Misfortune

“ Misfortunes never come single; the Italians have no less than three proverbs to express the same popular conviction: Blessed is that misfortune which comes single; and again: One misfortune is the vigil of another; and again: A misfortune and a friar are seldom alone. ”

“ Unhappy victims we deplore the rigour of your lot: like us, you have been exposed to the most dreadful torments: like us abandoned upon a raft, you have had to struggle with those pressing wants which man cannot subdue, hunger and thirst carried to the extreme! Our imagination carries us to your fatal machine; we see your despair, your rage; we appreciate the whole extent of your sufferings, and your misfortunes draw forth our tears. It is then true that misfortune strikes more forcibly him who has had already to struggle with adversity! ”

“ Then, also, the tears caused by this suffering flow abundantly, and without any trouble; the soul is disposed to the most touching emotions of pity, or is full of commiseration and of love; in a word, all misfortunes are the cherished and respected sisters of our misfortune.
On the contrary, if you suffer for an unworthy cause, your heart is drowned in hatred; your concentrated grief resembles dumb fury which shame bridles with a sharp bit that vanity conceals; envy and hatred gnaw you, but your eyes are dry, and the unhappiness of others can alone draw from you a sad and mournful smile. ”

“ Why 'tis a misfortune fallen upon man from the beginning, and from which he has not yet dared to attempt his recovery: and it serves as a Spectre to fright us into a little better life (perhaps) than we should lead without it. ”

“ Even this great misfortune—a real misfortune—yes, sir—four, five, ten years hence will have, who knows, what flavour for us? Who knows what keen enjoyment, mingled with its tears! And life—God! Life—the moment we think of losing it—especially when it is only a matter of days— (At this point, a woman, dressed in black, appears around the corner on the right.) ”

“ To speak from your own description, was there ever a life, in its present period, less chequered with substantial bona fide misfortune? The whole force of every thing which looks like a misfortune was assiduously, unintermittedly, provided by yourself. ”

“ I can myself discover no better ground for the preference of misfortune, simply on its own account as such, to a happy resolution than that of a certain condition of fine sensibility, which is devoted to pain and suffering, and experiences more interest in their presence than in painless situations such as it meets with every day. ”

“ Once again I have encountered that demon of misfortune which dogs my footsteps. Being occupied all day and nearly all night upon business which brings me a heap of worries and next to no profit, I have no chance to look after my things. ”

“ The sense of violent bodily pain, or of perpetual misfortune, or of the baseness of all in whom he trusted, and other steady influx of many-fountained sorrow, may wear him for a time, and even fetch his spirit lower than the more vicarious woe can do. ”

“ But others receive misfortune as if some one had struck them with a fist on the shoulder. They lose their senses for the moment, revive later on, and when the black-and-blue spot is well, they forget it. ”

“ All men can better bear a known and definite misfortune than the cruel uncertainties of a fate which, from one moment to another, brings excessive hope or crushing sorrow. ”

“ I have ever remarked, that when Fate has any great misfortune in store, it is always preceded by a brief period of calm and sunshine—as if to add bitterness of contrast to all other misery. It is for the happy to tremble—it is over their heads that the thunderbolt is about to burst. ”

“ The remainder of my task I approach, but with reluctance, as it would fall more fully from the mouths of others than from my own. For I cannot philosophise over my misfortune, even if I greatly longed to do so, when I recollect that the loss is common to us all, and that the misfortune has befallen the whole world. ”

“ For the first time in his life he knew the bitterest sort of misfortune, misfortune beyond remedy, and caused by his own fault. ”

“ "And how did this misfortune occur?" ”

“ Misfortune is a stepping-stone for genius, the baptismal font of Christians, a treasure for the skilful man, an abyss for the feeble. ”

“ It seems to me that people always speak with exaggeration about pain and misfortune, as if it were a matter of good behaviour to exaggerate here: on the other hand people are intentionally silent in regard to the number of expedients for alleviating pain ”

“ The hope was disappointed, of course—for the reason that the size of a misfortune is not determinate by an outsider's measurement of it, but only by the measurements applied to it by the person specially affected by it. ”

“ The misfortune must be occasioned by a fault incident to human nature, and therefore venial. Misfortunes of this kind, call forth the whole force of the social affections, and{227} interest the spectator in the warmest manner. An accidental misfortune, if not extremely singular, doth not greatly move our pity. The person who suffers, being innocent, is freed from the greatest of all torments, viz. ”

“ Sudden news of misfortune, or great attacks of fear, have produced instant prostration and bodily suffering, and these cases occur so frequent that all within the range of an ordinary life are familiar with them. ”

“ Would I could foresee a term to our misery!—Who but yourself shall find a remedy for our misfortunes? Shall we delay, until time brings to light that which is now a secret, and the affront we have received entail on us a shame more intolerable than death itself? ”

“ Whatever anguish she suffered she concealed. She saw shrewdly that the world is quickly bored by the recital of misfortune, and willingly avoids the sight of distress. ”

“ What man ever blamed himself for his misfortune? ”

“ This discomfort and depression tend to crystallise round some unpleasant experience, either some painful or horrible incident, some fault which has been committed by the sufferer or some misfortune which has come into his life. ”

“ It is only the surprise and newness of the thing which makes that misfortune terrible, which, by premeditation, might be made easy to us: for that which some people make light by sufferance, others do by foresight. ”

