Imogen looked perplexed.
“Ye-es,” she said. “Yes; if we saw it was a good ‘why,’ of course it would seem different.”
“Then should we not believe it is a good ‘why?’” and the young lady smiled again.
“I suppose we should,” Imogen allowed.
“There is one thing that all who know anything about human nature agree upon,” said the invalid, “and that is, that without suffering, without having suffered, we should be very poor creatures indeed; we should scarcely be at the beginning of better things.”
“Yea, suffering like yours—high and good and noble sort of suffering,” said Imogen. “And suffering borne meekly and patiently and cheerfully—that’s quite different. But when it’s only selfish, and mostly your own fault, and when you do nothing but kick at it and feel horrid—”
The invalid smiled again.
“If we were able at once to accept and bear patiently the suffering, we should not need its discipline,” she said. “No, it goes deeper and wider than that. Suffering is the door opening for us—opening on to the higher road.”
Imogen was silent. She was impressed, but still perplexed.
“Mine—the—the trial or disappointment, or whatever it should be called, that spoilt my life was not like that. It seemed only lowering—only degrading.”