u03bf\u1f7a\u03c2 \u1f41\u03b4\u03ce\u03c3\u03b1\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1 \u03c4\u1f78\u03bd \u03c0\u03ac\u03b8\u03b5\u03b9 \u03bc\u03ac\u03b8\u03bf\u03c2 \u03b8\u03ad\u03bd\u03c4\u03b1 \u03ba\u03c5\u03c1\u03af\u03c9\u03c2 \u1f14\u03c7\u03b5\u03b9\u03bd.\n\n                                      \u2014_Aeschylus, Agememnon, line 186._\n\n\nAmong the British philosophers who were physical sufferers we find the\ngreat Francis Bacon, who from childhood was always weak and delicate.\n\nJohn Locke became world-famous by reason of his still celebrated \u201cEssay\nconcerning Human Understanding.\u201d He was also of political importance,\nhaving occupied for years the position of confidential adviser to the\ngreat Earl of Shaftesbury. Professor Campbell says of him: \u201cLocke is apt\nto be forgotten now, because in his own generation he so well discharged\nthe intellectual mission of initiating criticism of human knowledge, and\nof diffusing the spirit of free enquiry and universal toleration which\nhas since profoundly affected the civilized world. He has not bequeathed\nan imposing system, hardly even a striking discovery in metaphysics, but\nhe is a signal example in the Anglo-Saxon world of the love of\nattainable truth for the sake of truth and goodness. If Locke made few\ndiscoveries, Socrates made none. But both are memorable in the record of\nhuman progress.\u201d\n\nRobert Boyle, the natural philosopher, was the seventh son and\nfourteenth child of the great Earl of Cork. His scientific work procured\nhim extraordinary reputation among his contemporaries. It was he who\n\u201cfirst enunciated the law that the volume of gas varies inversely as the\npressure, which among English-speaking people is still called by his\nname.\u201d Great as were his attainments they were almost over-shadowed by\nthe saintliness of his character, the liveliness of his wit and the\nincomparable charm of his manner. Boyle was a man of the most feeble\nhealth. This is what Evelyn says of him: \u201cThe contexture of his body\nseemed to me so delicate that I have frequently compared him to Venice\nglass, ... [which] though wrought never so fine, being carefully set up,\nwould outlast harder metals of daily use.\u201d\n\nRobert Hooke, the experimental philosopher, was both deformed and\ndiseased. He was not a great man and his scientific achievements would\nhave been \u201cmore striking if they had been less varied.\u201d Nevertheless he\nwas renowned in his day, and his contribution of real importance for,\nalthough \u201che perfected little he originated much.\u201d I mention him, and\nshall mention several others, who have been forgotten by all but\nscholars, because I wish to show how large an army stands behind its\nillustrious chiefs. Besides, if we contemplate only the giant luminaries\nof the firmament of fame, we shall become discouraged. They paralyze us\nby the very intensity of the admiration they evoke. Lesser men, on the\ncontrary, for the reason that they are nearer our own orbit, are more\nlikely to stir us into emulation.\n\nHerbert Spencer\u2019s achievements are too well known to necessitate further\ncomment. He was exceedingly delicate and at his best only able to work\nthree hours a day.\n\nDescartes, the foremost French philosopher, had a feeble and somewhat\nabnormal body. \u201cYet he considered it\u201d (I am quoting Mr. Edmund Gosse)\n\u201cwell suited to his own purposes, and was convinced that the Cartesian\nphilosophy would not have been improved, though the philosopher\u2019s\ndigestion might, by developing the thews of a plough-boy.\u201d\n\nNicholas Malebranche, the great French Cartesian philosopher, was the\ntenth child of his parents. Although deformed and constitutionally\nfeeble he was one of the most sought after men of his day. From all\ncountries of the world, but more especially from England (be it said in\nher honour) scholars, writers and philosophers flocked to his door. The\nGerman princes voyaged to Paris expressly to see him. The philosopher\nBerkeley was probably the cause of his death by forcing himself on\nMalebranche when the latter had been ordered absolute quiet. His\ninfluence has been variously estimated. Spinoza is undoubtedly one of\nhis disciples. Mons. Emile Faguet says of him: \u201cMalebranche est un des\nplus beaux (metaphysiciens) que j\u2019aie rencontr\u00e9s. Si l\u2019on veut ma\npens\u00e9e, je trouve Descartes plus grand savant et plus vaste \u00e9sprit; mais\nje trouve Malebranche plus grand philosophe, d\u2019un degr\u00e9 au moins que\nDescartes lui-M\u00eame.\u201d Speaking of his character he writes: \u201cIl n\u2019y eut\njamais homme de plus d\u2019\u00e9sprit, ni plus homme de bien, ni plus\nseduisant.\u201d\n\nBlaise Pascal, the great French religious philosopher, still holds a\nposition of immense importance in the history of literature as well as\nphilosophy. His \u201cProvincial Letters\u201d are the \u201cfirst example of polite\ncontroversial irony since Lucian and they have continued to be the best\nexample of it during more than two centuries in which style has been\nsedulously practised and in which they have furnished a model to\ngeneration after generation.\u201d His \u201cPens\u00e9es,\u201d published after his death,\nis \u201cstill a favorite exploring ground ... to persons who take an\ninterest in their problems.\u201d In philosophy his position is this: \u201cHe\nseized firmly and fully the central idea of the difference between\nreason and religion, but unlike most men since his day who, not\ncontented with a mere concordat, have let religion go and contented\nthemselves with reason,\u201d Pascal, though equally dissatisfied, \u201cheld fast\nto religion and continued to fight out the questions of difference with\nreason.\u201d From the age of eighteen, Pascal never passed a single day\nwithout pain. Nevertheless, in the worst of his sufferings he was wont\nto say: \u201cDo not pity me; sickness is the natural condition of\nChristians. In sickness we are as we ought always to be ... in the\nsuffering of pains, in the privation of goods and of all the pleasures\nof the senses, exempt from all passions which work in us during the\nwhole course of our life, without ambition, without avarice, in the\ncontinual expectation of death.\u201d\n\nVoltaire suffered frequent attacks of illness. It was said of him that\n\u201che was born dying.\u201d\n\nComte, the French Positive philosopher, accomplished the bulk of his\nwork after recovering from an attack of insanity during which he threw\nhimself into the Seine. Perhaps it is too soon to judge of the ultimate\nvalue of his system of philosophy. It has had impassioned adherents as\nwell as scornful critics. His main thesis seems to be \u201cthat the\nimprovement of social conditions can only be effected by moral\ndevelopment and never by any political mechanism, or any violence in the\nway of an artificial redistribution of wealth.\u201d In other words, he\npreached that a moral transformation must precede any real advance. Yet\nhe was not a Christian. An enemy defined Comtism as \u201cCatholicism without\nChristianity.\u201d\n\nHenri Frederic Amiel, Swiss philosopher and critic, whose chief work,\nthe \u201cJournal Intime,\u201d published after his death, obtained for him\nEuropean reputation, was a valetudinarian. Amiel wrote but little, but\nall he accomplished has the quality of exquisite sensitiveness.