We are dealing now with pain. My simple practical thesis is that pain
comes to all soon or late, that the indirect consequences are most to be
feared, and that endurance in the adult, rational endurance, must be won
by a gradual education, which can hardly begin too early. But of what
use are these stern lessonings in the bearing of what none can quite
escape? Do they enable us to diminish pain or to feel it less?
Indirectly, yes. One woman cries out for instant easement if in pain or
distress, unschooled to endure. She claims immediate relief. Another,
more resolute, submits with patience, does not give way, as we put it,
tries to distract her attention, knowing that even as distinct suffering
as toothache may be less felt in the presence of something which
interests the mind and secures the attention. Nothing, indeed, is more
instructive than to watch how women bear pain,--the tremendous calamity
it is to one, the far slighter thing in life it is to another. I speak
now of transient torments. When we come to consider those years of
torture which cruel nature holds in store for some, no one blames the
sight of the moral wreck it is apt to make of the sufferer.
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