Even if the ordinary run of inexperienced persons could see the whole of our day, I should not expect them to understand the matter much better. If they saw us turn from the dainty meal, and wear a look of distress and fear, in the midst of everything that to them indicates comfort and security, I imagine that they could only wonder, till they knew for themselves how bodily distress excludes pleasure from outward objects, and how the mental weaknesses which prevail amidst an unnatural and difficult mode of life convert the most innocent and ordinary occurrences into occasions of apprehension, or of self-distrust or self-disgust.
If they must witness the painful and humbling aspect of the mode of life, it is much to be wished that they might also see another fact belonging to it—to them, perhaps, no less mysterious than the misery; but not the less salutary for that, as it may teach them that there is much, both of good and evil, in our condition, which it will be wiser in them to observe than to judge of.
The benign mystery which I would have them witness is, the power of ideas over us. A child knows something of this in his own way. In wartime, little boys leave their pet plays to run about and tell everybody the news of a great battle. A child cannot eat the best dinner in the world on the day of first going to the play. The doll is thrown into a corner, when news comes of any acquaintance being burnt out in the middle of the night; or when anecdotes are telling of any old martyr who suffered heroically. In their own way, children are conscious, when reminded, of the power of ideas; but they cannot conceive of our way of experiencing the same force—to us so renovating! If it is at times surprising to the most enlightened and sympathising of our companions, it may well be astonishing to those in the early stages of observation.
They see, with a sort of awe, how priceless are certain pictures to us, in comparison with all others. They hear us speak of the landscapes, the portraits, the graceful and beautiful images which adorn the walls; but they observe how, when restless and distressed, we steal a glance upwards at one picture, and find something there which seems to set us right—to rally us at once. If such a picture as the Christus Consolator of Scheffer be within view of the sick-couch—(that talisman, including the consolations of eighteen centuries!—that mysterious assemblage of the redeemed Captives and tranquillised Mourners of a whole Christendom!—that inspired epitome of suffering and solace!)—it may well be a cause of wonder, almost amounting to alarm, to those who, not having needed, have never felt its power. If there were now burnings or drownings for sorcery, that picture, and some who possess it, would soon be in the fire, or at the bottom of a pond. No mute operation of witchcraft, or its dread, could exceed the silent power of that picture over sufferers. Again—if the inexperienced chance to see us in an unfavourable hour, when our self-control cannot rise beyond constraint—when our words are fewest, however gentle the voice—when our posture is rigid, because we will not be restless, and our faces tell the distress we think we are concealing; if, at such a time, the post comes in, how miraculous must seem the change to one who does not know what we have just read in letters or newspapers—and, perhaps, could not understand its efficacy, if he had seen. He sees us start up on the couch, hears us become voluble, and talk in a free and joyous tone;—beholds us eat and drink, without thinking what is put before us;—perhaps is surprised at a flow of tears, which seems to dissolve the misery, whatever it was; and finds, to his amazement, that all this is caused by something to him so dry as the appointment of a committee in the House—a speech on some hustings—an improved quarter’s revenue;—or, perhaps, something not dry, but merely curious, and to him anything but moving,—a new appearance attending an eclipse—an arrangement for embanking the Nile, or cutting through the Isthmus of Panama, or some vast discovery in science or the arts. He may, again, see the relaxation yet more complete,—may perceive, without a word being spoken, that we are well for the hour,—the eye swimming in happiness, the voice full of gentle joy; so that he is convinced that illness does not “spoil everything.” In this case, some comfort has come, too sacred to be told,—at least then; some news or appeal from the primary christians and confessors of our day,—the American abolitionists,—some opening to us for doing some little service,—or, as not seldom happens, some word of true sympathy which rouses our spirit, as the trumpet stirs the war-horse,—some sudden light showing our position on our pilgrim path,—some hint of our high calling,—some apt warning of a pregnant truth, administered by a wise and loving comforter.