\n\nThe great Kant was a wretched little creature barely five feet high with\na concave chest and a deformed right shoulder; his constitution was of\nthe frailest, though by taking extraordinary precautions he escaped\nserious illness.\n\n\n\n\n                                  VIII\n                     ASTRONOMERS AND MATHEMATICIANS\n\n\nJohann Kepler, the great German astronomer, was a contemporary of Tycho\nBrahe and Galileo with both of whom he was in correspondence. Kepler\u2019s\ncontributions to science were of the utmost importance. It was he who\nestablished the two cardinal principles of modern astronomy\u2014the laws of\nelliptical orbits and of equal areas. He also enunciated important\ntruths relating to gravity. In spite of the backward condition of\nmechanical knowledge, he attempted to explain the planetary evolutions\nby a theory of vortices closely resembling that afterwards adopted by\nDescartes. He also prepared the way for the discovery of the\ninfinitesimal calculus. His literary remains were purchased by Catherine\nthe Second of Russia and were only published during the latter half of\nthe Nineteenth Century. It is impossible to consider without\nastonishment the colossal amount of work accomplished by Kepler, despite\nhis great physical disabilities. When only four years old an attack of\nsmall-pox had left him with crippled hands and eyesight permanently\nimpaired. His constitution, already enfeebled by premature birth, had to\nwithstand successive shocks of illness.\n\nFlamstead, the great British astronomer, was obliged to leave school in\nconsequence of a rheumatic affection of the joints. It was to solace his\nenforced idleness that he took up the study of astronomy. The extent and\nquality of his performance is almost unbelievable when one considers his\nsevere physical suffering.\n\nNicholas Saunderson lost his sight before he was twelve months old, yet\nhe became professor of mathematics at Cambridge. He was an eminent\nauthority in his day, an original and efficient teacher and the author\nof a book on algebra. His knowledge of optics was remarkable. \u201cHe had\ndistinct ideas of perspective, of the projection of the sphere, and of\nthe forms assumed by plane or solid figures.\u201d\n\nD\u2019Alembert was not only a mathematician but also a philosopher of the\nhighest order. He was made a member of the French Academy at the age of\ntwenty-four. He was so frail that his life was continually despaired of\nand he remained a valetudinarian to the end.\n\n\n\n\n                                   IX\n                       STATESMEN AND POLITICIANS\n\n\nWe now come to the statesmen and politicians. Robert Cecil, first Earl\nof Salisbury, Secretary of State under Queen Elizabeth and Lord\nTreasurer under James I, was a statesman who all his life wielded\nimmense power to the undoubted benefit of his country. Yet in person he\nwas in strange contrast to his rivals at court, being deformed and\nsickly. Elizabeth styled him her pigmy; his enemies vilified him as\n\u201cwry-neck,\u201d \u201ccrooked-back\u201d and \u201csplay-foot.\u201d In Bacon\u2019s essay \u201cOf\nDeformity\u201d he paints his cousin to the life.\n\nJohn Somers, Lord Keeper under William and Mary, \u201cwas in some respects\u201d\n(I am quoting Macaulay) \u201cthe greatest man of his age. He was equally\neminent as a jurist, as a politician and as a writer.... His humanity\nwas the more remarkable because he received from nature a body such as\nis generally found united to a peevish and irritable mind. His life was\none long malady; his nerves were weak; his complexion livid; his face\nprematurely wrinkled.\u201d\n\nWilliam III, I have already mentioned, and now comes a name to conjure\nwith, the great Lord Clive, founder of the British Empire. At eighteen\nhe went out to India and shortly afterwards the effect of the climate on\nhis health began to show itself in those fits of depression during one\nof which he ended his life. We see in his end the result of physical\nsuffering, of chronic disease which opium failed to abate.\n\nWilliam Pitt, Earl of Chatham, one of the greatest statesmen England\never had, suffered from hereditary gout. The attacks continued from\nboyhood with increasing intensity to the close of his life. He was for\ntwo years mentally unbalanced, yet after that he returned to Parliament\nand directed for eight years all the power of his eloquence in favor of\nthe American Colonies. Dr. Johnson said: \u201cWalpole was a minister given\nby the King to the people, but Pitt was a minister given by the people\nto the King.\u201d\n\nWhatever we may think of Marat as a man, we cannot deny that he occupies\na large place in the history of his time. Yet he was always delicate, so\nmuch so that after the completion of one of his books he lay in a stupor\nduring thirteen days. In 1788 he was attacked by a terrible malady, from\nwhich he suffered during the whole of his revolutionary career.\n\nPitt, the younger, was a sickly child and although he grew into a\nhealthy youth, his constitution was early broken by gout.\n\nOwing to an accident in early childhood Talleyrand was lamed for life.\nAt the time this seemed a great misfortune, for owing to his disability\nhe forfeited his right of primogeniture and the profession of arms was\nclosed to him. \u201cNo Frenchman of his age did so much to repair the\nravages wrought by fanatics and autocrats.\u201d\n\nHenry Fawcett, the English politician and economist, was accidentally\nblinded at the age of twenty-five. The effect of his blindness was, as\nthe event proved, the reverse of calamitous. By concentrating his\nenergies, it brought his powers to earlier maturity than would otherwise\nhave been possible, and \u201cit had a mellowing influence on his character,\nwhich in youth had been rough and canny, and inclined to harshness.\u201d\nGladstone appointed him Postmaster-General in 1880 and not England\nalone, but the world as well, is deeply indebted to him for the reforms\nhe inaugurated. He instituted the parcel post, postal orders, sixpenny\ntelegrams, the banking of small savings by means of stamps and increased\nfacilities for life insurance and annuities.\n\nKavanaugh was an Irish politician and member of the privy council of\nIreland. He had only the rudiments of legs and arms but in spite of\nthese physical defects he had a remarkable career. He learned to ride in\nthe most fearless fashion, strapped to a special saddle and managing his\nhorse with the stumps of his arms; he also fished, shot, drew and wrote,\nvarious mechanical devices supplementing his limited physical\ncapacities.\n\n\n\n\n                                   X\n                       THE FREEDOM OF ILL-HEALTH\n\n\nOne of the greatest advantages of invalidism is that it frees us from\npetty obligations, unworthy pleasures, and meaningless conventions. The\nblessed freedom of ill-health is something few people appreciate;\nneither have they learned to make full use of its unearned leisure. Yet\nwe are always clamoring for time; in America, apparently, it can be\nfound only in the sick-room.