The Sun.
London, England, 1827-07-27 00:00:00

PRICE, 7D.

VANITY SUPERIOR TO PAIN,

(From Blackwood's Magazine for July.)
(Concluded from .our Papet of yesterday.)
The power of supporting pain, and defying
death, is no virtue, at least it is no proof
(.-ExpAniov) of righteousness ; nor is its exercise
a sure evidence of a good cause, or even of sin-
cerity in error. It is a gift, not a grace—a natu-
ral gift—a faculty innate—and only wanting in
few constitutionally defective, or unnerved b)
sloth and luxury. The love of life and ease are
indeed strong in every breast, and will ever pre-
vail, where not duly counterbalanced. Wise and
thoughtful men often seem to overvalue their life
and limbS, because they will 'not risk them fot
trivial gains. Others, endowed with fine facul-
ties, but lacking the principle that should direct
their use, turn cowards—sensualisti, from a pride
-of superior sense. They are wise enough
to
despise the ordinary prizes of human ambition :
but they have not the light which points to ar
incorruptible crown. Thus, from mere contempt
of others, they degrade themselveS. Their ques-
tion is still, what is there worth fighting or suffer-
ing for ? Their shrewd wits tell them, nothing
on earth ; and so far they are right : but they are
lamentably blind to the great ends for which the
ability to- dare and to suffer were bestowed.
'Tis by comparison—au
.easy task
Earth to despise—but to converse with Heaven—
That is not easy.
Falstaff is a coward of this class. But few men
of pleasure have fortitude enough to profess
themselves cowards. There was sense in Ro-
chester's observation, that all men would be
cowards if they dare. ' Of men such as he con-
versed with, it may be almost true, for valour in
a voluptuary is irrational. Again, strong imagi-
nation, operating on disordered nerves, makes
some fancy themselves cowards, who, when called
to the test, may perhaps prove heroes ; for
The sense of death is most in apprehension—
And the poor beetle that we'tread upon
In corpora, sufferance feels a pang as. great
As when a giant dies.
A profound sentence, which has been strangely
pervetted into a common-place precept of hu-
manity to beetles—,while its real intention is tA
represent the nothingness of bodily pains, which,
after all, are no greater in a giant (I hope not in
my gigantic progenitors) than in an insect. The
fact I think extremely dubious. No animal
seems capable of sufferings so exquisite as man,
to say nothing .of the aggravation each moment's
pain receives from the prospect of a painful suc-
cession. • Most men are . naturally brave—al.
men are, some cases, cowardly—all are timid
where they expect to be worsted. An individual,
if not .resolved to die, must always be a coward
against a multitude—a multitude, even of the
bravest nation, turn tail before a few disciplined
!soldiers. Women are generally cowards in action,
unless some commanditig uty give them strength,
because the consciousness of a feeble frame makes
victory desperate : while, in passive endurance,
they often far surpass the braggarts of war—be
cause reason informs them, that- patience is
stronger than all extremities. Many a stout martyr
might have proved a craven soldier ; for my own
part, I could look more steadfastly on the execu-
tioner's axe than the enemy's bayonet. Even
animals that are most fearful of every ()ther
species will fight desperately against their own
kind; and _the Oriental nations, who are so
quickly put to rout by European troops, perse-
vere, with mad constancy, in their domestic

combats.
The strength of will; in suffering, is secure o
victory—but action is obliged to borrow hope o
contingency ; and let a man be never so stout it
pupose, he knows not but another as stout ma]
be stronger-limbed, or better-weaponed, or more
cunning in fence, or higher in the favour of
Destiny ; and he, whom certain death could not
subdue, is ofthnes vanquished by the possibility
of defeat. Take a wide survey of mortal hu•
mours, and we shall conclude, that no man is
absolutely brave or coward—that the weakness
of nature is never so far expelled but it will reign
in some part—nor the self-assistive power of will
ever so debilitated, but it will make itself known
in some instance. It was a vain boast of the
Stoics, that pain can be indifferent. We may
glory in it—and glory is delightful—but that
very glory proves that it is not indifferent.
Hence, few are found to bear little pains easily
in tolerance whereof there is no glory.
Pains of all sorts are intolerable, when they
make us conscious of weakness. "To be weak
is miserable." Power, the power of will felt and
rnanifeAled, is the proper joy of man, as he is
man, neither exalted above, nor sunk below his
proper nature. If pain,
.peril, or the pangs of
death, bring this power into distinct conscious-
ness,—then may pain, peril,*and death, become
things of choice and-pride.
The contempt .of death among the Northern
nations, was such as to appear wonderful even to
the Greeks and Romans, who, with all their va-
lour, looked with melancholy uncertainty on
" the undiscovered 'country." Homer's bravest
heroes cling to life with almost effeminate fond-
ness. Achilles moralises 'on his brief allotted
space more pathetically than heroically. How
heavily the fear of something after death weighed
on the Gentile spirit, may be inferred from the
extravagant admiration of the Epicureans for
their founder, who had lulled them with the
horrid hOpe of annihilation. The Stoics incul-
cated an indifference to life ; but this was the
dogma• of a sect, not the spirit of a people.
Death in the field was, indeed, preferred to flight
and shame ; but to esteem it as the one, honour-
able conclusion of a warrior's glories, to look on
natural dissolution as a calamity or disg,race, is
a height of barbariC heroism " beyond all Greek
=-beyond all,Roman fame."
Death-can never be indifferent till man is
assured, which none'was ever yet, that, with hip
breath, his being passes into nothing. Whether
his hopes and fears steer by the chart and com-
pass of a formal creed, or drift along the shore-
less sea of faithless conjecture, a possible eter-
nity of bliss or bale can never be -indifferent,
The idea of extinction is not terrible, i 1 s_mp y )e-
-cause man cannot form such an- idea at all. Let
him try gs long as he will,—let 'him negative
every conceived and conceivable form of future
existence !—he is as far as ever from having ex-
hausted the infinitude of possibility. Imagina-
tion will continually produce the line of con-
sciousness through limitless darkness. Many
are the devices of fancy to relieve the soul from
the dead weight of unideal nothing. Some crave
a senseless duration in dry bones, or sepulchral