Life in the sick-room

by Harriet Martineau

The words “natural recompenses” remind me of another gain conferred on us by our condition—scarcely separable, perhaps, from those I have mentioned—from the extinction of all concern about our future in this world, and the ordinary objects of pursuit; but yet to us so conspicuous, so heartfelt, as to demand record as a blessing by itself. I mean the conviction of the hollowness of all talk of reward for conduct;—the conviction of the essential blessedness of goodness. What can appear more trite? Where is the church or chapel in which it is not preached every Sunday? Yet we, who heard and believed through all the Sundays and week-days of many years, seem but now to have known this truth. Our knowledge is now tested by the indifference with which we behold men struggling for other objects, under a sort of insanity, as it appears to us, while the interests which animate us to sympathy are those of the pure in heart, seeing God before they die; and the dread which chills our souls is for the multitude who live in passion and die in moral insensibility. To us it appears so obviously the supreme good to have a healthy soul serenely reposing in innocence, and spontaneously working for God and man, that all divergence of aims from this end seems madness, and all imagery of rewards for moral desert the most profane of mockeries. It is a matter of wonder to us, that we ever conceived of royalty otherwise than as a title to compassion; of hereditary honours, as desirable; of fame, as an end; and we are apt to wonder at others, in their turn, that they do not perceive the most blessed of our race to be the moral reformers of each age, passing “from strength to strength,” although wearing out in their enterprise, and the placid well-doers, whether high or lowly in their service. The appendages themselves of such a state—the esteem, honour, and love which wait upon moral desert—almost vanish from our notice when we are contemplating the infinite blessedness of the peace of a holy heart.

Then we have (not to dwell on a matter already spoken of) a peculiar privilege in the peculiar loveliness which the image of Death assumes to us. In our long leisure, all sweet and soothing associations of rest,—of relief from anxiety and wearing thought,—of re-entrance upon society,—(a society how sanctified!)—of the realisation of our best conceptions of what is holy, noble, and perfect,—all affections, all aspirations gather round the idea of Death, till it recurs at all our best moments, and becomes an abiding thought of peace and joy. When we hear or read of the departure of any one we knew,—of the death even of the youngest or the most active,—a throb of congratulatory feeling is our first emotion, rather than the shock which we used to experience, and which we now see sustained by those around us. Reflection, or tidings of survivors may change our view; but so does the image of Death become naturally endeared to us, that our first spontaneous thought is of favour to those who are selected for it. I am not recommending this impression as rational, but intimating it as characteristic of a peculiar condition. It is no slight privilege, however, to have that great idea which necessarily confronts every one of us all clothed with loveliness instead of horror, or mere mystery. Till now, we never knew how any anticipation may be incessantly filling with sweetness.

It may be doubted whether there is a more heartfelt peace experienced at any point of our moral progress than in the right reception of calumnious injury. In the immediate return from the first recoil into the mood of forgiveness, there is something heavenly even to the novice. In the compassion for one’s calumniator there is pain; and it is a pain which increases with experience of life, and with our insight into the peril and misery of an unjust and malicious habit of mind; but in the act of pitying forgiveness, there is a solace so sweet as to make one wonder how long men will be in adopting this remedy for their injuries. Any one who has been ambitious, and with success, will, if he be wise, be ready to declare that not the first breath of fame was to him so sweet as the first emotions of forgiveness, the first stirrings of the love of enemies, after his earliest experience of the calumny by which all public effort is sure to be assailed. I am not supposing cowardly acquiescence in insult and injury. I am supposing the due self-assertion made, or defence found not to be practicable. This is all that others have to do with. A man’s self-communion on the matter is his own private affair: and little know the systematic calumniators, who for party’s or prejudice’s sake, assail those who can only return silence, how they really work in some hearts they seek to wound. In some they may excite rage or bitter anguish; but there are others,—probably many,—in which they cause no severer pain than a pitying sorrow for themselves, while they kindle a glow of courage, patience, and benignity,—they cause a more exquisite mingling of sweet emotions,—than were ever aroused by praise. The more defenceless the injured, the more private and the more heavenly are these passages of his soul; and none are more defenceless than sick prisoners. If subject to such injuries in the world, where they could by their presence perpetually live down false aspersions, (aspersions on their opinions as well as on their conduct,) helpless indeed are they when living out of sight, dumb in regard to society and through the press. Then, if their party foes take the opportunity to assail and misrepresent their opinions and their acts, those foes can have all their own way abroad in the world; but the very air of our sick-room turns them from foes into best friends. After one moment’s sickening at the poor malice and cowardice, our thoughts fix on the high and holy truths to which they direct us,—on the transience of error,—the nothingness of fame, in the serious passages of life,—the powerlessness of assaults from without while we possess ourselves,—till we end in a calm and sweet mood of contentedness for ourselves and affectionate intercession for the victims of angry passion or of sordid interests. It does not move us painfully to think of our helplessness,—to contemplate leaving life without explaining our opinions, or justifying our views and enterprises. What is just and true will abide and prevail; and as for our claims to a share in the reputation, they seem in the sick-room worthy of only a smile. If we wrought for reputation, we must suffer, sooner or later, for the lowness of the aim; and now may be our time for taking a new growth through pain. But if we wrought for truth and good, we are not susceptible of the venom of the party slanderer. His sting proves no sting, but a beneficial touch rousing in us many tender, and resolute, and benignant feelings. These may be awakened wherever such a touch reaches us; but nowhere perhaps so sensibly as in the privacy and lowliness of the sick-room. I need say nothing of the benefit brought to us, by the same act, in the sympathy of generous minds. Of the blessing of sympathy I have already said so much that I dare scarcely approach the subject again. And never, as all know, does ministering affection so abound as towards the injured. When injury and helplessness unite their claims, there is no end to the multitude of hearts that throng to defend and aid. They are far more than are needed; for few—extremely few—are those who venture or who like to send the enmity of public life into the retreats of privacy. Very rare, I believe, is the species of men who insult when all the world knows there can be no reply. Still, such cases are witnessed; and of their operation I have spoken.