\n\nHow many people do we not know, who are so busy making, what they are\npleased to call a living, that they never find time to live! As a matter\nof fact, only the small minority of the inefficient are obliged to\nsacrifice all possibility of leisure to the exigency of obtaining a\nlivelihood; the majority, which include men and women of every class and\nof every vocation\u2014plumbers and captains of industry, stenographers as\nwell as d\u00e9butantes\u2014are occupied in accumulating superfluities. By\nsuperfluities I do not mean everything which is not normally necessary\nfor the existence of the body, but everything that is not essential to\nthe perfect expansion of separate individuality.\n\nThe tendency of the day is to pour all mankind into the same mould; to\nfetter great and small to the one ideal of obvious achievement. We have\ndegraded success by popularizing it; we are suppressing individuality\ninstead of fostering it; and unless a change comes before long, and the\nindividual is again able to liberate himself and to germinate, we shall\nperish as other civilizations have perished without leaving more than a\nscratch on the page of history. For nations are ultimately judged, not\nby their numbers, their riches or their power, but solely by the glory\nof the individuals they have produced. Think of the empires which have\nso completely vanished that but for a few broken stones we could not\neven guess the sites of their vast cities, and compare these nations\neither to the Jews or Greeks who during their flowering gave birth to\nmen who have conferred immortality on their respective races.\n\nSuffering quickens individuality by removing the pressure of\ncircumstance, custom and occupation. Moreover, in the sick-room the\nintellect as well as the soul has not only the liberty but the time to\nmature.\n\nIt always surprises me to hear people complain of insomnia. Why should\nthey consider it a misfortune to live precious hours instead of spending\nthem in unconsciousness? By sleeping even as much as five hours instead\nof nine, we gain twenty-one hours a week. Think of it! Almost three\nworking days!\n\nThe reason the average person is so exhausted by lying awake a few hours\nlonger that he is accustomed to do, is because he turns and twists in\nhis bed bemoaning his sad fate, until he has worked himself into a\nfever. Stay awake; enjoy the night,\u2014it is quite as wonderful as the day.\nTaste the charm of the silence as it steals by degrees over your weary\nspirit. Be grateful for these hours; they are a gift from fate. Read,\nwrite, think, meditate, and when morning comes you will wake more\nrefreshed after two hours\u2019 sleep than you used to after nine. Napoleon\nand other great men never slept more.\n\n\n\n\n                                   XI\n                                ARTISTS\n\n\nThe great painters and sculptors seem to have been strangely healthy and\nnormal. I say that they seem to have been so, because of the extreme\ndifficulty of getting any accurate information on the subject. It sounds\nincredible, but I read a long life of Petrarch in which everything was\nmentioned but his health and only discovered quite accidentally that he\nhad been an epileptic.\n\nI am, therefore, convinced that there are many examples I might cite if\nI could only unearth the truth, yet even so, I have been able to ferret\nout four artists who were physically handicapped. Navarette, called the\nSpanish Titian and celebrated under the name of \u201cEl Mudo,\u201d was dumb.\nThey say that Guercino squinted so badly that he could focus only one\neye.\n\nAntoine Watteau suffered all his life from tuberculosis, which no doubt\naccounts for a certain \u201cwistful gaiety\u201d which characterizes his work.\nWatteau\u2019s position in French art is of unique importance. He became the\nfounder\u2014as the culmination\u2014of a new school which marked a revolt against\nthe pompous classicism of the preceding period. \u201cThe vitality of his art\nwas due to the rare combination of a poet\u2019s imagination with a power of\nseizing reality. In his treatment of landscape background and the\natmospheric conditions surrounding his figures we find the germ of\nImpressionism.\u201d From the middle of the Eighteenth Century until about\n1875 Watteau\u2019s work fell into disrepute. It was chiefly owing to the\nefforts of the brothers de Goncourt that a reaction set in which has\nslowly carried Watteau to the summit of fame. He died in his\nthirty-seventh year.\n\nAubrey Beardsley flashed into fame with black and white drawings of\nextraordinary originality and beauty. His peculiar technique has been\nwidely imitated but never approached. After twenty years his reputation\nhas not yet reached its zenith. Aubrey Beardsley during the whole of his\nmeteoric career suffered from consumption. He died at the age of\ntwenty-six.\n\n\n\n\n                                  XII\n                               MUSICIANS\n\n\nOne would expect deafness to be an insuperable obstacle to a musician,\nyet Beethoven produced a large part of his work while handicapped by it,\nand some of his greatest compositions when his deafness had become\ncomplete. Mozart was delicate and subject to fevers; his last work and\nhis best was written just before his death. It was said of H\u00e4ndel: \u201cHe\nwas never greater than when, warned by palsy of the approach of death,\nand struggling with distress and suffering, he sat down to compose the\ngreat works which have made his name immortal in music.\u201d Schubert was\nbarely five feet one and walked with a strange shuffling gait; his\neyesight was so defective that he slept in his spectacles. He suffered\nfrom digestive trouble and died young. So also did Chopin, having been\nan invalid the greater part of his short life. Mendelssohn was very\nfrail and delicate. Carl Maria von Weber was not only ravaged by disease\nbut also deformed and lame. Paganini, the most extraordinary violinist\nthe world has ever heard, suffered from phthisis of the larynx and was\nconstantly ill.\n\nThe case of Robert Schumann is very curious. He was studying to be a\npianist, when, in attempting to strengthen his fingers, he accidentally\nparalyzed his right hand. To this apparent misfortune we owe one of the\ngreatest composers.\n\n\n\n\n                                  XIII\n              THREE PHYSICIANS, A NATURALIST AND A CHEMIST\n\n\n\u201cPhysician, heal thyself,\u201d might have been said to Sir William Harvey,\nthe famous discoverer of the circulation of the blood; and to Albert von\nHaller, the great Swiss doctor, who is considered the father of modern\nphysiology.\n\nTo Louis Pasteur the world is indebted for the introductions of methods\nwhich have already worked wonders and bid fair to render possible the\npreventive treatment of all infectious disease. His most sensational\ndiscovery was the cure of hydrophobia, which he accomplished despite the\nfact that the special microbe causing this dread disease had not yet\nbeen isolated. Pasteur\u2019s motto was, \u201cTravaillez, travaillez toujours.\u201d\nOn his death-bed he turned to his devoted pupils and exclaimed: \u201cO\u00fa en\n\u00eates-vous? Que fa\u00eetes-vous?\u201d and ended by repeating: \u201cIl faut\ntravailler.\u201d He once said: \u201cIn the field of observation, chance only\nfavors those who are prepared.