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Since even fleeting thoughts are germs of acts, it takes no great effort or self-torture if we will but understand the processes and smoke out the undesirable germs, and allow and encourage the growth of the preferred groups of thoughts. This may be called a lazy man's way of doing things, but it is the way to conserve the mental and physical energy, and it gets results.
Their want of wonder will not help them toward the required explanation: and to them, as to us, as soon as we begin asking, "HOW?" and "WHY?" the mighty Mother will only reply with that magnificent smile of hers, most genial, but most silent, which she has worn since the foundation of all worlds; that silent smile which has tempted many a man to suspect her of irony, even of deceit and hatred of the human race; the silent smile which Solomon felt, and answered in "Ecclesiastes;" which Goethe felt, and did not answer in his "Faust;" which Pascal felt, and tried to answer in his "Thoughts," and fled from into self-torture and superstition, terrified beyond his powers of endurance, as he found out the true meaning of St.
No name but Camille, that was true; no nationality, for she could never tell from whom or whence she came; no friends, and a beauty that not even an ungainly bonnet and shaven head could hide. In a flash she realised the deception of the life she would lead, and the cruel self-torture of wonder at her own identity.
When the cheese was so rotten with them that only the twigs and string kept it from tumbling to pieces and walking off quadrivious, it came to table. By a malicious caprice of fate, cage and menagerie were put down right under the Dutchman's organ of self-torture. He recoiled with a loud ejaculation, and hung to the bench by the calves of his legs.
"Yes, they were married and and divorced before she became celebrated and took the name of Olympia." Caroline said all this with a feeling of self-torture that took all the color from her face. The love of Lord Hilton seemed an impossibility to her, and she gave him the hard truth, under which her heart was writhing, without a reservation of pride or delicacy.
Approach me but a step nigher, and even my love for your unfortunate and much-abused but well-minded son will not protect you. I would chastise you, with all my years upon me, in spite of my white head. Yours, if this boy should die, will never become white, or will become so suddenly, as your soul will wither, with its own self-torture, within you.
He tells how he could always see the moon in broad daylight; of his passion for wandering about the city by night carrying arms forbidden by the law; of his practice of self-torture, beating his legs with a switch, twisting his fingers, pinching his flesh, and biting his left arm; and of going about within doors with naked legs; how at one time he was possessed with the desire, heroica passio, of suicide; of his habit of filling his house with pets of all sorts kids, lambs, hares, rabbits, and storks.
To Susie, the tragic figure in front of her was singularly impressive amid that lighthearted throng: all about them happy persons were enjoying the good things of life, talking, laughing, and making merry. She wondered what refinement of self-torture had driven him to choose that place to come to. He must hate it. When they finished luncheon, Susie took her courage in both hands.
"You said," continued the neighbor, "only a few months ago, 'What can I do? and spoke as a man who felt that he was deprived of all the means of accomplishing good; and yet you have, with but little effort, lifted a human soul out of the dark valley of ignorance, where it was groping ill self-torture, and placed it on an ascending mountain path.
It is a common thing to say, he goes on, that it is hard to lead the life of a monk. But asceticism is comparatively easy; what is really hard is the conversion and emancipation of the heart. In India, where the proclivity to asceticism and self-torture is endemic, it was only natural that penance should in very truth seem easier and more satisfactory than this spiritual discipline.
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