Most suffering is only apparent. We fancy it is
torture: the patient has his own compensations. A tender American
girl doubts of Divine Providence whilst she reads the horrors of "the
middle passage:" and they are bad enough at the mildest; but to such
as she these crucifixions do not come: they come to the obtuse and
barbarous, to whom they are not horrid, but only a little worse than
the old sufferings. They exchange a cannibal war for the stench of
the hold. They have gratifications which would be none to the
civilized girl. The market-man never damned the lady because she had
not paid her bill, but the stout Irish woman has to take that once a
month. She, however, never feels weakness in her back because of the
slave-trade. This self-adapting strength is especially seen in
disease. "It is my duty," says Sir Charles Bell, "to visit certain
wards of the hospital where there is no patient admitted but with
that complaint which most fills the imagination with the idea of
insupportable pain and certain death. Yet these wards are not the
least remarkable for the composure and cheerfulness of their inmates.
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