\u201d This great benefactor of the human race,\nthough loaded with honors, remained to the last simple and affectionate\nas a child. Pasteur was subject to fits of apoplexy and it is curious\nthat some of his most important discoveries were made immediately after\nsuch attacks.\n\nDarwin, from the age of thirty, was a great sufferer. His daughter\nwrites: \u201cNo one indeed, except my mother, knows the full amount of\nsuffering he endured, or the full amount of his wonderful patience.\u201d Dr.\nDarwin, however, once said to a friend: \u201cIf I had not been so great an\ninvalid, I should not have done nearly so much work as I have\naccomplished.\u201d\n\nDr. Trudeau, who worked such miracles for the cure of consumption, was\nhimself consumptive.\n\n\n\n\n                                  XIV\n                               INVENTORS\n\n\nSir Richard Arkwright, the inventor of the spinning jenny, though a man\nof great personal strength, suffered from wretched health.\n\nJames Watt, the inventor of the steam engine, was continually ailing\nuntil he approached old age. He had a prodigious memory and as an\ninventive genius he has never been surpassed.\n\nIll health and failing eyesight forced Joseph Niepce to retire from the\narmy at the age of twenty-eight. It was during this opportune leisure\nthat the idea of obtaining sun-pictures first suggested itself to him.\nIn 1826 he learnt that Daguerre was working on the same lines and three\nyears later they cooperated in order to perfect what was, however,\nNiepce\u2019s discovery.\n\n\n\n\n                                   XV\n                     HISTORIANS AND MEN OF LETTERS\n\n\nAristides, surnamed Theodosius, was a Greek rhetorician and sophist. He\nwas so celebrated that in many places statues were erected during his\nlifetime to commemorate his talents. He suffered for many years from a\nmysterious disease, which was, however, a positive benefit to his\nstudies as they were prescribed as part of his cure.\n\nPliny, the Younger, was far from robust. He suffered from weakness of\nthe eyes, throat and chest. He himself speaks of his delicate frame.\n\nIt has been said of Erasmus that he was the first man of letters since\nthe fall of the Roman Empire. He occupied during his lifetime the\nposition of supreme pontiff to an elect public which the ardors of the\nRenaissance had called into being. His admirers were to be found in\nevery country and among all ranks. Presents were continually sent to him\nby great and small. We hear of a donation of two hundred florins from\nPope Clement XII and of a contribution of comfits and sweetmeats from\nthe nuns of Cologne. From England in particular, he obtained constant\nsupplies of money. \u201cI receive daily,\u201d he writes, \u201cletters from the most\nremote parts, from kings and princes, prelates and men of learning, and\neven from persons of whose existence I have never heard.\u201d\n\nHis position as regards the Reformation has been for centuries a subject\nof passionate contention. It was said of him, \u201cErasmus laid an egg, and\nLuther hatched it.\u201d This, however, is only partly true. As a matter of\nfact, Erasmus had but one passion, the passion for learning. When he\nfound that Luther\u2019s revolt aroused a new fanaticism\u2014that of evangelism,\nhe recoiled from the violence of the new preachers. \u201cIs it for this,\u201d he\nexclaimed, \u201cthat we have shaken off bishops and popes that we may come\nunder the yoke of such madmen as Otto and Farel?\u201d\n\nErasmus\u2019 works are too numerous to enumerate separately. His greatest\ncontribution is undoubtedly his Greek Testament.\n\nErasmus spent the greater part of his life in agony. For twenty years he\nwas unable to sit down either to read, write or even to take his meals.\nHe could eat but little and only of the most delicate meats. He could\nneither eat nor bear the smell of fish. \u201cMy heart,\u201d he said, \u201cis\nCatholic, but my stomach is Lutheran.\u201d Nevertheless, his various\nbiographers exclaim at the amount of work he accomplished. One of them\nwrites, \u201cThrough the winter of 1514\u20131515 Erasmus worked with the\nstrength of ten. In Venice ... he did the work of two men.\u201d\n\nMontaigne was never strong but, after a few years at the court of Paris,\nhis health gave way completely and he retired to his castle, resolved to\ndevote the rest of his life to study and contemplation. We undoubtedly\nowe his immortal essays to his invalidism.\n\nThe same is true of Brant\u00f4me. He was a soldier until a fall from his\nhorse compelled him to retire into private life. This fortunate accident\nis directly responsible for his \u201cMemoirs,\u201d which are not only delightful\nreading but of the greatest historical value.\n\nF\u00e9nelon, the famous tutor to the duke of Burgundy, had an enormous\ninfluence, not only on his own but on the succeeding generations. His\n\u201cTreatise on the Education of Girls\u201d guided French opinion on the\nsubject for almost two centuries. This book brought him literary glory\ntogether with the position of tutor to the grandson and heir of Louis\nXIV. During the eight years at court he published the \u201cFables,\u201d the\n\u201cDialogues of the Dead\u201d and finally \u201cT\u00e9lemaque.\u201d These books were\nintended primarily for the instruction of his pupils; they became,\nhowever, universally popular. F\u00e9nelon was banished from Paris as a\nresult of a doctrinal difference with Bossuet. Pope Innocent XIII, while\nupholding the latter, gave this verdict: \u201cF\u00e9nelon errs by loving God too\nmuch and Bossuet by loving his neighbor too little.\u201d Excessively\ndelicate from childhood, F\u00e9nelon\u2019s health grew more and more feeble.\nWhile Archbishop of Cambrai, to which city he had retired after his\ndisgrace, we read that he was forced to make his bed his retreat from\nwhence to say his offices and administer his diocese.\n\nJean Jacques Rousseau, French \u201cphilosopher,\u201d occupied during three years\nof his youth the position of footman in various houses. From his own\naccount, he made an uncommonly bad one, impertinent, mean, untruthful\nand dishonest! Rousseau had a most despicable character, and although he\nnever lacked patrons, quarrelled with each in turn. Rousseau leapt into\nfame in 1749, when he was thirty-seven years old, by reason of an\narticle extolling the savage over the civilized state. His two most\ncelebrated books are \u201cLe Contrat Social\u201d and \u201cLa nouvelle Heloise.\u201d Only\nthe indulgence of his contemporaries would have granted him the title of\n\u201cphilosopher,\u201d but as a \u201cman of letters\u201d he occupies \u201ca place unrivalled\nin literary history.\u201d His fame, great as it was during his lifetime,\nreached to vertiginous heights after his death. Rousseau\u2019s health was\nexecrable and like Voltaire it was said of him that he \u201cwas born dying.\u201d\n\nIt might have been better for Lord Chesterfield if he had not dabbled\nwith medicine; he would perhaps not have \u201cbeen so often his own patient,\nor entrusted his health to the care of empirics.\u201d Even before reaching\nmiddle age, his debilitated constitution had given him repeated warning\nof what he had to expect. When he wrote the renowned letters to his son,\nhe was a deaf, solitary, sick man, who had to resort almost habitually\nto drugs to help him to endure his sufferings.