p. 11 | SENSITIVE TO SLIGHTS by Caroline Benedict Burrell

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Mar 5, 1902

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 28, No. 10.

SENSITIVE TO SLIGHTS

By Caroline Benedict Burrell

[Caroline Benedict Burrell, in the Congregationalist.]

If one has a disposition to see slights, that alone is reason enough for an unhappy life. If we are loving, we shall be loved; and if we are cold and self-absorbed, we shall be let alone; while if we look for slights and merit them, we shall find them as thick as leaves in Vallambrosa. Thackeray’s words, “Life is a mirror and gives back to every man the reflection of his own face,” ought to be written on the walls of our nurseries and our school-houses.

If you have any degree of super-sensitiveness, get rid of it at all cost. Call it by its right name—morbidness, foolishness. Don’t flatter yourself that you are made of finer clay than other people, and feel more deeply than others do, and so you somehow ought to have greater consideration shown you. Insist to yourself that you imagine slights where there are none. Get strong, physically and morally, and banish the specters.

But are there not real slights sometimes? Sometimes—possibly—let us admit it with hesitation; but they are not worth a pang. Recall the oft-quoted words of the wife of the Vicar of Wakefield to her daughters: “Hold up your heads, girls. Handsome is that handsome does!” One’s self-respect should be one’s shield. If our intentions are “handsome”—kindly, simple, sincere—we can hold up our heads with such a rightful dignity that we shall see no slights, because there will be none to see.