Sore Spots And Sensitive Spots

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Title:     Sore Spots And Sensitive Spots
Author: Timothy Titcomb [More Titles by Titcomb]

"Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased;
Pluck from the memory a rooted sorrow;
Raze out the written troubles of the brain?"
SHAKSPEARE.

"I have gnashed
My teeth in darkness till returning morn,
Then cursed myself till sunset; I have prayed
For madness as a blessing; 'tis denied me."
BYRON.

_Alessandra_. Methinks thou hast a singular way of showing
Thy happiness--what ails thee, cousin of mine?
Why didst thou sigh so deeply?
"_Castiglione_. Did I sigh?
I was not conscious of it. It is a fashion,
A silly--a most silly fashion I have
When I am _very_ happy. Did I sigh?"
POE.

There is a hill opposite to my window, up which, during all the long and weary day, horses are drawing heavy loads. The majority of them crawl patiently along, with their heads down and with reeking flanks and shoulders, pausing occasionally as the water-bars brace the wheels, and impatient only with the flies that vex their ears, and the insufficiency of their short and stumpy tails to protect their quivering sides. Some of these animals are not so patient, but are nervous and spasmodic and unhappy. I have noticed one among them particularly, that has a very bad time every morning with his first load. He is what the teamsters call "balky," though evidently an excellent horse. Much coaxing and not a little whipping seem necessary to get him started; and then he plunges into his work as if he were determined to tear his harness and his load all in pieces. I notice that there are certain unusual fixtures about his collar, and learn that the poor animal has a galled shoulder, so raw and inflamed that all his first efforts in the morning are attended by pain, and that he only works well after the flesh has become benumbed by pressure. I ask his driver why he does not turn the creature into the pasture, and let the ulcer heal, and am told that he has been treated thus repeatedly, but that it always returns when labor is resumed. There is a livery stable that I visit frequently; and while I wait to be served I notice what the grooms are doing. I see that when the currycomb or brush touches a certain spot upon the horse's skin there is a cringe, and usually a kick and a squeal,-- possibly a harmless nip at the groom's shoulder. I learn, too, that there is a certain place upon the back of every horse that the grooms are not permitted to bathe with cold water.

These sore spots and tender spots and sensitive spots on horses have very faithful counterparts in the minds and characters of men. I do not know that I ever met a man who had not on him, somewhere, a sore spot, or a tender spot, or a sensitive spot--a spot that would either gall under the collar of labor, or bring on hysterics if harshly rubbed, or communicate a damaging shock to the nervous system when suddenly cooled. Very few men arrive at thirty-five years of age without getting galled, and very few entirely recover from the abrasion while they live. The spot never thoroughly heals, and the old collar only needs to be put on, even after the longest period of rest, to develop the ulcer in the same old place. I heard a young clergyman preach recently, and I instantly learned that he had a sore spot under his collar. He was a young man of fine powers, bold intellect, a strong love of freedom, and a will determined to do honor to his convictions. He had formed his own opinion upon certain points of doctrine, and had insisted upon it in the presence of his elders. The consequence was that he had been bitterly opposed, and was with great difficulty settled over his parish. The screws had been put tightly down upon him, and he had felt, in the very depths of his sensitive soul, that the liberty wherewith Christ had made him free had been tampered with. So he could neither pray nor preach without showing that he had a sore spot on him. He did not betray it by refusing to draw at all; but he drew violently, as if he had been hitched to the leg of an obtuse Doctor of Divinity, and intended to give all the other Doctors of Divinity notice to get out of the way. Now that sore spot on that young man's shoulder is sure to color all his efforts from this time henceforth, until he puts on another kind of collar. The same old sting will be in all his preaching--a tinge of personal feeling--that the masses of those who hear him preach will not understand, and that he, at last, will become unconscious of. Ministers have more sore places under their harnesses than any class of men I know of.

