American citizen. [volume] (Canton, Miss.) 1864-1890, 1872-06-01
SMALL STOICISMS.

SMALL SToICIsMs, if of no great value
| in themselves, and showing no very ire
mendous amount of outlines if absent
! are nevertheless good and useful as adj
jupcts, buttresses, stepping stones to the
| larger virtues of endurance and courage.
Just as some of the loveliest work in
nature is made up of the incessant labors
| of microscopic insects, so some of the
| finest characters of humanity are those
| which are the most careful of the minor
| virtues, and the truest hero is he who is
most thorough in small stOicisms. In
| deed, for the most part, a person who has
no sroicism in little things is incapable of
endurance in larger ones; though there
are certain characters which have to be
| spurred to the quick before they will
| rouse themselves to eXertiOn-certain
men whose virtues are of that theatrical
kind which needs the aid of the magma
ton and the help of the public praise if
| they are to be warmed up into life and
action at ALL These are the people who,
| leading self-indulgent lives in general,
mighty occasion; who would, with
crowd looking on to applaud, do some
tremendously great deed, perform some
splendid bit of herOism, that would make
the world ring with their praises; but
who, in daily life and without the crowd,
vince if their finger aches, and find the
smallest self-sacrifice burden unendur-
able Yet as we cannot be always on
the mountain tops, or before the foot
lights either, and as the greater part of
our lives is passed in the humble little
valleys and by the quiet privacy of the
home fireside, it is really more important
that we should daily practice small stoi-
cisms rather than do that one great deed
once in our life time; making our souls
1..h II, 4
especially in minor things, on the princi-
pie of many little making mickle, and
translating into morals the monetary adj
vice about taking care of the pence, by
which means the pounds will take care of
themselves.
One of the small stoicisms necessary to
learn is to bear ordinary pain without
showing that you suffer. But some peo-
pie are so cowardly in this that they can
not bear the most unimportant little ache
without making every one about them
take their share of the discomfort. A
commonplace headache, which IN some
houses would be neither betrayed nor OBJ
served, in others is considered to be suff-
cient cause for as much sympathetic fuss
as if the thumb screws and boOtlkins were
going on, and death was stalking right up
the front stairs. Good Heavens. the an
guish of mind and body that is created in
an establishment where the master or mis-
tress is of the fretful order of Sybarltism,
and has got toothache or the
humps! Many man has under
gone amputation or any other terrific OPP
Grafton with fewer groans; and for
pain which some people would have car
ried so cheerfully that no one would have
known anything about it, with others no
epithet expressing the most excessive, the
most agonizing torture is too much to use
for its description. Those who see the
most of this kind of thing are medical
men. They leave one bedside where
patient, racked with pains that almost
touch his reason, bravely shuts his lips
over his groans and lets no cry escape
him; they go to another, where fine lady
has the faceache, where a fretful man has
a fit of dyspepsia, and they3 are greeted
with volley of signs and means and
complaints, and superlatives, which make
them smile inwardly-and more or less
than smile, when they remember the poor
fellow who bore his agony with such pa
thence, and even found "a smile for the
doctor in between whites. We'll, to bear
small pains, and large ones too for the
matter of that, without wincing, and
without even showing that you suffer, is
one of the lesser stoicisms which have to
be learnt if we would not be mere Syba-
rites. And this no man or woman of cur
strong brave Scandinavian blood should
be-
What is true of pain i3 true also of
bodily discomfort Take walking party.
Il travelling party of any kind, where the
penalty paid for the pleasure on hand is
fatigue. Some of them will go on gal
a word of complaint. They know
that it has to be done, however
tired they may be, They can
not stop all night in the middle of the
moor or ON the side of the mountain
coute que coute, they have TO go on; so
they make up their minds, square their
shoulders, and go on uncomplainingly.
Others, again, fret and fume, and lag be-
hind if they do not stop altogether, and
say they cannot do it, and they will die,
they are sure they will , and it is perfect
ly impossible for them to move Il step
farther, and they don't care what becomes
of thcm-go on they cannot and will not.
And if you say, 'Well, we are ali tired,
but we must put up with it, they assure
you in all seriousness that no one is so
tired as they are, and no one suffers SO
much. These are the people, too, who, in
a moment of perhaps real, perhaps appar
ent peril make matters worse by their
lamentations, by their distracted advice
to the stecrsman, the driver, the oarsman
-whomsocver it may be that has the lead
or is responsible for the safe conduct of
tnc party. IL women, lncN scream
clutch hold of arms that want all their
strength and freedom for work demand
for themselves and their hystcrical fears
the attention which should be given, fixed
and undivided, to the real business of the
moment. Others of the same group,
whose lives are just as precious, and who
have more wish to die than those
shrieking creatures, and who have no
more power of eNtricating themselves
from peril, if there is any peril to eXtri-
cate themselves from, yet keep silent and
look cheerful, or al the least are quiet
and passive If they cannot do any ac-
tive good, they take care not to add 20
the perpleXities of the moment by active
folly; and, as Il general rule, too, they
think that the man in whose charge they
are knows his own business best and may
he trusted. OF course sometimes there
are catastrophcs sad enough, and the
pitcher which has been scores of times 10
the same well gets broken at last; pleas
ure boats upset, and the poor holiday
makers are drowned; railway trains get
smashed, and scores of eXcursonists with
them; and even summer worked horses
take fright, and traps are overturned at