and had melted Job to tears, and his tears
would have done him good, as prayer does. Sometimes tears clear the
throat and heart of sobs that choke. But these men were inquisitors
rather than comforters; they were philosophers, when they ought to have
been men. They sat in silence seven days, but should have maintained
their quiet. These men lacked imagination, which is a fatal omission
from character; for they who came to comfort, became polemic, pitiless,
belligerent, and their voices sound metallic. If a child had crept
toward the afflicted prince, and had reached out a pitiful hand, and,
with childish treble, had said, "Poor Job; poor Job!" that word had
salved his wounds, and helped him through his morass of pain and fear
and doubt. But instead, his friend Eliphaz hectors his pain by saying,
in stately fashion, "Thy words have upholden him that was failing, and
thou hast strengthened the feeble knees; but now it has come upon thee,
and thou faintest." Shame, Eliphaz! What a bungler! A child had
known better. What ails you? Do you not know this man needs
tenderness, and not lectures and disquisitions in moralities? Can you
not see his heart is breaking, and his eyes turn to you as if he were
watching for the coming of some succor infinite? Have you no balm with
fragrance? But he hears us not, or heeds us not, but measures out his
periods as if he were orator at some state occasion: "Behold, happy is
the man whom God correcteth: therefore despise not thou the chastening
of the Almighty. Lo, this, we have searched it, so it is; hear it, and
know thou it for thy good." Pray, is this friend mad, or foe, or fool,
that he knows no better than to pour contempt on distress? Will not a
foe, even, have pity on an enemy wounded and bleeding and prostrate in
the dust? But this man thinks he has a mission to teach an overthrown
prince a lesson, harsh, cold, unrelenting, lacking sentiment. Job's
pitiful affliction is enough to lift such a man into pity. No, no; he
urges his lesson, like some dull schoolmaster who will instruct his
pupil while he knows him dying.

Job's broken voice calls, "O that my grief were thoroughly weighed, and
my calamity laid in the balances together. Is my strength the strength
of stones, or is my flesh brass? I will speak in the anguish of my
spirit; I will complain in the bitterness of my soul. So that my soul
chooseth strangling, and death rather than my life. I loathe it; I
wou