It is not impossible to develop this in the face of
considerable bodily suffering. One of the most inveterately
cheerful people I have ever known was a man who suffered from a
painful and irritating complaint, but whose geniality and good-will
were so strong that they not only overpowered his malaise, but
actually afforded him considerable relief. Some people who suffer
can only suffer in solitude. They have to devote the whole of their
nervous energies to the task of endurance; but others find society
an agreeable distraction, and fly to it as an escape from
discomfort. I suppose that every one has experienced at times that
extraordinary rebellion, so to speak, of cheerfulness against an
attack of physical pain. There have been days when I have suffered
from some small but acutely disagreeable ailment, and yet found my
cheerfulness not only not dimmed but apparently enhanced by the
physical suffering. Of course there are maladies even of a serious
kind of which one of the symptoms is a great mental depression, but
there are other maladies which seem actually to produce an
instinctive hopefulness.
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