A DECENT INVALID GENTLEMAN

Evening Star, Issue 19298, 10 July 1926, Page 2

A DECENT INVALID GENTLEMAN

We know what a gentleman is, probably, and what an invalid is; but

what is a “decent invalid gentleman”? Wo came upon the phrase in one of Stevenson’s letters to bis friend, W. H. Low. Ho tells Low of his passion to live to do things, not dream them, and how all this had been denied him. Still, he did not want to whine or whimper. The thought of his friends and what they had done lor him made that impossible; and, although life must bo a comparatively feeble thing, yet he was determined to live, not as ho did when young and in the wild Ireshncss of morning, but to the “ rest of my days a docent invalid gentleman. That’s not a very wild ambition, is it? But it’s a far cry from being bedridden. I’m willing to take care ol myself; hut to keep to my feet, to move about, to mix with other men. to ride a little, to swim a little, to be wary of the enemy, to get the bettor of him—that’s what I call being a decent invalid gentleman, and that. God. willing, I moan to be.” And so -there we get the phrase and what it moans—or, at least, what Stevenson means by it. And it is a good resolve, and null repay consideration. -Jr '''* • A decent invalid gentleman! Life for the most part is made ut> of invalids. Henry Ward Beecher said, on being urged to take care of his health, that”“ho had already more than ho knew what to do with.” There is a very considerable number like that. They have abounding vitality. Most young people belong to this category for a time. But few reach mid-life, and hardly any old age, without being conscious of enfeebled powers. They axe not exactly ill, but they never feel* quite well. They have to take care. We are told there is no such thing ax perfect health. Even with the most robust the germs of disease are secretly at work tunnelling their insidious way into the citadel of life. There are multitudes, again, living under sentence ot death. ’they are mortally wounded, and know it. In the Life of Thomas Davidson ’ lie tells in one of his letters how this consciousness wakened within him: “We must all die; wo know that pretty well. But the feeling 1 used to have about it, and which, 1 suppose, most people have, was that over the hills and far away and deep down in a certain ‘dowie liowme ’ sate the Lean One playing with his dart; and that by the time I reached him I should be -so wearied and so jaded going no hill and down dale that I should take the coup dc grace at his hands not ungratefully. Bub all of a sudden, or comparatively of a sudden, this idea changed itself into the feeling that he was rising up and coming over the hills swiftly to moot mo, and that on top of tho very next one or so I should infallibly have my weasand slit and tho life let, out of me.” Thoro is a smaller but not inconsiderable multitude of people in that condition. They have been stricken with a mortal disease. They feel they may ward it off for a time. But the omens of victory arc over the camp of tho enemy, and their doom is irrevocable. * * * ■ v - Well, what then ? Then comes the opportunity which came to Stevenson to play the decent invalid gentleman, to do what he tells ns ho resolved to do, and did do. “ I’m willing,” ho says, “ to taJ;e care of myself, but not to give in, to ho on ray guard against tho approach of my enemy, hut net to let that unman me, or embitter, me, or make mo shun society, or lose interest in life.” That is what he calls being a “decent invalid gentleman.” Tho world would be a much happier place and the literature of melancholy and pessimism mightily reduced in bulk if all invalids were to make Stevenson’s resolve theirs. And why should they not? There are, of course, those who are physically incapacitated. They are unable to swim, or ride, or perhaps even walk. But they may live a decent invalid mental life. They need not, as so many in these circumstances do, blow out the (■audio to .see how dark it is. Tims, c.g., Davidson, to whom wo have referred, says when he became conscious that tho “Lean One” was drawing near to him: “1 therefore procured myself a grammar am! dictionary, and sat down to learn tho German language, and when the first snowdrop appeared I rose up and made a sonnet to it, to the effect that 1 was very glad to he still aboveground along with it.” And in his very last letter, written within a few days of his death, lie tolls how his limbs have so stiffened that ho can’t walk very far, but he made a paction with his Father, who was seventy, to let him lake his arm, and thus, as he was a good walker, “ 1 have to compass greater distances with him than I can possibly manage when left to my own devices and those of my hazel stick.” We recall Carlyle’s grim battle with ill-health. He is not a shining illustration of sweetness and good cheer. But ho is a striking example of what can bo accomplished even under the crippling conditions of chronic dyspepsia. Then there was his guide, philosopher, and friend—Kant. The latter, speaking of his incurable illness, says: “I have become master of its influence in my thoughts and actions by turning my attention away from this feeling altogether, just as if it did not concern- me.” In Westminster Abbey there is the grave of Wilberforcc, the liberator of Britain from tlw crime of being a slave owner—- “ the attorney-general of the unprotected and the friendless.” But few know that “ for twenty years lie was compelled to uso opium to keep him,sell alive, and had the resolution never to increase the dose.l” William the Silent somebody describes ax “a skeleton with a cough,” hut we know the great work he did in spile of his deprivation. We know, too, the gallant fight Stovonsnn made for life. “ I have written in bed and out of bed, written in hemorrhage, written in coughing, written when my head swam. . . . The powers have

