Vesper Talks to Girls

by Laura A. Knott

There are many kinds of trouble, and, of course, some kinds are harder to bear than others. Hardships and rebuffs might rank as the easiest. Loss of money or material possessions is not as serious as at first it seems. Grief is much more difficult to bear. Yet of whatever kind or degree the adversities of life, it is probable that each, as Shakespeare puts it, wears a precious jewel in its head.

There are several ways of meeting trouble. One wrong way is to regard it in a spirit of rebellion, and by constant brooding over what might have been, to allow it to embitter and spoil life. We have all known people who went through life meeting trouble in this way.

Another and a better way to meet trouble is with stoical resignation. This does undoubtedly bring strength, but it does not bring sweetness. One has not really gained the victory unless he goes further.

There is something better than to quarrel with trouble and there is something better than merely to endure it, and that is to compel it, before we are through with it, to do us good, even as Jacob wrested a blessing from the angel. It is natural to think that our troubles only restrict and limit; but we may find even in the most overwhelming disaster that which enriches life. That is the reason it so often happens that one who has known the depths of sorrow is a tower of strength upon whom others may lean, or a well of comfort and inspiration from which they may draw. Nothing has yet been discovered so good for the development of character as struggle. Deep human sympathy and the power to enter into the sorrows of others are born of suffering.

Have you not known some wealthy family whose riches suddenly took wings, to the enormous gain of every one of its members? Sons, whose lives of luxurious ease were rapidly hurrying them along the road to ruin are now forced to become self-supporting and thus acquire those manly virtues which before had been wanting. Daughters, obliged to shoulder some of the responsibilities of life and plan for others instead of for their own selfish pleasure, are made strong and womanly.

To be stricken by an incurable disease would seem to be the worst misfortune that could befall any human being. Yet, if so, why is it that invalids are so often the sunniest, most serene, most stimulating persons we know? I have chanced to be acquainted with several such in my life to whom I would go if in need of a word of encouragement or inspiration. All the disappointment in the failure of life’s plans, all the suffering and pain have been transmuted into character. If, after all, the chief purpose of life is the making of character, we need not be so concerned over the means. It is for us to take the material provided, and with the means given to accomplish a worthy result. “Life is the raw material,” says Goethe, “and man the artist who is to shape it into a thing of beauty.”

I know a lady who lost in quick succession all her children. She might have become hard and bitter, crying out against the injustice that took her children while other happy mothers are surrounded by their little ones. Instead she became an angel of mercy to all the needy children within her reach. By her efficient work for pure-milk laws, better sanitary conditions, vacation playgrounds, and free kindergartens, she doubtless prevented many other mothers from having to mourn as she mourned. She is gentler, kindlier, more loving, more unselfish than before her great sorrow came to her, and her life is probably of much more value to the world than it would have been otherwise. She transmuted her sorrow into unselfish service. “When He hath tried me I shall come forth as gold.”

Why trouble comes to us and why it comes in the forms it does, he must be a very wise person who presumes to say. One of the world-poets of old wrote a great poem upon the problem of suffering. Yet Job did not find out why God sent trouble to him, though he learned that it was not sent as a punishment. He also learned what his attitude should be toward it and in what spirit he should bear it. And for us, too, it is far more important that we should meet trouble in the right way than that we should know why it comes. Are you carrying some burden or bearing some cross that often seems too heavy? And do you sometimes feel rebellious about it and contrast your lot with that of some one who has no such cross to bear? That is unworthy of your best self, as you well know. It is for you to see to it that this trouble, whatever it may be, not only does not spoil your character and your life, but that it enriches both. It is, perhaps, the best means you will ever have to acquire certain qualities which you need and which, perhaps, you greatly admire in others. By this trial you are being tested. By the way you endure it will all your future life be determined. It is your part to become, not in spite of this burden, but because of it, a larger person than you were before.

An insight into some of the immutable laws of life helps us to endure hard things. No law is probably more steadfast than the law of compensation, as Emerson clearly shows us in his remarkable essay on that subject, an essay which should be read by every young person who is trying to formulate a philosophy of life. “For everything you miss you gain something else, and for everything you gain you lose something.” When you are obliged to give up some cherished project or dear ambition, try to discover what you received in its place.

Perhaps you long to be a musician, an artist, or a scholar, and perhaps certain duties and obligations life has created for you prevent the fulfillment of this cherished dream. Then find your self-realization in those things which are permitted you. “What we need is not so much to realize the ideal as to idealize the real.” Nothing so rapidly develops character in a young person as the shouldering of responsibility. While one of your friends may have been perfecting herself in music or art, or broadening herself by foreign travel, you have been carrying heavy burdens for others. Has it, therefore, been all loss to you and all gain to her? Far from it. Instead, she has gained one thing, you another. Most of us do not receive more than our share in life. You will be surprised if you look about you to discover how true this is. Apply the test to your friends and acquaintances one by one, and you will see that the advantages of each are more or less counterbalanced by the disadvantages, so that things are by no means so unjustly arranged as it would at first seem.