“ but misfortune in general is the rule. ”

“ In fact, if misfortunes should seem to oppress, No longer their burden you'll sadly endure, You'll have in the midst of calamity's stress A certain specific that cannot but cure; "Away with all sorrow!" our teacher repeats, "Don't grieve at existence, but taste of its sweets!" ”

“ Their misfortunes seem to have soured them, embittered their lives and saddened their hearts, making them sullen, while others converse as though they had settled into an apathetic despair, mingled with clouds of darkness, and peopled by phantoms of pinching want. ”

“ But indeed I have met with what men usually style great misfortunes, or evils, though I never so named them. Like every mortal, I have had my share of what is called human misery. The weight of a sudden load has sometimes, for a moment, staggered me and pressed me down, as is the case with others. ”

“ Upon my return home, I fell into a profound contemplation on the evils that attend these superstitious follies of mankind; how they subject us to imaginary afflictions and additional sorrows, that do not properly come within our lot. As if the natural calamities of life were not sufficient for it, we turn the most indifferent circumstances into misfortunes, and suffer as much from trifling accidents as from real evils. ”

“ Sickness and bodily pain, trouble and anguish of mind, poverty and temporal misfortunes, loss of good name by detraction and calumny, and many other crosses of the kind are guests that come uninvited, that we must daily behold with weeping eyes, and bear with sweating hands, and grieve for with sorrowing hearts. ”

“ Alas! cast a pitying glance on my misfortunes. It is a sad spectacle for you; you will see nothing but tears, groans, and fears; in a word, all that an agitated mind can exhibit. That is the sad state to which I have been reduced for a whole year. The fury of my enemies ought to be satisfied. ”

“ CHAPTER V. THE AUTHOR FINDS HIMSELF IN TROUBLE.—SOME ACCOUNT OF HIS SERVANT, HONEST JAMES JUMBLE.
I have always described myself as of an easy, contented disposition; and such I was born. But misfortune produces sad changes in our tempers, as it was soon my lot to experience. Before, however, I describe the change that took place in mine, it is fit I should let the reader understand to what condition I was reduced by the perfidy of Jones,—or, as I should rather say, by my own culpable neglect of my affairs. ”

“ There came over him at moments a strange emotion which he resisted and to which he opposed the hardness acquired during the last twenty years of his life. This state of mind fatigued him. He perceived with dismay that the sort of frightful calm which the injustice of his misfortune had conferred upon him was giving way within him. ”

“ “Misery and misfortune is all one,
And of misfortune, Fortune hath only the gift
With strong foes on land, on sea with contrary tempests,
Still do I cross this wretch, what so he taketh in hand.” ”

“ Misfortunes one can endure - they come from outside, they are accidents. But to suffer for one’s own faults - ah! - there is the sting of life. ”

“ Could I at that moment have supposed that I should ever live to survive the misfortunes of that day, or that there would ever come a time when I should be able to look back upon those misfortunes composedly? ”

“ "Misfortune is liable to make me a damn bad man," he said slowly. ”

“ Which of us, recalling the circumstances of the most decisive misfortune of his life, but has felt himself similarly possessed? Be it well understood that I speak here only of active misfortunes, of those that might have been prevented: for there are passive misfortunes (such as the death of a person we adore) which simply come towards us, and cannot be influenced by any movement of ours. Bethink you of the fatal day of your life. Have we not all been forewarned ”

“ There are times when our sorrows tinge all the colorings of our thoughts, and one pervading hue of melancholy spreads like a pall upon what we have of fairest and brightest on earth. So was it now: I had lost hope and ambition; a sad feeling that my career was destined to misfortune and mishap gained hourly upon me; and all the bright aspirations of a soldier’s glory, all my enthusiasm for the pomp and circumstance of glorious war, fell coldly upon my heart, and I looked upon the chivalry of a soldier’s life as the empty pageant of a dream. ”

“ Others imagine, that such a transition is too violent, and recommend rather to sooth it into tranquillity, by making it acquainted with miseries more dreadful and afflictive, and diverting to the calamities of others the regards which we are inclined to fix too closely upon our own misfortunes. ”

“ Phrases like "to sit on thorns," "to be on pins and needles," "to drain the cup of misery to the dregs," show with graphic power the folly and curse of worry. Why should one sit on thorns, or on pins and needles? If one does so accidentally he arises in a hurry, yet in worrying, one seems deliberately, with intent, to sit down upon prickles in order to compel himself to discomfort, distress, and pain. Is there any wisdom, when one has the cup of misery at his lips, in deliberately keeping it there, and persistently drinking it to the "very dregs"? ”

“ Nothing, perhaps, has impressed me so deeply as the clear view I have of almost all, if not quite the whole, of the suffering I have witnessed being the consequence of vice or ignorance. But when my heart has sickened at the sight, and at the thought of so much gratuitous pain, it has grown strong again in the reflection that, if unnecessary, this misery is temporary,—that the true ground of mourning would be if the pain were not from causes which are remediable. ”

“ Despair upon despair, misery upon misery, fear after fear, each causing their distinct and separate woe, packed in upon me for an unrecorded length of time, until at last they blurred together, and I heard a click in my brain like the click in the ear when one descends in a diving bell, and I knew that the pressures were equalised within and without, and that, for the moment, the worst was at an end. ”