THE ABUSES OF ADVERSITY
To the Editor of The Idler.
Dear Sir: In the course of a long and not uneventful life, I have, upon more than one occasion, looked upon adversity in its various forms, and I have, therefore, given the subject some attention, both in the light of my own experience and in the light of the opinions of others. I have heard a great deal of the “uses of adversity”; that adversity is like a great training-school for character which brings out whatever strength and resolution there may be in a man, and much talk of a like character. But I must confess that I have not often seen adversity, nor its lessons, put to any good use whatever, while I have often seen it abused most shamefully.
So far from learning useful lessons from ill-fortune, it seems to me that most men are inclined to turn misfortune to the basest ofuses, making it serve as an excuse for shirking, for moral lapses, for dishonesty and for an utter lack of charity toward others. I find that many people boast of their misfortunes as if they were actually entitled to some credit because they have befallen them, wearing woe like a feather in the cap and holding themselves somewhat better than their fellows because they appear to have excited the wrath of the Goddess of Fortune. It is as if they said: “See, we are the Unfortunate Ones who are of sufficient importance to be singled out from among men to receive Sorrows which you are unfit to bear. Look upon our afflictions and reflect upon the happiness of your own lot, and do not forget to do us honor for the fortitude with which we bear our miseries.”
I count among my friends and acquaintances a number of these habitual boasters of misfortune, who are always ready, day or night, to relate their trials and tribulations with a conscious air of distinction and superiority.
There is an old fellow of my acquaintance who suffers, or so he declares, the torments ofthe damned, by reason of his gout, a disease which has held him in its grip for the last twenty years. There is no manner of doubt that he has himself to blame for this painful malady, which is, without question, the result of his injudicious and riotous manner of life in his youth. Yet this old man is as proud of his infirmity as many another man is of physical soundness, and he relates his pangs and twinges with the greatest relish in the world. Nor does the fact that he has suffered from the disease for nearly a quarter of a century have any effect upon the eagerness with which he always turns the conversation upon his favorite topic. Despite the fact that he has told and retold his pains and symptoms ten thousand times, the subject never seems to lose its novelty for him, and to-day he discusses his infirmity with as much gusto as he did when I first met him ten years or more ago. It makes no difference what may be the subject of the company’s discourse, this man can not bear to go twenty minutes without intruding the matter of his lame foot.
Politics, business, history, music, literature, art or the drama—all these are but verbal stepping-stones to his one supreme subject. Does some one speak of Napoleon at the foot of the great Pyramids, the mere mention of the word “foot” is enough to set him discoursing of the inflammation in his great toe. Does some one call attention to the flaming crimson of the sunset, he swears that it is not so red as his own instep. He never enters a conversation, in short, but to put his foot in it, and so persistently does he dwell upon this malformed pedal extremity as to render him fit company for none but chiropodists. He has no interest in life but his gout, and he is forever talking of the pain it causes him, though I dare say it has never caused him a tenth part of the misery that it has caused his friends and acquaintances.
Another person whom I have the misfortune to know is a widow lady of some nine years’ standing, who has never put off her weeds and who never tires of bewailing the loss of the dear departed. The bare mention of death is a sufficient warrant for a flood of tears, and thesight of a hearse sends her into hysterics which abate only at the prospect of a sympathetic audience for the old story of her bereavement. She goes about the neighborhood casting the shadow of death upon all our innocent pleasures and brings with her into our happy homes the gloom of the mortuary chamber. Her long-continued mourning and complaint are the less deserving of patience and sympathy when we reflect that her husband was already past the age of seventy-five when he died, so that nobody but the most infatuated mourner could speak, as she does, of his having been “cut off in his prime.” One would think, to hear her speak of him, that other men were in the habit of living to the age of Methuselah and that no other woman in the world had cause to mourn her spouse. For my part, I think the old man had small reason to complain of premature demise, and I know that were I her husband I would ask nothing better. To cast the slightest suspicion upon the genuineness of her grief or the sufficiency of the cause thereof would be to lay one’s self open to a tonguewhich can be most bitter when it chooses; so I fear we shall have to bear her complaints and her mourning until she dissolves in tears like Niobe, or until Death gives ear to her publicly expressed desire to join her mate beyond the grave.
My cousin, Robert Wasrich, is forever telling of the wealth and luxury which were his in his younger days and complaining of the lowly estate into which he is fallen in his middle age. The quarters in which he now resides are of the humblest, but he speaks of them most ostentatiously to all who have not visited them, referring to them as “chambers” and adding that, while they are far above the average, they are not at all what he has been used to in other years. When we have him for our guest, which we do out of pity at Christmas and such seasons when it seems shameful to neglect one’s own kin, he upsets our whole household with his constant complaints and exactions.
So, far from trying to make himself as little a nuisance as possible, he must needs take his breakfast in bed becausethat was his custom in the days of his prosperity, and he must be supplied with all sorts of dainties and extra dishes because his stomach, so he says, craves them, having become accustomed to them when he was wealthy. He finds fault with the cooking, saying that it probably seems well enough to us, who have never been used to anything better, but that it is death to the palate of one who has been in the habit of eating and drinking of the best. He picks flaws in our pictures and decries our taste in furnishings, and so sends my wife off to her chamber in a fit of indignant weeping. And not content with all this, he is forever borrowing of me small sums of money which he declares he stands in need of to pay off certain obligations to friends whom he has known in his better days and who have seen fit to ask him to dinner or to the play. To allow such obligations to go unpaid would be most offensive to his acute sense of honor and would cast discredit upon his honored name. In fact, Mr.Idler, he is twice as arrogant and proud in his poverty as he was when he was well-off. Andmore than once I have wished with all my heart that he might be rich again, and so take himself off and leave us in peace.
To come nearer home, my wife is the victim of a nervous disorder which totally incapacitates her from doing our housework, though we can ill afford a servant, but which, oddly enough, does not interfere with her attendance at matinées or card-parties given by her women friends. This is doubtless due, as she says, to the fact that exertion which is in the nature of a diversion takes her mind from her trouble and so mends her condition for the time being. Though this disorder is not in the least dangerous, it is most obstinate and causes her, so she assures me, the most acute mental anguish and the most terrible physical suffering. It is of such a peculiar nature that any mention of the amount of the month’s bills sets it instantly in motion, and disappointment in the matter of getting a new hat is enough to cause her to take to her bed for a week. But though, as you can readily see, this indisposition puts her to a great deal of trouble and annoyance, she willnot consent to enter a sanatorium where she might be cured of it, nor will she follow the advice of the doctor whom she calls in from one to three times a month; so that I am forced to conclude that she is actually proud of being an invalid. And I am the more of this opinion, since when I complain of feeling ill or indisposed, she always assures me that I do not know what suffering is and that I never can know because I was not born a woman.
These and other cases which have come under my observation have convinced me that people are more proud of their afflictions than of their blessings, and that the most common use of adversity is to make life miserable for others.
I am, Sir,Edward Easyman.