The news & observer. [volume] (Raleigh, N.C.) 1894-current, 1900-10-07

to the aid of abstract science the con-
firmations of personal experienced"
"Bitte?'
1t was too large a contract for the
Stubenmad .len's vocabulary; she couldn t
call the hand. ] allowed the subject to
rest there. and asked for something to
eat and smoke, and something hot to
drink, and basket to pile my legs in,
and another capable person to come and
help me curse time away; but l could
could not have any of these things.
"Whv?"
"She said you would need nothing at
all"
but I am hungry, and thirsty, and in
desperate pain"
''She said YOU would have these de-
lusions, but must pay no attention to
them. She wants you to particularly re-
member that there are no such things as
hunger and thirst and pain"
''She does. does she?''
1T is what she said"
Does she seem to be in full and
functional possession of her intellectual
plant, such as it is ?"
'.Do they let her run at large, or do
they tie her uD?"
"Tie her up"
There, good might run along: you are
a good girl but your mental Geschirr is
not arranged for light and airy conversa-
tion. Leave me to my delusions."
-.
1t was a night of anguish, of course-at
least, l supposed it was. for it had all
the symptoms of it-but it passed at last,
and the Christian Scientist came. and l
Nd
large and bony. and erect, and had an
austere face and a resolute jaw and a
Roman beak and was widow in the third
degree, and her name was Fuller. | was
eager to go to business and find relief, but
she was distressingly deliberate. She un-
pinned and unlocked and uncoupled her
upholsteries one by one, abolished the
wrinkles with firt of her hand and
hung the articles up, peeled off her gloves
and disposed of them, got a book out Of
her handbag. then drew a chair to the
bedside, descended into it withos. hurry.
and l hung out my tongue She said.
with pity but without passion:
Return it to its receptacle. We deal
with the mind only. not with it's dumb
servants"
l could not offer my pulse, because the
connection was broken: but she detected
the apology before | could word it. and
indicated by a negative tilt of her head
that the pulse was another dumb servant
that she had no use for Then l thought
| would tell her my symptoms and how |
felt so that she would understand the
case; but that was another inconsequence,
she did not need to know these things
moreover. my remark about how | felt
was an abuse of language, a misapplica-
tion of terms
"One does not feel" she explained
there is no such thing as feeling: there
fore, to speak of non n-existent thing as
existent is contradiction. Matter has
no existence; nothing exists but mind; the
mind cannot feel pain; it can only mag
inc it,
'But if it hurts, just the same"-
'It doesn't. A thing which is unreal
cannot exercise the functions of reality.
Pain is unreal; hence, pain cannot hurt .
| In making a sweeping gesture to indi-
cate the act of shooing the illusion of pain
out of her mind, she raked her hand on a
pin in her dress said "Ouch" and went
TRANQUILITY on with her talk. ''You should
never allow yourself to speak of how you
/ feel nor permit others to ask you how
| you are feeling; you should never concede
| that you are i'll, nor permit others to talk
about disease or pain or death or similar
non -existences in your presence. Such
/ talk only encourages the mind to continue
its empty imaginings." Just at that point
the Stubenmadchen trod on the cats tail
and the cat let fly a frenzy of cat-pro-
family l asked. with caution:
"Is a cats opinion about pain valu-
| able?"
"A cat has no opinion: opinions pro-
ceed from mind only; the lower animals
being eternally perishable, have not been
granted mind; without mind, opinion is
imcossible."
"She merely imagined she felt pain
/ the cat?'
'She cannot imagine a pain, for imag
ination is an effect of mind; without mind
there is no imagination. A cat has NJ
| imagination
| Then she had real Dain?"
81 have already told you there is nc
such thing as real pain"
1T is strange and interesting. l dc
wonder what was the matter with the
| cat Because. there being no such thing
as a real pain. and she not being able
| to imagine an imaginary one, it would
| seem that God in his pity has COMPENSATED
the cat with some kind of a mysterious