The greater number of invalids are under no such liability; but all may be subject to some injustice,—some misrepresentation which may reach their knowledge; and their emotions, both of recoil and of renovation, may be like in kind, and even equal in degree, to those I have intimated. If occasions for forgiveness should arise,—(and to whom do they not?)—may its relish be as sweet to them as it assuredly is to some more extensively tried!

An inestimable gain from the longest sickness is the outgrowth of the scruples and other conflicts which constitute the chief evil of merely long sickness. Of some perils and pains of our condition I have spoken, and I must therefore declare that there is a remedial influence in the very infirmity which appeared to create them. If it be but continued long enough,—if the struggle be not broken off before it is fairly exhausted,—victory will declare itself on the side of peace. We may be long in passing through the experience of weakness, humiliation and submission; but up, through acquiescence, we must rise, sooner or later,—true things separating themselves infallibly from the transient, and all that is important revealing itself in its due proportions, till our vision is cleared and our hearts are at rest. If the invalid of five years can smile at some of the anxieties and scrupulosities of his first season of retreat, much more clear-sighted must the ten years’ thinker be in regard to the snares and troubles of his early or midway term. If, amidst the gain, as little as possible be lost, the privileges of our state may be such,—not as, indeed, to compare with those of health and a natural mode of life,—but as may satisfy a humble and rational hope that our season of probation is not lost, nor materially wasted.

The sick-room is a sanctuary of confidence. It is a natural confessional, where the spontaneous revelations are perhaps as ample as any enforced disclosures from disciple to priest, and without any of the mischiefs of enforcement. We may be excluded from much observation of the outer life of men; but of the inner life, which originates and interprets the outer, it is scarcely possible that in any other circumstances we could have known so much. Into what depths of opinion are we not let down! To what soaring heights of speculation are we not borne up! What is there of joy or sorrow, of mystery and marvel, in human experience that is not communicated to us! And all this not as if read in print,—not half-revealed, in the form of hints to such as can understand,—not in general terms, as addressed to the general,—but spoken fully and freely, with that particularity which fastens words upon the soul for ever,—with those living tones of emotion which make the hearer a partner in all that is and has been felt. Here, we learn that the whole experience of humanity may be contained in one bosom, through such participation as we ourselves entertain; and even that all opinions, the most various and the most incompatible, may be deposited in one intellect, for gradual review, without inducing scepticism, and possibly to the strengthening of the powers and privileges of Faith.

