Or shall we, as sulky children, mope day after day? We are a
broken-hearted little Jack--little Jill. We will never smile again;
we will pine away and die, and be buried in the spring. The world
is sad, and life so cruel, and heaven so cold. Oh dear! oh dear! we
have hurt ourselves.
We whimper and whine at every pain. In old strong days men faced
real dangers, real troubles every hour; they had no time to cry.
Death and disaster stood ever at the door. Men were contemptuous of
them. Now in each snug protected villa we set to work to make
wounds out of scratches. Every head-ache becomes an agony, every
heart-ache a tragedy. It took a murdered father, a drowned
sweetheart, a dishonoured mother, a ghost, and a slaughtered Prime
Minister to produce the emotions in Hamlet that a modern minor poet
obtains from a chorus girl's frown, or a temporary slump on the
Stock Exchange. Like Mrs. Gummidge, we feel it more. The lighter
and easier life gets the more seriously we go out to meet it. The
boatmen of Ulysses faced the thunder and the sunshine alike with
frolic welcome. We modern sailors have grown more sensitive. The
sunshine scorches us, the rain chills us. We meet both with loud
self-pity.
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