Lessons in Life | Page 8

the Being who made them.
The two instances which I have mentioned show us that there are two ways of taking misfortunes of this character; and one of them seems to a good deal better than the other. Between the boy who ignored the withered leg and the crutch, and the proud poet who permitted a slight personal deformity to darken his whole life, there is a distance like that between heaven and earth.
I believe in the law of compensation. Human lot is, on the whole, well averaged. A man does not possess great gifts of person and of mind without drawbacks somewhere. Either great duties are imposed upon him, or great burdens are put upon his shoulders, or great temptations assail and harass him. Something in his life, at some time in his life, takes it upon itself to reduce his advantages to the average standard. Nature gave Byron clubbed feet, but with those feet she gave him a genius whose numbers charmed the world-- a genius which multitudes of commonplace or weak men would have been glad to purchase at the price of almost any humiliating eccentricity of person. But they were obliged to content themselves with excellent feet, and brains of the common kind and calibre. Providence had withered the little boy's leg, but the loudest song I have heard from a boy in a twelvemonth came from his lips, as he limped along alone in the open street. The cheerful heart in his bosom was a great compensation for the withered leg; and beyond this the boy had reason for singing over the fact that he was forever released from military duty, and firemen's duty, and all racing about in the service of other people. There are individual cases of misfortune in which it is hard to detect the compensating good, but these we must call the "exceptions" which "prove the rule."
But the best of all compensation for natural defects and deformities, is that which comes in the form of a peculiar love. The mother of a poor, misshapen, idiotic boy, will, though she have half a score of bright and beautiful children besides, entertain for him a peculiar affection. He may not be able, in his feeble-mindedness, to appreciate it, but her heart brims with tenderness for him. The delicate morsel is reserved for him; and, if he be a sufferer, the softest pillow and the tenderest nursing will be his. A love will be bestowed upon him which gold could not buy, and which no beauty of person, and no brilliancy of natural gifts could possibly awaken. It is thus with every case of defect or eccentricity of person. So sure as the mother of a child sees in that child's person any reason for the world to regard it with contempt or aversion, does she treat it with peculiar tenderness; as if she were commissioned by God--as indeed she is--to make up to it in the best coinage that which the world will certainly neglect to bestow.
With the world at large, however, there are certain conditions on which this variety of compensation is rendered; and a man who would have compensation for defects of person, must accept these conditions, or furnish them. Such a man as Lord Byron would have been offended by pity. To have been commiserated on his misfortune, would have made him exceedingly angry. He would not allow himself to be treated as an unfortunate man. He bound up his feet, and made efforts to walk that ended in intense pain, rather than appear the lame man that he really was. Of course, there was no compensation in the tender pity and affectionate consideration of the world for him; nor is there any for the sad unfortunates who inherit and exercise his spirit. But for all those who accept their life with all its conditions, in a cheerful spirit, who give up their pride, who take their bodies as God formed them, and make the best of them, there is abundant compensation in the affection of the world. A cheerful spirit, exercised in weakness, infirmity, calamity--any sort of misfortune--is just as sure to awaken a peculiarly affectionate interest in all observers, as a lighted lamp is to illuminate the objects around it. I know of men and women who are the favorites of a whole neighborhood--nay, a whole town--because they are cheerful, and courageous, and self-respectful under misfortune; and I know of those who are as much dreaded as a pestilence, because they will not accept their lot--because they grow bitter and jealous--and because they will persist in taunts and complaints.
The number of those who are, or who consider themselves, unfortunate in their physical conformation, is larger than the most of us suppose. I presume that at least one-half of the