When the physician
prescribed blisters to Marie Bashkirtseff to check her consumptive
tendency, the vain, cynical girl wrote, "I will put on as many
blisters as thee like. I shall be able to hide the mark by bodices
brimmed with flowers and lace and tulle, and a thousand other
delightful things that are worn, without being required; it may even
look pretty. Ah! I am comforted." Yes, by a thousand artifices do we
dissemble our ugly scars, sometimes even pressing our deep misfortunes
into the service of our pride. Many of the fashions and the diversions
of the world much sought after have little positive attractiveness,
but the real secret of their power is found in the fact that they
hide disagreeable things, and render men for a while oblivious of the
mystery and weight of an unintelligible world.
Nevertheless suffering is a stern fact that will not long permit us to
sleep. Some have taught the unreality of pain, but the logic of life
has spoiled their plausible philosophizing. A man may carry many
hallucinations with him to the grave, but a belief in the unreality of
pain is hardly likely to be one of them.
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