THE IMPORTANCE OF MENTAL PAIN 365 



smile, nor a finger clasp, nor a syllable could she give, in token of her 

 recognition of the life about her. For a couple of years or longer the 

 only expression possible was through her clear eyes, which always 

 seemed to be automatically trying their best to tell how truly their owner 

 responded, really if not voluntarily, to every effort to communicate with 

 or to help or sustain her imprisoned spirit. Once in a while an explo- 

 sion of meaningless laughter, so unlike the laughter of her former self, 

 would startle one with its unexpectedness as well as quality, but would 

 carry little or no meaning, as only exceptionally would there be any 

 such response to the pleasantries (which it was remembered she 

 formerly rejoiced in) as would suggest that impression and expression 

 had remained very closely associable. Indeed, it was obvious enough 

 that she had now become only a bundle of impressionable tissues, organs 

 and centers, never so keen as now, never so liable to insult, never so 

 pitiable; simply — was now practically helpless in body — yet absolutely 

 as active in mind as ever. Xot disembodied, but body-burdened, was 

 her soul to continue through all these months, to see on, hear on, taste 

 on, feel on, think on, hope or fear on, rebel or acquiesce on, love or hate 

 on — but always to be increasingly conscious of the body that was dying, 

 dying, yet ever alive to ache, to hinder, to endanger ! With Dante how 

 truly could she have said, 



I did not die and I alive remained not. 



Yet, to those who were closely about her, to the great world that but 

 little more than heard about her, even to those who were under obliga- 

 tion to interpret as truthfully as possible, it may be doubted if any one 

 ever got more than an inkling of the great mental anguish or even 

 physical distress suffered by her, until she herself as pathetically as 

 surely made it known. Assuredly, the manner and speech and life of the 

 household and neighborhood did not evince much beyond commonplace 

 understanding sympathy and effort. And as the most interested 

 may now look back upon his own thought and care of her, how paltry, 

 too, how inefficient, how bungling, compared with what it ought to have 

 been or might have been, does it all now seem ! 



And so all had waited until, in spite of everything — in spite of the 

 greatly augmented sensitiveness of impression, in spite of the locked-up 

 systems of expression, in spite of slowly entombing fate, in spite of inner 

 travail, pain and unhappiness — had waited until this most pathetic 

 sufferer conceived and perseveringly gave to the world, what probably is 

 absolutely unique in letters, and better than this, even, something which 

 may possibly be so pondered by all who have to do with human suffering 

 of any sort of the locked-in kind, that to the end of time the human 

 heart universal shall be the better for her effort. 



Imagine her then with but the slightest power of denoting her 

 wishes, and this with uncountable bunglings and failures, sitting at her 