A minister who has adopted unpopular views, and, in his advocacy of them, has rubbed against the fixed opinions or prejudices of the people to which he is called to preach, is very sure to get sore; and he will either wince with the friction or oppose himself to it with violence. His soreness will always be calling attention to that which caused it, so that if his wound was procured in the advocacy of some infernal doctrine like "infant damnation," why, infant damnation will seem to become a very precious doctrine to him, and he will always be talking about it, and enforcing it. If he has preached against slavery, or intemperance, or any other public wrong or popular vice, and been fiercely and persistently opposed by any portion of his charge, he will betray the sore under his collar on all occasions, and very possibly become so fractious and violent that his flock will be obliged to turn him out to pasture. A minister who gets sore under the friction of any particular collar seems to feel that it is necessary for him to wear that particular collar all the time; and he fails to remember that the reason why he has so much feeling with this collar on, is that it has made him sore. Not unfrequently he becomes so sensitive and so nervous that he kicks out of the traces, and runs away with, and smashes up, the vehicle to which he is attached.

No small degree of the sourness and bitterness and violence of the advocates of special reforms comes from wearing too long the collar of the public apathy, or the public contempt. The men are very few, who, with the consciousness of being actuated by a good motive, can work against opposition a long time, without getting sore, and without betraying their soreness, either by stubbornness or violence. Touch them anywhere but upon the galled spot, and they will be as calm as clocks, and as good-natured as kittens; touch them there, and we are sure to get a kick and a squeal, and a nip at the shoulder. Heartless practical jokers understand where "the raw" is, and know exactly what to say to provoke a galled man to make a fool of himself.

The conscience is very liable to become sore with friction. One entire section of the American nation became sore, even to madness, with working in the collar of the world's condemnation. The slave States of America were very comfortable with slavery so long as they could hold it with self-respect, and so long as the world regarded them rather with sympathy and pity than with condemnation. As the popular opinion against slavery strengthened and became intensified, both in this and other countries, they became sore and sensitive. First, they tucked a constitutional rag between the collar and the skin; and as that did not seem to relieve them, they lined it with leaves from human philosophy; and philosophy soon wearing out, they tore their Bibles into pieces for materials with which to soften the cushion, and set the Christian church to making padding. Every thing failing to produce the desired result, and relieve them of their pain, they refused to draw their portion of the national load, kicked the Union in pieces, and ran away. They will never be happy again until slavery is abolished, or the attitude of the nation and of the world towards slavery is changed. This sore under the collar will never heal, either in or out of the Union, until the cause shall in some way be removed.

It is the same with individuals as with peoples. A man cannot long wear a collar that presses upon his conscience, without getting through the skin--down upon the raw. When a man who sells liquor to his neighbors for drink, voluntarily apologizes to me for it, or justifies himself in it, I know very well that his conscience has a raw place upon it, and that it gives him trouble. When a woman takes particular pains to tell me that she is exceedingly economical, and that she really has had nothing for a year, I cannot but conclude that she has been making some expenditure, or some series of expenditures, that she knows she cannot afford, and that there is a raw place upon her conscience in consequence. In truth, I have never known a woman who wished to impress me with a sense of her rigid economy, who was not more anxious to convince herself of it than me. When a man undertakes to soften the character of any crime by apologies, and by arguments, it is invariably for the purpose of relieving its pressure upon a galled conscience, or shaping it to a different place. I am afraid the men are few who have escaped a galled spot upon their consciences.

