o feel, is it not always there in the depths of our
nature? The accidents of life may lull or awaken it, but there it is, of
necessity modifying the self, its abiding place. Hence, every sensation
should have its great day once and for all, its first day of storm,
be it long or short. Hence, likewise, pain, the most abiding of our
sensations, could be keenly felt only at its first irruption, its
intensity diminishing with every subsequent paroxysm, either because we
grow accustomed to these crises, or perhaps because a natural instinct
of self-preservation asserts itself, and opposes to the destroying force
of anguish an equal but passive force of inertia.

Yet of all kinds of suffering, to which does the name of anguish belong?
For the loss of parents, Nature has in a manner prepared us; physical
suffering, again, is an evil which passes over us and is gone; it lays
no hold upon the soul; if it persists, it ceases to be an evil, it is
death. The young mother loses her firstborn, but wedded love ere long
gives her a successor. This grief, too, is transient. After all, these,
and many other troubles like unto them, are in some sort wounds and
bruises; they do not sap the springs of vitality, and only a succession
of such blows can crush in us the instinct that seeks happiness. Great
pain, therefore, pain that arises to anguish, should be suffering so
deadly, that past, present, and future are alike included in its grip,
and no part of life is left sound and whole. Never afterwards can
we think the same thoughts as before. Anguish engraves itself in
ineffaceable characters on mouth and brow; it passes through us,
destroying or relaxing the springs that vibrate to enjoyment, leaving
behind in the soul the seeds of a disgust for all things in this world.

Yet, again, to be measureless, to weigh like this upon body and soul,
the trouble should befall when soul and body have just come to their
full strength, and smite down a heart that beats high with life. Then it
is that great scars are made. Terrible is the anguish. None, it may
be, can issue from this soul-sickness without undergoing some dramatic
change. Those who survive it, those who remain on earth, return to the
world to wear an actor's countenance and to play an actor's part. They
know the side-scenes where actors may retire to calculate chances, shed
their tears, or pass their jests. Life holds no inscrutable dark places
for those who have passed through this ordea