\n\nBoswell\u2019s \u201cLife of Samuel Johnson\u201d is so universally familiar that I\nneed only remind you that Dr. Johnson was scrofulous and half-blind.\n\nHorace Walpole occupied a curiously large place in the literary as well\nas the social life of the eighteenth century. Despite his prolific pen\nthe only one of his books which achieved popular success during his\nlifetime was \u201cThe Castle of Otranto.\u201d It was translated into both French\nand Italian and has been frequently republished. It is a strange book,\nand I doubt if it will ever again be read with pleasure. Whatever\nsignificance it has for us lies in the fact that it forms the starting\npoint of the great romantic revival. Walpole\u2019s diary, published after\nhis death, is of the utmost historical importance. It is, however,\nchiefly by his letters that he will be remembered, for he is undoubtedly\nthe greatest of the English letter-writers. Walpole suffered all his\nlife from frequent attacks of gout which at times completely crippled\nhim.\n\nWinckelmann, the famous German arch\u00e6ologist, was the son of a poor\nshoemaker. He became librarian to Cardinal Passioni in 1754, and while\noccupying this position he gave to the world a succession of admirable\nbooks. It was from him that scholars first obtained accurate information\nas to the treasures excavated at Pompeii. His greatest contribution to\nEuropean literature is the \u201cHistory of Ancient Art.\u201d It is a delightful\nbook, written with a free and impassioned pen and marked an epoch by\n\u201cindicating the spirit in which the study of Greek art should be\napproached and the methods by which investigators might hope to obtain\nsolid results.\u201d He was a great friend of Goethe and many, if not all, of\ntheir letters have been preserved. Winckelmann was so delicate that he\ncould never partake of anything but a little bread and wine. His gentle,\nblameless life was cut short by the hand of a murderer, who killed him\nfor the sake of a few ancient coins, the gift of the Empress Maria\nTheresa.\n\nHerder, one of the most influential writers Germany has produced, was\nexceedingly delicate; so also was our own Washington Irving, which\nperhaps accounts for the extreme sensitiveness of the latter\u2019s\nimpressions.\n\nThierry, the eminent French historian, ransacked the archives with such\nunremitting zeal that on the eve of beginning to write his history, he\nbecame totally blind. \u201cBut he never lost heart and in making friends\nwith darkness,\u201d as he puts it, he returned to his work, and by means of\ndictation was able to finish the masterpiece that was to prove the\nfoundation of a new school of history!... Thierry said: \u201cIf, as I\nbelieve, the progress of science is to be numbered among the glories of\nour land, I should again take the road that brought me to this pass.\nBlind and suffering, without any respite or hope of recovery, I can\nstill witness to one point, that, coming from me, admits of no doubt;\nthat there is something in the world of higher value than material\nenjoyment, nay, even than bodily health, and that is\u2014devotion to\nscience.\u201d Thus was the road discovered which was to be followed by\nPrescott, Sismondi, Macaulay and many others, including Professor Ranke.\n\nCharles Lamb had a mental breakdown at the age of nineteen, and Mary\nLamb suffered from frequent attacks of insanity.\n\nSir W. F. P. Napier\u2019s health was permanently injured during a campaign\nwhich carried hostilities into Spain. This obliged him to retire from\nthe army at the age of thirty-four. This unwelcome leisure was an\ninestimable benefit not only to himself but to the world, as it\npermitted him to become the greatest military historian that England has\never produced.\n\nCarlyle became a chronic invalid in his twenty-fourth year. The precise\nnature of his ailment it is impossible to ascertain, but he declared\nthat a rat was continually gnawing at the pit of his stomach.\n\nA most remarkable example of achievement in the face of terrible\nphysical disabilities is presented by the historian, Francis Parkman. He\nwas unable to open his eyes except in the dark, so that all his\ninformation had to be read aloud to him while he made notes with his\neyes shut, by means of a machine he had invented as a guide to his hand.\nFor years he suffered so intensely that half an hour\u2019s application\nexhausted him. The superb works he left behind, composed despite such\nincredible physical obstacles, have been a splendid legacy to his\ncountry.\n\nPrescott, the eminent American historian, suffered, while at Harvard, an\naccident which changed the course of his life. A hard piece of bread,\nthrown at random in the commons hall, struck his left eye and destroyed\nthe sight. Nevertheless he graduated honourably, but when he entered his\nfather\u2019s office as a student of law the uninjured eye showed dangerous\nsymptoms of inflammation. He was urged, therefore, to travel and it was\nat the Azores where he had to spend much of his time in a darkened room,\nthat he \u201cbegan the mental discipline which enabled him to compose and\nretain in memory long passages for subsequent dictation.\u201d His secretary\ngives this picture of him, while writing the \u201cHistory of the Reign of\nFerdinand and Isabella\u201d\u2014\u201cseated in a study lined on two sides with books\nand darkened by screens of blue muslin, which required readjustment with\nevery cloud that passed across the sky.\u201d Prescott trained his memory\nuntil he was able to retain sixty pages of printed matter, \u201cturning and\nreturning them as he walked or drove.\u201d After fifty his remaining eye\nshowed serious symptoms of enfeeblement and his general health also gave\ncause for alarm. Nevertheless he gallantly set to work on his \u201cHistory\nof Philip II.\u201d The third volume was, however, not through the press,\nbefore an attack of apoplexy put an end to his life.\n\nAlfred Ainger, English divine and man of letters, chiefly remembered for\nhis sympathetic writings on Charles Lamb and Thomas Hood, was often\nspeechless with prostration from headaches and sickness. Ainger was no\nmore than a charming writer. I only insert him because his handicap is\none of the most difficult to overcome.\n\nSynge, the remarkable Irish dramatist, was delicate and died young.\n\n\n\n\n                                  XVI\n                          PROTESTANT REFORMERS\n\n\nLuther stands out as the most powerful figure of the Reformation.\nProtestant churches of every denomination owe to him their inception,\nnot so much on points of dogma, as because the success of his revolt\nmade theirs possible. Luther was afflicted with epilepsy and at times\nfrom other disabilities, the exact nature of which I have been unable to\nascertain. Like so many other renowned invalids, we are struck with the\namount of work he accomplished. During the last ten years of his life he\nsuffered from continuous ill health, yet he spent them in incessant\nlabor. He was preaching with vehemence and fervor on February 19, 1546,\nwhen suddenly he said, quietly, \u201cThis and much more is to be said about\nthe Gospel; but I am too weak and will close here.\u201d Four days later he\nwas dead.