Pride has had a terrible time of it in the world. It is, perhaps, the most sensitive spot in human nature. Collars, curry-combs, and cold water have alike served to torment it. A great multitude of men and women have been obliged to work in the collar of poverty, against a galled pride, during all their life. They never start in the morning without flinching, and never work without violence, until their pride has become entirely benumbed by pressure. Ah! if society could be unveiled, how few would be found with pride free from scars and raw places! I once heard a simple boy tell a young man that his legs were crooked; and though the lad was very innocent, and only supposed that he had made and announced a pleasant discovery, he had, alas! hit the man's pride on the very centre of its soreness and sensitiveness. One never knows, in large things, where he will hit the sensitive places in the pride of those he meets; but in little things he is pretty sure to learn it concerning everybody. It is always safe to suppose that a very small man is sore on the subject of bodily dimensions. It will never do for a tall man to propose to measure altitude with him in the presence of women. It is never safe to inquire the age of any lady whom one knows to be more than twenty-five years old. There is not one man or woman in a hundred who possesses an unpleasant personal peculiarity, without getting a galled spot upon personal pride in consequence. A long nose, a squint eye, a clumsy foot, a low forehead, a hump in the back--any one of these will not bear mention in the presence of its possessor.

It is quite amusing to witness the various methods resorted to for cheating the world with regard to these sore places in personal pride. Men who are conscious that they do not possess a particle of musical taste, and are really ignorant of the difference between Dundee and Yankee Doodle, will profess to be "very fond of music," and will not unfrequently convince themselves that they are so. Men who are exceedingly sensitive touching any eccentricities of person, will be constantly joking about their own long noses, or red hair, or big feet, and run on about them in the pleasantest sort of way, and persist in doing it on all occasions, as if the matter were exceedingly amusing to them, when the fact is that their pride is very sore in that particular spot. A woman who has passed her hour of bloom, and feels with sensitive pain the creeping on of ancient maidenhood, will talk charmingly, and with superfluous iteration, about the usefulness of old maids, and the independence of their lot--determined to cover up the galled spot that burns upon the surface of her personal pride. The trick of keeping up the appearances of wealth, after wealth is departed, is a familiar one; and though if rarely deceives, it is likely to be persisted in to the end of time. It is often very pitiful to witness the ingenuity of the efforts that are made to cover from public observation the soreness of personal pride, caused by a change of circumstances. The Hepsibah Pynchons abound in houses of less than seven gables.

There is probably no harness so apt to gall the shoulder of personal pride as that of ambition. The number of men in the world whose personal pride has a sore on it, inflicted by disappointed ambition, is sadly large. I have seen many a worthy man utterly spoiled by his failure to reach the political, social, or literary eminence at which he has aimed. Thenceforward, his hand has been against every man, and he has imagined that every man's hand has been against him. All who contributed to his defeat, and all in any way associated with them, have become the subjects of his hatred and his animadversion. He has retired into himself, sneering at every thing and everybody, doubtful of the sincerity of all friendly professions, and regarding himself as "a passenger," while the poor fools among whom he once so gladly numbered himself, chase the baubles by which his life has been so miserably cheated of its meed. It is very hard for a proud man, with a strong will, to feel that he has been baffled and beaten; and a really noble man, defeated in his objects by trickery and meanness, will sometimes become half insane with the wound which his pride has received. He will never forget it; and the old sore can never be touched, even in the most accidental way, without calling the fire into his eye, and the color into his cheek. In the domain of politics, "sore heads" notoriously abound, and I suppose they always will.

Literary life is probably as prolific of failures, and as full of "sore heads" as political. The number of men and women who are ambitious of literary distinction, and who make great efforts to win it, is very large--larger than the world outside of the publisher's private office dreams of. The number of manuscripts rejected and never published is greater than the number published; and of those which are published, not one in ten satisfies, in its success, the ambition of its author. I suppose that it is within the bounds of truth to say that nine authors in every ten are disappointed men--men whose personal pride is wounded, who believe that the world has treated them unjustly, and who cherish a sore spot on their personal pride as long as they live. Some of these refuse to draw in any harness, and give themselves up to poverty and laziness, as the victims of the world's undiscriminating stupidity. Some become critics of the works of successful authors, and take their revenge in the hearty abuse of their betters. Others enter into other departments of effort, but carry with them through life the belief that they are out of their place, and the conviction that if they had been born in a nobler age they would have been recognized as the geniuses they imagine themselves to be.

