Every now and then they would join in some charitable commonplace, and
would pretend to be all of one mind that Mahaina was a person whose
bodily health would be excellent if it were not for her unfortunate
inability to refrain from excessive drinking; but as soon as this
appeared to be fairly settled they began to be uncomfortable until they
had undone their work and left some serious imputation upon her
constitution. At last, seeing that the debate had assumed the character
of a cyclone or circular storm, going round and round and round and round
till one could never say where it began nor where it ended, I made some
apology for an abrupt departure and retired to my own room.
Here at least I was alone, but I was very unhappy. I had fallen upon a
set of people who, in spite of their high civilisation and many
excellences, had been so warped by the mistaken views presented to them
during childhood from generation to generation, that it was impossible to
see how they could ever clear themselves. Was there nothing which I
could say to make them feel that the constitution of a person's body was
a thing over which he or she had had at any rate no initial control
whatever, while the mind was a perfectly different thing, and capable of
being created anew and directed according to the pleasure of its
possessor? Could I never bring them to see that while habits of mind and
character were entirely independent of initial mental force and early
education, the body was so much a creature of parentage and
circumstances, that no punishment for ill-health should be ever tolerated
save as a protection from contagion, and that even where punishment was
inevitable it should be attended with compassion? Surely, if the
unfortunate Mahaina were to feel that she could avow her bodily weakness
without fear of being despised for her infirmities, and if there were
medical men to whom she could fairly state her case, she would not
hesitate about doing so through the fear of taking nasty medicine.
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