Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1889-11-24

! common mortal like the rest, and the
| pampered vanity would not bear the fall
| Perhaps, too, her irate husband was a
little rough, her mother little hard and
her friends too openly contemptuous. Be
that as it may, she pined and died. and
the sorry play she had acted for the last
few years with such success translated
itself into a tragic reality that left this
histrionic pretense far behind.
The pride of an invalid by profession is.
first, in the magnitude of her pains, the
serious nature of her maladies, the danger
Gus condition of things in general, and the
helpless nature of her disease, whatever it
may be; secondly, in the heroic doses
to which she has accustomed herself
doses big enough to give an elephant his
quietus Calomel is to her what salt is to
others; prussic acid is a pleasant favoring:
strychnine is her familiar friend; cocaine
is her refuge against the evil of a finger
ache. For small inconvenience, which
those who are not invalids by profession
bear without remarks, she flies to one or
other of these tremendous remedies. And
she tells you with smile of the number
of grains she has Just now lodged within
her frail body. Half that number would
have made you yourself shut your eyes to
the things of this world once and forever.
The worst of this habit of taking a remedy
for every little ailment is the most cow
ardly inability to bear, not only pain, but
mere scomfort-discomfor which would
wear itself out in few hours, and
leave the system not little the worse.
1t Is dram drinking turned the other
way; and this incessant recourse to drugs
for every small and insignificant disturb
ance weakens the moral fiber just as any
other form of egotism weakens it. The
law of suffering which applies to all SEN
tient life, the invalid by profession re-
solves shall not apply to her. Her arm
has not so much as pins head free from
phia. On a sea like a mill-pond, where
the worst sailor alive could not be i'll with
trying, she takes formidable composing
draught, unwilling to trust to the quietness
of the elements and the safeguard of repose.
If she breads sleepless night, she flies to
her chloral bottle; if she has a passing
twinge of rheumatism, neuralgia and what
not, she pricks herself with morphia. She
will not submit to the law of life as we
others are obliged to submit, but makes an
easy pathway for herself where the briars
are swept aside and the thorns do not
scratch. But she makes a pathway along
which Nemesis speeds, soon to come up
with her. Neglecting the one grand
law of endeavor, of struggle, she yields
herself to the enemy. Her selfshness
and indulgence bear fruit in her weak
ened will, her incapacity for enduring,
her ruined courage, her impotent affec-
tions. Self is her idol, and that idol is
of all the most destructive. Those who,
by ties of blood and force of instinct, love
her now and bear with her, die, and
their place is not supplied by others.
Friendship cannot surround one whose
idea of friendship is to receive all and
give back nothing. Her selfshness alien
ates healthy-minded people who have no
love for falsehood and no sympathy with
pretense. Servants alone can be found
to bear the burden they are paid to bear,
indemnifying themselves after their own
fashion when in close conclave together.
For herself she has lived, and she has at
last only herself to love her. Even her
children shrink from her and look at her
curiously, their unspoiIed instincts teach
ing them the truth. But exhortation fails
with her; ior how can she see the light
when those windows of her soul are dark
ened? As we plant so must we gather.
From the thorn Of the desert can we
pluck the sweet and ruddy grape for the
wine which maketh glad the heart of
man? Nor from selfshness can We gar
ner love, esteem or friendship.