II.  We consider the recognition by revelation of sorrow.  Sackcloth is the raiment of sorrow, and as such it was interdicted by the Persian monarch.  We still follow the insane course, minimizing, despising, masking, denying suffering.  Society sometimes attempts this.  The affluent entrench themselves within belts of beauty and fashion, excluding the sights and sounds of a suffering world.  “Ye that put far away the evil day, and cause the seat of violence to come near; that lie upon beds of ivory, and stretch themselves upon their couches, and eat the lambs out of the flock, and the calves out of the midst of the stall, that chant to the sound of the viol, and invent to themselves instruments of music, like David; that drink wine in bowls, and anoint themselves with the chief ointments:  but they are not grieved for the affliction of Joseph.”  So do opulent and selfish men still seek “to hide their heart in a nest of roses.”  Literature sometimes follows the same cue.  Goethe made it one of the rules of his life to avoid everything that could suggest painful ideas, and the taint of his egotism is on a considerable class of current literature which serenely ignores the morbid aspects of life.  Art has yielded to the same temptation.  The artist has felt that he was concerned only with strength, beauty, and grace; that he had nothing to do with weakness, agony, wretchedness, and death.  Why should sorrow find perpetual remembrance in art?  Pain will tear our bodies, but we will have no wrinkles on our statues; suffering will rend our heart, but we will have no shadows on our pictures.  None clothed in sackcloth might enter the gate that is called Beautiful.

Most of us are inclined to the sorry trick of gilding over painful things.  We resolutely put from us sober signs, serious thoughts, and sometimes are really angry with those who exhibit life as it is, and who urge us to seek reconciliation with it.  When the physician prescribed blisters to Marie Bashkirtseff to check her consumptive tendency, the vain, cynical girl wrote, “I will put on as many blisters as thee like.  I shall be able to hide the mark by bodices brimmed with flowers and lace and tulle, and a thousand other delightful things that are worn, without being required; it may even look pretty.  Ah!  I am comforted.”  Yes, by a thousand artifices do we dissemble our ugly scars, sometimes even pressing our deep misfortunes into the service of our pride.  Many of the fashions and the diversions of the world much sought after have little positive attractiveness, but the real secret of their power is found in the fact that they hide disagreeable things, and render men for a while oblivious of the mystery and weight of an unintelligible world.