willed that my battlefield should ho this dingy, inglorious one of the hod and the physic bottle.” But it is less generally known that the man to whom ho thus wrote—George Mcredith--was himself in somewhat similar case. For the last sixteen years of his life he was a chronic invalid, sometimes subjected to excruciating pain. Among the last words he ever wrote were: "My religion of life is always to be cheerful.” One of the chief rewards of reading biography, it lias been said, is the introduction it gives yon to handicapped men and women, and what they have achieved in despite of their limitations,

who, in the apt words of Thucydides, “dared beyond their strength, hajv hazarded against their judgment, and in extremities were of excellent hope. ’ And that brings os to our next point. » # * * It is easy to tell people that they should bo decent invalid men and women, but the difficulty is: How is it to bo accomplished? Well, to begin with, wo must exercise our will power. That is a gospel preached to us in these clays. None of us have ever fathomed the latent powers asleep within us. "We are perpetually astonished at the discoveries wo make, accomplishing tasks that we deemed impossible. The history of other men and women, as wo have seen, supplies ns with so many illustrations of a victorious will that wo begin to wonder at tho judgment that ra Jy fall on us, not for what wo have dmm, but for what we might have done only for our slack, infirm- wills. But the will needs motives to sot ifc to work. Well. one of these motives lies in what we have just written. But there are others. For instance, action is the host tonic for health. Everybody knows about Bacon’s h.ov}im Oiganuin.’ But in Ids forgotten book, a ‘ History of Life and Death,’ he says exercise, cheerfulness, and a wellordered diet-“ these bear tho greatest part in the prolongation of life. And ho was doubtless drawing on his own experience, for his life was a constant battle against ill-health. Another motive mav he wrapped round tho will to brace it to duty. Dr Johnson says: “Every man is a rascal when ho is sick.” Wo are not quite sure what the great oracle meant. But it is not difficult to see how the invalid may easily become a tax and a boro to others. Those who make themselves the centre of attraction as invalids become at last tiresome, and finally are shunned by all except those whose dntv it is to attend to them. AAo are all "familiar with people whose clue pleasure is self-pity. Dickens to Is of a woman who, if you had asked her how she was, would probably have replied that “she thought there was a pain somewhere in tho room, but she was not quite suro if she had got it. The case book of every doctor can furnish abundant examples of tins typo. What thov need to restore them to health is to put forth their will power, and. if that seems to them to be weak, to brace it up by the motive of how laimhahle they arc making themselves hv 'self-pity, and in the end how isolated, for nobody likes the company of such * * * * *

Wg have space to mention only one other motive that may help to stiffen the will. And that is the thought ol how ill-health has often developed the l>est elements of character. It has brought to many of its possessors gilts ami graces that they would never otherwise have achieved. “ Claudius Clear,” from whom wo have borrowed some of our illustrations, in one of his essays, discusses the question that the best letters are written by these mortally wounded, and lie gives a long list of shining names who have illumined literature by their letters—letters written amidst weaknesses of every kind. It is possible to argue that they might all have done greater and better work had they enjoyed robust health. But also they might not. And history goes to show that human lilo gives forth its finest fragrance when, like the rose, it is crushed. ‘We may put in evidence a name not mentioned by “ Claudius Clear” which will fitly end what wo have been urging. Everybody knows that Mrs Browning was an invalid most of her life. Her heart was broken, as she put it, by “a great stone out of Heaven.” But this is how it affected her. She writes to her future husband: “ When grief came upon grief I never was tempted to ask JJuw have 1 deserved this of Clod?’ .1 always felt there must bo cause enough . . . corruption needing purification . . . weakness enough needing streugthen-

ing. . . . Bub in this difficult hour, when joy follows joy, and God makes me happy, as you say, through you, I cannot repress the thought ‘How hare I deserved this of Him?’ I know I have not. Could it be that heart and life wore divosted. to make room tor you? ]f so, it was well done, dearest! They leave the ground fallow for the wheat.” So invalidism may bo a way whereby wo attain the host gifts of life.