If I were asked whether there is any one idea more potential than any other over every sort of suffering, in a mode of life like ours, most hearers of the question would make haste to answer for me that there is such a variety of potential ideas, suited to such wide differences of mood of mind and body, that it must be impossible to measure the strength of any one. Nevertheless, I should reply that there is one, to me more powerful at present than I can now conceive any single idea to have been in any former states of my mind. It is this; that it matters infinitely less what we do than what we are. I can conceive the amazement of many at this announcement,—of many even who admit its truth, and feelingly admit it, as I myself did when it was first brought home to me from the printed page of one friend by the heart-breathing voice of another. I care not who wonders, and who only half understands, while there are some few to whom this thought may be what it is to me. No one will be so short-sighted as to apply it as an excuse for indolence in the active and healthy,—so clear is it that such cannot be what they ought to be, unless they do all they can. But perhaps it is only the practised in human sorrows who can see far enough into the boundless truth of this thought to appreciate its worth to us. Suffice it here that it has the power I ascribe to it, and that we whom it has consoled long to administer it when we see old age restless in its infirmity, activity disappointed of its scope or instruments, or the most useful agents of society, the most indispensable members of families paralysed by disease. We long to whisper it in the dungeons of Spielberg, where it opens a career within the narrowest recess of those thick walls. We long to send a missive to every couch, of the sick, to every arm-chair of the aged and the blind, reminding them that the great work of life is ours still,—through all modes of life but that of the madhouse,—the formation of a heavenly soul within us. If we cannot pursue a trade or a science, or keep house, or help the state, or write books, or earn our own bread or that of others, we can do the work to which all this is only subsidiary,—we can cherish a sweet and holy temper,—we can vindicate the supremacy of mind over body,—we can, in defiance of our liabilities, minister pleasure and hope to the gayest who come prepared to receive pain from the spectacle of our pain; we can, here as well as in heaven’s courts hereafter, reveal the angel growing into its immortal aspect, which is the highest achievement we could propose to ourselves, or that grace from above could propose to us, if we had a free choice of all possible conditions of human life. If any doubt the worth of the thought, from the common habit of overlooking the importance of what is done in its character of index of what the agent is, let him resort at once to the fountain-head of spiritual exemplification, and say whether it matters most what Christ was or what he did.
The worth of this particular thought is a separate consideration from that of the worth of any sound abstract idea to sufferers liable to a besetting personal recollection, or doubt, or care. But, before I speak of this, I must allude to a subject which causes inexpressible pain whenever it occurs to us sick prisoners. I have said how unavailing is luxury when the body is distressed and the spirit faint. At such times, and at all times, we cannot but be deeply grieved at the conception of the converse of our own state, at the thought of the multitude of poor suffering under privation, without the support and solace of great ideas. It is sad enough to think of them on a winter’s night, aching with cold in every limb, and sunk as low as we in nerve and spirits, from their want of sufficient food. But this thought is supportable in cases where we may fairly hope that the greatest ideas are cheering them as we are cheered; that there is a mere set-off of their cold and hunger against our disease; and that we are alike inspired by spiritual vigour in the belief that our Father is with us,—that we are only encountering the probations of our pilgrimage,—- that we have a divine work given us to carry out, now in pain and now in joy. There is comfort in the midst of the sadness and shame when we are thinking of the poor who can reflect and pray,—of the old woman who was once a punctual and eager attendant at church,—of the wasting child who was formerly a Sunday-scholar,—of the reduced gentleman or destitute student who retain the privilege of their humanity,—of “looking before and after.” But there is no mitigation of the horror when we think of the savage poor, who form so large a proportion of the hungerers,—when we conceive of them suffering the privation of all good things at once,—suffering under the aching cold, the sinking hunger, the shivering nakedness,—without the respite or solace afforded by one inspiring or beguiling idea.
I will not dwell on the reflection. A glimpse into this hell ought to suffice, (though we to whom imagery comes unbidden, and cannot be banished at will, have to bear much more than occasional glimpses;) a glimpse ought to suffice to set all to work to procure for every one of these sufferers, bread and warmth, if possible, and as soon as possible; but above everything, and without the loss of an hour, an entrance upon their spiritual birthright. Every man, and every woman, however wise and tender appearing and designing to be, who for an hour helps to keep closed the entrance to the region of ideas,—who stands between sufferers and great thoughts, (which are the angels of consolation sent by God to all to whom he has given souls,) are, in so far, ministers of hell,—not themselves inflicting torment, but intercepting the influences which would assuage or overpower it. Let the plea be heard of us sufferers who know well the power of ideas,—our plea for the poor,—that, while we are contriving for all to be fed and cherished by food and fire, we may meanwhile kindle the immortal vitality within them, and give them that ethereal solace and sustenance which was meant to be shared by all, “without money and without price.”
