The Advantages of Having One Leg

A friend of mine who was visiting a poor woman in bereavement
and casting about for some phrase of consolation that should
not be either insolent or weak, said at last, "I think one can
live through these great sorrows and even be the better.
What wears one is the little worries." "That's quite right, mum,"
answered the old woman with emphasis, "and I ought to know,
seeing I've had ten of 'em." It is, perhaps, in this sense
that it is most true that little worries are most wearing.
In its vaguer significance the phrase, though it contains a truth,
contains also some possibilities of self-deception and error.
People who have both small troubles and big ones have the
right to say that they find the small ones the most bitter;
and it is undoubtedly true that the back which is bowed under
loads incredible can feel a faint addition to those loads;
a giant holding up the earth and all its animal creation might
still find the grasshopper a burden. But I am afraid that the
maxim that the smallest worries are the worst is sometimes used
or abused by people, because they have nothing but the very
smallest worries. The lady may excuse herself for reviling the
crumpled rose leaf by reflecting with what extraordinary dignity
she would wear the crown of thorns--if she had to. The gentleman
may permit himself to curse the dinner and tell himself that he
would behave much better if it were a mere matter of starvation.
We need not deny that the grasshopper on man's shoulder is
a burden; but we need not pay much respect to the gentleman
who is always calling out that he would rather have an elephant
when he knows there are no elephants in the country.
We may concede that a straw may break the camel's back,
but we like to know that it really is the last straw and
not the first.

I grant that those who have serious wrongs have a real right
to grumble, so long as they grumble about something else.
It is a singular fact that if they are sane they almost always
do grumble about something else. To talk quite reasonably about
your own quite real wrongs is the quickest way to go off your head.
But people with great troubles talk about little ones,
and the man who complains of the crumpled rose leaf very often
has his flesh full of the thorns. But if a man has commonly
a very clear and happy daily life then I think we are justified
in asking that he shall not make mountains out of molehills.
I do no deny that molehills can sometimes be important.
Small annoyances have this evil about them, that they can be more
abrupt because they are more invisible; they cast no shadow before,
they have no atmosphere. No one ever had a mystical premonition
that he was going to tumble over a