Göthe, the seer of humanity, formed in himself the habit of agreeing with all the opinions uttered to him, alleging as his ground that there is always a sense in which everything is true, and that it is a good to encourage, and an evil to discourage, any belief arrived at in natural course. There are men with minds of a far lower order, but still somewhat superior to the average, who do precisely the reverse,—they see far enough to be aware that there is always something to be said to the contrary of what they hear uttered; and they cannot help saying it. They fall into a habit of invariable opposition, justifying the practice to themselves by the plea of impartiality,—of resistance to dogmatism,—of love of truth, and the like. I disapprove of both habits. Both practically injure belief, and damage the interests of truth. The natural operation of Göthe’s method was to encourage in many indolence in the pursuit of truth and carelessness about opinions;—in some, doubts of the very existence of truth; and in all reflective persons, a keen sense of the insult conveyed, however unintentionally, by such treatment. Far worse, however, is the influence of the antagonist order of minds,—not only from their comparative numbers, for there is not a Göthe in five hundred years,—but from the direct operation of their method and their example. A man who forms a habit of intellectual antagonism destroys more than can ever be repaired, both in his own mind and in those which he influences. He allows no rest in any supposition even to those who have not power or leisure to follow out the research. He cuts their own ground from under them, and does not establish them on any other, for he himself appears to be established on none. Men of this order are, above all others, fickle in their opinions. Complacently supposing themselves impartial investigators into truth, they are, in fact, the sport of any one who, discerning and playing with their weakness, can put them up to the assertion and defence of any opinions whatever, and lead them into daily self-contradiction. What ensues is seen at a glance:—they tamper with truth till the structure of their own intellect becomes fatally impaired:—they denounce, as bigots, all men of every order of mind who remain steady in any opinions, and especially such as continue to hold opinions which they have themselves quitted:—they never doubt of their own fluctuations being progression, and that they are leaving all stable believers behind:—they learn no caution in the publication of their so-called opinions from their own incessant changes, but rather pique themselves on their eagerness to exhibit and insist upon each new view, and enjoy the occasion it affords for complacent amazement at all who hold the positions which they have themselves abandoned.

It may be said, that such men lose their influence, and with it their power for mischief. It is true that, by degrees, more and more decline argument with them, and they cease to have any convincing power, because it is seen that they themselves do not rest in permanent convictions; but their disturbing power remains. They can destroy, though they cannot build up. They can unsettle minds which yet they cannot lead. They can distress and perplex the humble and narrowly-informed;—they can startle, not only the slothful, (who will turn to sleep again, on the plea of the foible of the awakener) but the nervous and feeble who need repose; and, worse than all, they can irreparably injure the young, by spreading before them wide fields of inquiry, and then hunting them out of every corner in which they would be disposed to stay, and rest, and think. Men of this kind of mind have a certain power of sympathy with every species of opinion; and this good and attractive quality it is which mainly causes their self-deception, and aggravates their power of injury. They mistake it for candour, at the very moment that they overflow with intolerance towards holders of opinions which they have relinquished. The result in such cases is always the same,—intellectual ruin, throughout the department of the understanding, however eminent the dialectical powers may appear, through the constant practice which has increased their original strength; and with the intellectual damage must be combined great moral injury. Göthe’s method appears to be dangerous; but the opposite one is fatal.

To us, the depositories of vast confidences on these matters, it appears that there is no manner of necessity for either practice. We can avouch, from what we witness, that there may be sympathy with every order of understanding and every phase of opinion, without either hypocrisy, or tendency to disputation, or a surrender of differing views. We see how there may be an intrepid and continuous avowal of opinions, without disturbance to the unlearned and the feeble. We can fully agree with Göthe as to the unequalled mischief of endangering belief in that vast majority of minds which have other work to do than to investigate matters of opinion, without seeing it to be at all necessary to countenance what we know or believe to be error. We can fully agree with his practical antagonists as to the nobleness of candour, and the evils which ensue from dogmatism; while, at the same time, we would sooner die than dare to tempt one intellect to follow us, after one self-conviction of such an instability as theirs. Where there is a habit of mutability, there is intellectual infirmity, as is shown, with indescribable clearness, to us gazers into the mirror of events. It is a singular privilege granted to us, to witness the workings of the best method,—of that “simplicity and godly sincerity” which is unconsciously adopted by the wise to whom Truth is neither the spirit of rashness, nor “of fear, but of power and of love, and of a sound mind.”

It has occurred to me, at times, that a second volume,—“On the Formation and Publication of Opinions,”—less popularly useful perhaps than the existing one, but deeper and more comprehensive, might be an invaluable gift from the hands of some one in a retreat, (in a sick retreat, as illness invites confidence,)—from the hands of some one who would know how to use with equal discretion and intrepidity his singular opportunities.