Item #14641 The Privilege Of Pain. Mrs Leo Everett, Kate Douglas Wiggin, Caroline Kane Mills Everett.
The Privilege Of Pain

The Privilege Of Pain

Boston: Small, Maynard & Company, 1920.

First Edition; First Printing. Hardcover. Good with no dust jacket. Item #14641

Library stamps/marks/labels/pocket/slip, spine darkened, cover soil, light tone, otherwise light wear. Solid hardcover.; "The vast majority ... do not seem to realize what an extraordinarily large percentage of the greatest men and women have been physically handicapped. It is the joyous mission of this book to prove to all invalids, but more especially to those living victims of the Great War, that Keats and Stevenson, far from representing isolated instances of achievement despite bodily infirmities, are but members of a gallant army, some of whom have reached even greater heights in spite of more painful disabilities. .. I intent therefore to confine myself to those giants of the past who have suffered either from disease, mutilation or constitutional debility." - "Health and Strength" pages 10-11. "I have known hundreds of invalids more or less saintly, but I have had personal friendship with only two completely joyous, triumphant ones - Robert Louis Stevenson and Helen Keller. If "one with God is a majority" then two such conqering human creatures as these furnish inspiration for our generation, and Mrs Everett in her eager search has found hundreds of similar examples. For that reason I call this a unique, gallant, courageous, helpful little book, likely to give pluck and spirit to many readers handicapped by various ills!" - Introduction by Kate Douglas Wiggin. An uncommon, rather unique book, expanded from an essay, that is both a series of listings of disabled successful people in various categories and well as an inspiration to those mutilated during World War One, and others suffering physical disabilities. Contents: Introduction by Kate Douglas Wiggin; I Health and Strength; II Soldiers and a Sailor; III Ill-Health and its Relation to Genius; IV Among the Poets "They Learn in Suffering what they Teach in Song"; V Novelists; VI Physical Perfection and its Relation to Civilization; VII The Physically Handicapped Philosophers; VIII Astronomers and Mathematicians; IX Statesmen and Politicians; X The Freedom of Ill-Health; XI Artists; XII Musicians; XIII Three Physicians, a Naturalist and a Chemist; XIV Inventors; XV Historians and Men of Letters; XVI Protestant Reformers; XVII The Saints; XVIII Pain, the Great Teacher. ; Ex-Library; 105 pages.

Price: $49.95