"What does he know," said a sage, "who has not suffered?"
When Dumas asked Reboul, "What made you a poet?" his answer was,
"Suffering!" It was the death, first of his wife, and then of
his child, that drove him into solitude for the indulgence of
his grief, and eventually led him to seek and find relief in
verse. (14) It was also to a domestic affliction that we owe
the beautiful writings of Mrs. Gaskell. "It was as a recreation,
in the highest sense of the word," says a recent writer, speaking
from personal knowledge, "as an escape from the great void of a
life from which a cherished presence had been taken, that she
began that series of exquisite creations which has served to
multiply the number of our acquaintances, and to enlarge even
the circle of our friendships." (15)
Much of the best and most useful work done by men and women has
been done amidst affliction--sometimes as a relief from it,
sometimes from a sense of duty overpowering personal sorrow. "If
I had not been so great an invalid," said Dr. Darwin to a friend,
"I should not have done nearly so much work as I have been able to
accomplish." So Dr. Donne, speaking of his illnesses, once said:
"This advantage you and my other friends have by my frequent
fevers is, that I am so much the oftener at the gates of Heaven;
and by the solitude and close imprisonment they reduce me to, I am
so much the oftener at my prayers, in which you and my other dear
friends are not forgotten.
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