\n\nCalvin suffered constant bodily pain, yet he was a man of incessant\nactivity and of supreme courage. At one time, not only the council but\nthe people of Geneva revolted against his authority; a riot was\nimminent. Calvin at once set out alone for the council-chamber where he\nwas greeted with yells and threats of death. Advancing slowly into their\nmidst he bared his breast, saying: \u201cIf you will have blood, strike\nhere!\u201d Not an arm moved and, turning his back on his enemies, he slowly\nmounted the stairs to the tribune.\n\nJohn Knox began his career as a Catholic priest and we have so little\nknowledge of his early life that we are ignorant as to what occasioned\nthe startling change in his views. After his accession to the ranks of\nProtestantism he had at first no idea of preaching but confined himself\nto instructing his friends\u2019 children. His friends, however, recognized\nhis capacity and on his refusing \u201cto run where God had not called him,\u201d\nthey planned a solemn appeal to Knox from the pulpit to accept \u201cthe\npublic office and charge of preaching.\u201d At the close of this exhortation\nKnox burst into tears and shut himself in his chamber, \u201cin heaviness,\nfor many days.\u201d The call had at last found a leader of men. Yet it was\nan invitation to danger and to death. Shortly afterwards St. Andrews was\nattacked by the French fleet and Knox was among the prisoners taken. He\nwas thrown into a galley and for nineteen months remained in irons and\nsubject to the lash. When he was finally released, he was a man almost\nforty-five years old and completely broken in health, by reason of the\nhardships and cruelty to which he had been subjected. Yet his career was\nonly just beginning. \u201cTo Knox more than to any other man Scotland owes\nher religion and individuality.\u201d He was of great political importance\nand one of the most powerful enemies of Maria Stuart. As an historian he\noccupies an important place. His \u201cHistory of the Reformation in\nScotland\u201d is a remarkable book. It was said of him \u201che neither flattered\nnor feared any flesh.\u201d He was an inspired preacher. Elizabeth\u2019s very\ncritical ambassador wrote from Edinburgh that \u201cthis one man was able in\none hour to put more life in us than five hundred trumpets.\u201d\n\nRichard Baxter was diseased from head to foot; nevertheless, he became\ncelebrated as the most eminent of the English Protestant schoolmen. He\nwas also of political importance and instrumental in bringing about the\nRestoration of Charles II.\n\n\n\n\n                                  XVII\n                               THE SAINTS\n\n\u201cWhen we look into God\u2019s Face we do not feel His Hand.\u201d\n\n\nHealth is a form of capital, and like any other capital may be either\nwell or ill invested. Moreover, we can squander it foolishly or convert\nit into the supreme oblation, and to most of us life itself is a less\ndifficult sacrifice. The tragedy of war is not so much the toll of the\ndead as the lists of the disabled.\n\nFew of us are given the chance of dying for others, but to all of us is\noffered the privilege of spending ourselves for humanity, either\nindividually or collectively. Countless parents, fathers as well as\nmothers, purchase with their own lives and health, life, vigor and\nopportunity for their children. The instinct of sacrifice is to a\ngreater or less degree universal to parenthood, and although I do not\nwish to belittle their offering, I think it even more admirable when\nplaced on a less obvious altar. Numberless people are daily overspending\ntheir physical resources in the service of mankind, by the furtherance\nof knowledge, the improvement of material conditions, by widening the\ndoor of opportunity or carrying the message of the spirit into teeming\nslum and arid desert. Others give themselves with equal prodigality in\nthe more limited and less glorious field of their personal contacts; not\nmerely to their homes, their dependents and friends but to all who come\neven casually within the radius of their fellowship.\n\nIt seems to me difficult to live at the height of our possibilities more\nespecially if our activities are purely selfless, without being at times\ntempted to overdraw our health account. The soldier is only one of a\ngreat host whose bodies have been sacrificed in the performance of an\nimperative duty. Health is often purchased at the price of ignominious\nrefusal.\n\nIt is therefore not surprising that a large proportion of the saints\nwere men and women with ruined bodies,\u2014bodies that had been rapturously\nspent in the service of God and man. I will mention only a few of the\nmost renowned.\n\nSt. Jerome, one of the greatest of the early Christian Fathers, lived an\nunregenerate life until a severe illness induced a complete change in\nhim and he resolved to renounce everything that kept him back from God.\nHis greatest temptation was the study of the literature of Greece and\npagan Rome, and he determined from thenceforth to devote all his vast\nscholarship to the Holy Scriptures and to Christianity. To him we owe\nthe first translation of the Bible into Latin, commonly known as the\n\u201cVulgate.\u201d\n\nVery few men have ever wielded greater power over the minds of men than\nSt. Augustine. He is to-day a living force, yet he struggled all his\nlife against consumption. He lived, however, to be seventy-six.\n\nSt. Bernard of Clairvaux, the most famous monk and preacher of the\nMiddle Ages, was a martyr to so many physical infirmities that at first\nsight he appeared \u201clike one near unto death.\u201d All this suffering,\nhowever, never quelled his ardent spirit or his overmastering zeal for\npurging the world of sin. It was St. Bernard who said, \u201cNothing can work\nme damage but myself; the harm I sustain I carry about with me, and I am\nnever a real sufferer but by my own fault.\u201d\n\nSt. Francis of Assisi was a gay, dissipated youth when a severe illness\nput a stop to his pleasures, and gave him time to reflect, so that he\nbecame dissatisfied with his mode of life. On his recovery he set out on\na military expedition, but at the end of the first day\u2019s march he fell\nill and had to return to Assisi. This disappointment brought on another\nspiritual crisis and shortly afterwards he went on a pilgrimage to Rome.\nBefore everything he was an ascetic and a mystic,\u2014an ascetic who though\ngentle to others wore out his body in self-denial, so much so that when\nhe came to die, he begged pardon of \u201cbrother Ass, the body,\u201d for having\nunduly ill-treated it.\n\nSt. Catherine of Siena was not only a very great saint, but one of the\ngreatest women that ever lived. The daughter of a poor dyer who learned\nto read when she was twenty and to write when she was twenty-seven or\neight, she dictated books and letters celebrated not only for their\nspiritual fragrance and literary value, but also for their great\nhistorical importance. No empress ever wielded greater power than this\nextraordinary woman. Towards the end of her life her court consisted of\npilgrims who flocked daily by the thousands to visit her. The miracle of\nher personality had its effect on all who approached her. A young\nlibertine, belonging to one of the most aristocratic families of Siena,\nafter one interview with this dyer\u2019s daughter, abandoned his former life\nand became her humble follower until the day of her death. She converted\na notorious robber, who for years terrorized the vicinity of Siena and\nhad almost paralyzed its commerce. As a proof of the sincerity of his\nrepentance he gave her his stronghold, together with all the spoils he\nhad accumulated. The abandonment of Avignon as the seat of the Papal\ncourt undoubtedly changed not only the map, but also the history of\nEurope, and it was solely owing to St. Catherine\u2019s passionate insistence\nthat Pope Gregory XI returned to Rome, despite his own reluctance and\nthe opposition of his cardinals. During her short life she was\ncontinually ill and during the period of her greatest activity she was\ndying.