The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1894-08-17

much larger number of persons who
are born into the world without any
elasticity of nerve nowadays than
there Were in less exciting times
In spite of the great extension of the
average age of life, there is falling
OFF, we believe, in that eager wish for
experience, that instinct for living,
even under heavy load of difficulties.
which there used TO be in the old times
before all the exhausting interests of
the present day. Where children in
the old days ran away from unhappy
homes, they often commit suicide now.
Bereavement, instead OF being regard
ed as new burden to be borne, and to
be borne patiently, however overpow-
ering it may seem. is regarded as
calamity TO be evaded, and TO be
evaded even at the voluntary sacrifice
of a great deal of real happiness
Where the eagerness for new expert
ence, for new gain, used to FREEDOM
mate greatly over any dread OF new
pain. new loss-the Imagination OF
modern man and woman is far more
influenced than !. was by fear and far
less influenced by hope. And
no doubt the great apparent loss
OF religious faith is partly due
to this attenuation of the general
buoyancy of the whole nature. 1t
seems strange that greater tenacity
of the vital powers should be observed
side by side with diminished tenacity
of the vital impulses. Perhaps, how
ever, the causes which tend to make
life safer than il was also tend TO make
1t less eager, less sanguine, less elastic
than it was. Where rashnesS used to
kill men caution now preserves men;
but then the very spring which made
them rash also made them reluctant TO
give uE the struggle, which they now
resign almost as if they only wanted an
excuse for resigning it. Fortitude, in
which we are becoming so deficient, is
promoted not only by high principles,
but also by high elasticity of nature.
Under the martyrdoms of old times
modern men would not only shrink
but collapse long before our ancestors
would have collapsed under them. The
oversensitiveness of modern feeling is
or deficiency in vital resources, as well
as to finer powers of discrimina-
ton. While we are strengthened
for the work of threading all
kinds of social labyrinths we lose
that healthy power of holding
our tongues and confronting natural
griefs in grim silence, which the savage
nv ha1f n Inn nd.
antly display. 1t seems as though i'm
patience of the great elementary griefs
and pains which are the common lot of
all had grown upon us along with that
ingenuity in devising remedies for
smaller evils which civilization have
brought us. Inoeed, we believe that
our greatly multiplied powers of evad-
ing small annoyances has seriously re-
duced our patience and fortitude in
confronting greater evils. Since science
became religion we have lost that re-
hgious disposition to bear humbly
what God infiicts, which used to belong
to us and still belongs to so many I'M
civilized races. We do not bow before
the blast, but are irritated at our own
helplessness, and all the more that
science has taught us to help ourselves
in SO many other directions Indeed,
we are often more disposed to give up
the struggle altogether than to accept
in meekness misfortunes which we can
not either alleviate or cure. Suicide is
a result of weakness, and we believe
that this weakness is greatly due to the
habit which has gained upon us of
resenting our own inability to cure
every evil when we have got accus-
toned to cure so much.