There is still another class which get sore with drawing in a harness that God puts upon them, and in the adoption of which they have had nothing to do. A man of poetic sensibilities finds himself engaged in the pursuit of some humdrum calling. He sees how beautiful poetry is; he feels its influence upon his soul; but he has no power to create it. Another feels something of the divinity of music, but muscular facility has been denied to him so that he cannot play, and his voice is harsh or feeble so that he cannot sing. He melts and glows under the sway of eloquence, and worships at a distance the power of the orator over the hearts and minds of men; but he knows that if he were in the orator's place, he would break down and become the object even of his own contempt. Great susceptibilities these people have--passive spirits--open to all good impressions, appreciative of that which is best in nature and art, yet without the power to act. They must always be plates to receive the picture, and never suns and cameras to imprint it. They must always live within sight of great and beautiful powers, but never have the privilege of wielding them. Doomed to the attitude of receptivity, they see that they can never change it; and that they can never be to others what others are to them. Thus they grow sore with the thought of their weakness, and a sense of the circumscription of their faculties. They see wonderful things--they apprehend the grace and the glory of great actions--but they can achieve nothing. Many of these walk as in a dream through life--with a sense of wings upon their shoulders, clipped or lashed down. They see their companions rising, but they cling to the earth, and feel the difference as a humiliation. Alas! how many souls chafe against the consciousness of inferior powers, till even the fine susceptibilities with which nature endowed them are destroyed!

There would seem to be no end of the causes which produce sore and tender and sensitive spots upon the human soul. I have said nothing of grief and love and pity and anger, and a whole brood of powerful passions, but they are all operative toward the results which we are discussing. The cure for these sensitive sores is obvious enough. I would prescribe for a man as I would for a horse--go out to pasture, or adopt another kind of collar, and never wear the old one again. If a man has become sore by working against the apathy, the misconceptions, the misconstructions, and the prejudices of the world, so that he feels the galling burden of the collar in all his actions, let him change his style of labor until the ulcer heal. If the conscience becomes sore, relieve it of that which made it sore, and never believe that padding can effect a cure. Even wounded pride will heal if we let it alone, and refrain from opening the wound on all occasions, and rubbing it against the causes which inflicted it. All the natural peculiarities of our constitution which wound our pride may be happily got along with by ignoring them. If my neighbor is a lovable man, I do not love him any the less because he wears a long nose, and I should never think of it if he were not always joking about it, and trying to convince me that it did not offend him. A man who quarrels with his own constitution, and questions the benevolence that adjusted it to its conditions, quarrels with, and questions, his Maker. I believe there are no sorenesses of the sort we are considering which time or change will not heal.

It seems to me a very melancholy thing for a man to carry a mental ulcer with him through life--to feel its prick and pang in every effort--to be conscious of its presence every hour--to be engaged in covering it from sight, or in the attempt to deceive the world with regard to it. Life is altogether too good a thing to be spoiled by a little sore, or a large one, when there exists an obvious mode of cure. It is our immense and intense self-consciousness that stands in our way always in this matter. The truth is that the world does not think half so much about us as we imagine it does. A man may walk through the city of New York with a face "as homely as a hedge-fence," thinking about it all the time, and wondering what people think of it, and not a man of all the throng will even see it. It is so in the world at large. Our personal peculiarities, our personal failures, our personal weaknesses, our personal affairs generally possess very little interest for others. They have enough to do in taking care of themselves, and have weaknesses, and failures, and peculiarities enough of their own; and if the world should spurn our well-meant efforts in its behalf, why, let it go. It mends nothing to get sore and sensitive over it. When a man truly learns how little important he is in the world, he is generally beyond the danger of becoming galled by his harness, whatever it may be.

[The end]
Timothy Titcomb's essay: Sore Spots And Sensitive Spots

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