\n\nSt. Ignatius Loyola, one of the most remarkable and influential\npersonages in the history of the Catholic Church, led the adventurous\nlife of a courtier and a soldier until he received a wound at the siege\nof Pamplona. According to an old chronicler this \u201cwas the occasion of\nhis conversion to God.\u201d A cannon-ball hit his legs, shattering one.\nSerious illness followed the most painful operation, and for weeks his\nlife was despaired of. It was on the bed of torment which he eventually\nleft, lame for life and constitutionally enfeebled, that grace came to\nhim. The saint himself said, when he returned from the Valley of the\nShadow: \u201cI have seen God face to face and my soul has been saved.\u201d From\nthat time onward he devoted himself to a spiritual life, wandering far\nand accomplishing much. Chief among his achievements was the founding of\nthe Order of Jesuits. I must mention here a very remarkable fact that\nhas, however, nothing to do with my thesis. In his will he bequeathed to\nthe order he founded this legacy: \u201cthat all men should speak ill of it.\u201d\nIt is also curious that he who had benefited by illness should have\nsaid: \u201cA sound mind in a sound body is the most useful instrument with\nwhich to serve God.\u201d\n\nSt. Theresa of Jesus, the great Spanish saint, whose personality and\nwritings have never lost their influence, was always extremely delicate,\nand during the period of her greatest accomplishments not only ill but\nold.\n\nWith St. Theresa closes my list of those gallant souls who, apparently\nunfit for the battle of life, have nevertheless left their mark on\nhistory and civilization. And I wish to remind you again that I have\nmentioned no one whose height of achievement has not been coincident\nwith ill-health, or reached after the suffering of some serious physical\ndisability. Neither have I thought it proper to cite any of the numerous\ninstances of handicapped genius among our living contemporaries.\n\nI am certain that many other names might be presented to your\nconsideration, if it were not for my own ignorance as well as the\nextreme difficulty of getting any reliable data on the subject.\n\n\n\n\n                                 XVIII\n                        PAIN, THE GREAT TEACHER\n\n\u201cWhat does he know,\u201d said a sage, \u201cwho has not suffered?\u201d\n\n\nThat we may be benefited by physical suffering is no new idea,\u2014it is not\neven a forgotten idea. From the time when civilization first expressed\nitself in terms of Christianity until the Reformation, the spiritual\nvalue of pain has been an undisputed axiom. The Catholic Church has\nnever ceased to preach the mortification of the flesh, and all religious\ncommunities, heathen as well as Christian, consider a certain degree of\nasceticism necessary for the perfect manifestation of a spiritual life.\n\nAs to the merits of voluntary suffering inflicted for the purpose of\nsubjugating the appetites of the body, Christendom differs\nfundamentally, but until recently, it has been united in regarding\nillness as one of the means by which Providence purifies as well as\npunishes its children.\n\nThe discovery of the germ, even more than the preaching of Mrs. Eddy,\ndealt a terrific blow to this ancient belief, with the result that the\nmasses no longer regard physical suffering as a remedial agency but as\nsomething not only unprofitable but purely destructive. For more than\nthirty years the final abolition of pain has been the Mecca towards\nwhich doctors and Christian Scientists have passionately journeyed;\nmoreover, their ranks have been swelled by numerous sects, schools or\nreligious bodies that have been called into existence by the rallying\ncry of this New Hope. They pointed to the declining death rate as an\nirrefutable testimony of battles already won, and as disease after\ndisease disappeared before the advance of sanitation, of serums or of\nRight Thought; as surgery developed unheard-of possibilities, the most\nlimitless expectations seemed not unjustified. The natural infirmities\nof age must eventually yield before the onslaught of knowledge. Bolder\nspirits even dreamed of conquest over death.\n\nAnd then the World War came.\n\nTheir boasted death-rate mounted to unheard-of heights. The maimed and\nblind overflowed from the hospitals unto the farthest corners of the\nearth. Still the havoc was not complete. Infantile paralysis came from\nthe north, killing and crippling our children by thousands. Finally,\ninfluenza mowed down old and young in such numbers that even here in\nAmerica it was impossible to care for all the victims.\n\nOne would have expected these facts to be a staggering blow to our\ntheorists. Could they not have realized\u2014if only dimly\u2014that they were\nbattling against some fundamental law? Evidently not, for according to\nthem war is to be abolished. Not only that, but Dr. Voronoff now offers\nan infallible cure for old age!\n\nNow, as I said before, I neither believe that physical suffering will\never be abolished nor do I even hope it. For pain is one of the great\nhuman and humanizing experiences and, since the beginning of time, each\ngeneration has learned in its school the same fundamental lessons.\n\n\u201cWhen a man is laboring under the pain of any distemper it is then that\nhe recollects there is a God and that he is but a man. No mortal is then\nthe object of his envy, his admiration or his contempt; and, having no\nmalice to gratify, the tales of slander excite him not.\u201d This is the\ntestimony of a heathen, Pliny, who was himself an invalid. Sixteen\ncenturies later an Anglican divine, Jeremy Taylor, voiced a similar\nconviction. \u201cIn sickness the soul begins to dress herself for\nimmortality. At first she unties the strings of vanity that made her\nupper garments cleave to the world and sit uneasy.\u201d\n\nEven during the materialistic nineteenth century we find Dr. Samuel\nSmiles declaring: \u201cSuffering is doubtless as divinely appointed as joy,\nwhile it is much more influential as a discipline of character. It\nchastens and sweetens the nature, teaches patience and resignation and\npromotes the deepest as well as the most exalted thoughts.\u201d\n\nLatterly there have been indications that this time-honored conception\nis again becoming more universally recognized. For instance, during the\ndarkest days of the war the Bishop of London writes that he had \u201ccome to\nbelieve that a painless world is a world not regenerate but degenerate.\u201d\n\nWho shall say that the revival of religious feeling which is now taking\nplace is not due to the physical and mental suffering entailed by the\nwar?