It hurts.
On the other hand, some people are almost too grateful. A boy who was alone in lodgings and spent his Sundays with us in Harley Street in the long ago, went to China, where he has done splendidly; and every year since I have had a home of my own—since 1887, in fact—he has sent me a chest of tea, “because he never could forget the kindness of the past.” And he sends a similar recognition to my mother for the same reason. Such tokens of remembrance keep alive the friendships of those bygone days.
A woman who was with me for some years as secretary and left through ill-health never forgets to send me a kindly note on my birthday, a little thoughtfulness I greatly appreciate. One loves to be remembered. A penny bunch of violets often gives a hundredfold its weight in pleasure.
Yes, remembrance is always pleasant. Dear old Sir John Erichsen left me £300 in his will to buy a memento. I was too poor for mementoes when it came, so I invested it, and the £12 a year became of real tangible help. Or again, an old cousin in Scotland whom I only saw twice, left me, when she died, my paternal grandmother’s engagement-ring, and her delightful old tea-service of soft buff and white china ornamented with the daintiest landscape medallions.
Thank God, I have never been pursued in life by little ills, but three or four times big collapses have overtaken me. Typhoid, rheumatic fever, and blood-poisoning are no slight matters: but they are almost worth the suffering and pain for the pleasure of receiving such kindnesses from friends, letters of sympathy, flowers, fruit, wine, jellies, all have been left at my door, and I blessed the kind donors then as I bless them in remembrance now. Doubtless the severity of the illnesses that overtook me was due to intense overwork coupled with anxiety—overstrain invariably spells breakdown.
A horrible distrust overcame me at one time.
I used to go to bed worn out and weary, at last sleep would come. Then I would wake up with a start, feeling some awful calamity had overtaken me, that I had written something libellous or said something scandalous, and the Court of Law was waiting to receive me. No one would intentionally write a libel any more than they would cut a friend. I would see paragraphs chasing paragraphs across the page, just as the typed letters had turned red under my gaze when my eyes gave out a few years before. I used to get horribly anxious over my proof. Things I had rattled off when well were laborious now, and the anxiety they entailed was wellnigh unendurable.
It was merely a matter of health—a tonic and a rest put matters right.