It seems but just (if we may venture so to speak), that there should be the renovating power in ideas that I have described, for our worst sufferings arise from an unmitigated power of ideas in another sort. I am not qualified by experience to speak of severe continued bodily torment, but all testimony seems to concur with all our experience, that there is no such instrument of torture as a besetting thought. The mere description of the suffering, given by those who know it, seems to have wrought upon the general mind, for a kind of shudder goes round when it is mentioned, though it can no more be conceived of by the gay and occupied, than the continual dropping of water on the head can be imagined by him whose transactions with the element consist in a plunge bath every morning. It is known, however, that herculean men have shrunk to shadows under the infliction, that it has reduced heroes to tremble at the whispering wind, or the striking of the clock, that it turns the raven-hair gray, lets down genius into idiocy, and starves the most vigorous life into an atrophy. How then are the sick to meet this woe, which comes upon them with force exactly proportioned to their weakness!
If every sick prisoner in our land were questioned, and could and would answer truly, I believe all would reply (all who have minds) that their worst pangs are in the soul. For the moment,—for the hour,—no agony is, I know, to be compared with some pains of body; but when the question is of months and years (including the seasons of delicious reaction from bodily pains), I am confident that the peculiar misery of our condition—subjection to a besetting thought—will be owned to absorb all others. Whether the thought relate to any intellectual matter, or whether it be self-abasement and self-weariness at the perpetually-recurring apparition of sins, follies, trifling old misadventures and misbehaviour, or whether some more serious cause of remorse, the tormenting and weakening effects are much alike; the cold horror at waking up to the thought in the middle of the night, knowing that we shall sleep no more; the misery of opening our eyes upon a new day, with the spell of the thought full upon us; the dread of giving ourselves up to thinking, and yet the inability to read, while the enemy is hovering about the page; the faint resolution, broken almost as surely as formed, not to speak of this trouble to our nearest and closest friend, and the ending in speaking of it, in our agony, to many besides. O! there is no aching, no shooting or throbbing pain of fibre or nerve that can (taken with its alternations) compare in misery with this! Even the anticipation becomes in time the worst, though the bodily pain is known to be real and unavoidable, while the ideal one is clearly seen to be baseless, or enormously exaggerated. The close observer of a sick sufferer may see the drops stand on the forehead, and the quiver pass over the lip, at the bare thought of the certain return of a periodical pain; but worse to endure is the sickening of the soul, at the certainty that at such an hour we shall be under the spiritual dominion of a haunting demon, the foe, as foolish as cruel, whom we defy now with our reason, but shall then succumb to in every faculty. Here is an ordeal for the proud! yet it is not less fearful to the humble; for the humble can no more dispense with self-respect than the proud.
Some may wonder at such a history of an unknown trouble,—some who, when anything harasses them, mount a horse, and gallop over the sea-sands or the race-course, or visit their friends or the theatre, or resort to music, or romp with children. Let them remember that we cannot do these things,—that the very weakness which subjects us to these troubles, forbids our escape from them. We know, as well as they, that if once we could feel the open air upon our brows, our feet on the grass, our bodies in exercise and vigour, all would be well with us; but, as we cannot use these remedies, the knowledge is of no immediate avail. If we can get to the window and look abroad, that is well, as far as it goes; but we are most subject to our tyrant in the night, and in midwinter,—at times when we cannot look abroad; and it may even happen, too, that the tyrant dims the sun at noon-day, and blots out the landscape, or renders us blind to it. What then is to be done? We evade the misery, when we can, by stirring books, (the most objective that can be had), or by seeing what we can of the world by the telescope, or by resorting to some sweet familiar spring of poetry; but this last expedient is impaired by the fear of mixing painful associations with pleasures too sacred and dear to be endangered. Or we defy the foe in reckless anguish, or we endure in silent patience.