piano, the teacher answered: "I know it hurts them, but it strengthens them, too." Then the child packed the philosophy of the ages into her reply: "Teacher, it seems that everything which strengthens hurts."—F. F. Shannon.
(2291)
PAIN, THE ANGEL OF
When Theodosius was put upon the rack
he suffered very great torture at the first.
Somebody asked him how he endured all that
pain on the rack. He replied: "When I
was first put upon the rack I suffered a great
deal; but very soon a young man in white
stood by my side, and with a soft and comfortable
handkerchief he wiped the sweat
from my brow, and my pains were relieved.
It was a punishment for me to get from the
rack, because when the pain was all gone the
angel was gone." (Text.)
(2292)
PAINSTAKING
In spite of his continual need of movement,
his passionate love of sport in all its
forms, and especially of motoring, his expansive,
rather mad, but very attractive
youthfulness, Alfonso XIII, even in his flying
trips, never loses the occasion to improve
his mind. He is very quick at seizing a
point, possesses a remarkable power of assimilation,
and, altho he does not read much,
for he has no patience, he is remarkably well
informed regarding the smallest details in
matters that interest him. One day, for instance,
he asked me, point-blank:
"Do you know how many gendarmes there are in France?"
I confess that I was greatly puzzled what to reply, for I have never cared much about statistics. I ventured to say, offhand: "Ten thousand."
"Ten thousand! Come, M. Paoli, what are you thinking of? That's the number we have in Spain. It's more like twenty thousand."
This figure, as I afterward learned, was strictly accurate.
As for business of State, I also noticed that the king devoted more time to it than his restless life would lead one to believe. Rising, winter and summer, at six o'clock, he stays indoors and works regularly during the early part of the morning, and often again at night. In this connection, one of his ministers said to me:
"He never shows a sign of either weariness or boredom. The king's 'frivolity' is a popular fallacy. On the contrary, he is terribly painstaking. Just like the queen mother, he insists upon clear and detailed explanations before he will sign the least document; and he knows quite well how to make his will felt. Besides, he is fond of work, and he can work anywhere—in a motor-car, in a boat, in a train, as well as in his study."—Xavier Paoli, McClure's.
(2293)
Any one, says a writer in The Atlantic Monthly, can hold out a dumb-bell for a few seconds; but in a few more seconds the arm sags; it is only the trained athlete who can endure even to the minute's end.
For Hawthorne to hold the people of "The Scarlet Letter" steadily in focus from November to February, to say nothing of six years' preliminary brooding, is surely more of an artistic feat than to write a short story between Tuesday and Friday.
The three years and nine months of unremitting labor devoted to "Middlemarch" does not in itself afford any criterion of the value of the book; but given George Eliot's brain power and artistic instinct to begin with, and then concentrate them for that period upon a single theme, and it is no wonder that the result is a masterpiece.
"Jan van Eyck was never in a hurry," says Charles Reade of the great Flemish painter, in "The Cloister and the Hearth," and therefore the world will not forget him in a hurry. (Text.)
(2294)
Painting the Living—See Motive, Mercenary.
Palliatives—See Music as an Anesthetic.
PALLIATIVES VERSUS PREVENTION
The principle indicated in the extract will some day be adopted by Christianity in its treatment of the moral life. Mere palliatives are insufficient:
The aim of reasonable people should be to
keep themselves in health rather than to be
always straying, as it were, upon the confines
of disease and seeking assistance from
drugs in order to return to conditions from
which they should never have suffered themselves
to depart. The various alkaline salts
and solutions, for example, the advertisements
of which meet us at every turn, and
which are offered to the public as specifics,
safely to be taken, without anything so superfluous
as the advice of medical men, for all
the various evils which are described by the