\n\nI should like to linger on the spiritual value of suffering, yet I feel\nI am on very delicate ground. For the spirit is so gloriously\nindependent of the flesh, that it can expand under any circumstances and\nin any habitation. St. Hildegarde believed \u201cGod could not dwell in a\nhealthy body,\u201d and St. Ignatius Loyola that \u201ca healthy mind in a healthy\nbody is the best instrument with which to serve God.\u201d Yet he himself had\na shattered body.\n\nThe efficacy of suffering in promoting the growth of the spirit seems to\nme to lie chiefly in the fact that it does for us what we so seldom have\nthe courage to do for ourselves. It sweeps away all the rubbish and dust\nof life. In the blessed emptiness induced by this mental house-cleaning\nwe are able, often for the first time, to separate clearly the essential\nfrom the unessential. In sickness soul and body demand instinctively\nonly that which is for each its most imperative necessity.\n\nIn the crucible of suffering the true essence of our character becomes\nmanifest. All our pitiable pretences are torn from us, leaving our\ninherent self face to face with reality. It is a tremendous experience;\nit must either break us or make us. It is for us to choose which it\nshall be. Suffering is the ultimate test of character.\n\nYet as I write these words I find myself wondering if there is any one\nultimate test. As no two crystals react to the same solvent, so it may\nbe that no two hearts respond to the same probe. Of one thing,\nnevertheless, I am certain: to each of us is applied at some time in our\nlives that which constitutes for that individual soul the supreme trial\nof its mettle.\n\nI am frequently reminded, however, that there are countless people who,\ninstead of being purified and sensitized by physical pain, have been\ndestroyed or at least rendered sterile by it. This is undoubtedly true.\nWhether we are to profit by suffering or not depends entirely on\nourselves. How then are we to transmute pain into privilege? Certainly\nnot through resignation, for there is no virtue without action. It may\nonly be the interior travail of the spirit, but to attain even the\ninitial step to spiritual, intellectual or material advancement\nnecessitates labor. So it is with the benefits of suffering. They are\nthere within the reach of all, but can only be obtained as the wage of\npersistent endeavor.\n\nResignation is not merely inactive, it is positively harmful inasmuch as\nit is a tacit acknowledgment that pain is in itself an evil, and to\nbelieve that is to stultify its possibilities. For what we believe to be\nevil, no matter how innocent in itself, becomes so by the corrosive\npower of that belief.\n\nIt is a dogma of Christianity that disease is one of the punitive\nconsequences of original sin. Now punishment implies correction.\nTherefore, if disease represents a fall from perfection, it also holds\nwithin it the germs of a future perfection. Although theology teaches\nsin as the inception of disease, yet if we consider only the immediate\ncause of our physical disabilities we will find that although they are\nfrequently the result of breaking a moral law, they are quite as\nfrequently to be attributed to no fault of our own, and may even be the\nemblem of sacrifice.\n\nIf so many fail to benefit through suffering, we must remember that only\na few of us are able to sustain the daily test of life. Every\nexperience, especially any great and unusual experience, is a fire\nthrough which few pass unscathed. Beauty, charm, riches, personality,\neven intellect, have each their separate temptation, their different\nlimitations.\n\nIt is so easy for the spirit to sleep contented within the soft prison\nof a perfect body. Superabundant health and vitality, unless guided by\ninfinite wisdom, are as likely to cast us into the abyss of life as to\nraise us to the summit. Power fosters pride, and charm is the\ntwin-sister of vanity. Life is a continuous trial of our strength, but\ndisease is not necessarily the supreme trial.\n\nIt was George Eliot who said: \u201cThere is nothing the body suffers the\nsoul may not profit by.\u201d\n\n\n\n\n                                  XIX\n                               CONCLUSION\n\nWho best can suffer, best can do.\n\n                                                              \u2014_Milton._\n\n\nWe have seen that as mankind rises in the scale of civilization the body\nbecomes increasingly less important. Nevertheless, I wish it to be\nclearly understood, that I do not maintain that it is preferable to be\nill than well, but only that each state has its own peculiar privileges,\nwhich are rarely interchangeable.\n\nHealth and sickness are merely different roads to achievement. The earth\nrequires rain as well as sunshine; we need both tears and laughter;\nnavvies are necessary and so are philosophers.\n\nYou may therefore reasonably ask why, if suffering is indispensable to\nhumanity, doctors and sociologists should spend themselves and their\nlives in attempting to banish it from the world?\n\nBecause, if pain is the gate through which we must pass to attain\ncertain experiences and realizations, to battle against it is\nundoubtedly the road to others. To endure pain and to relieve pain are\nboth instrumental in freeing us from the prison of ourselves, and\nfreedom from self is the only real freedom. Moreover, whatever\nameliorates human conditions, whether serums or sanitation, free\nconcerts or fireless cookers, results in loosing us from the thraldom of\nthe body.\n\nThe race reaches toward an ideal of ultimate perfection, just as a plant\nstretches upward towards the sun. Both are unattainable, yet all\nactivity would cease, if we demanded nothing less than absolute and\nindestructible achievement. The tide flows only to ebb, the field must\nbe sown anew year after year; we build cities knowing that time will\neventually destroy them; we bear children doomed to death.\n\nBut after the ebb comes the tide, bringing ever new treasures to our\nshores; the germ of spring lies hidden in the barren breast of autumn;\nout of the ashes of vast cities still greater cities will arise, and\nDeath is but the portal of Life.\n\nNo physical disablement is a barrier to achievement. This is the\nglorious fact which the illustrious men and women I have enumerated have\nproved beyond the possibility of dispute. To cripple and hunchback, to\nblind, deaf and dumb, to those chained to \u201ca mattress-grave,\u201d and to\nthose who have been mentally unbalanced, they have bequeathed this\nprecious legacy of Hope.\n\nOn the other hand we can no longer plead our infirmities as an excuse\nfor our weakness, our sterility or failure. For whatever may be our\ndisablement we can find in history a parallel debility triumphantly\ntransmuted into strength.\n\n\n                                THE END\n\n------------------------------------------------------------------------\n\n\n\n\n                          TRANSCRIBER\u2019S NOTES\n\n\n 1. Silently corrected typographical errors and variations in spelling.\n 2. Retained anachronistic, non-standard, and uncertain spellings as\n      printed.\n 3. Enclosed italics font in _underscores_.","title":"The privilege of pain","tradition":"philosophy-ethics","translated_text":null,"word_count":17335}