It is not wrong to be attacked by self-pity any more than it is to wrong to have a cold in the head-both are the result of some sort of disorganization of the frame. What is wrong in both cases is to allow oneself to be incapacitated by it. What would help many people out of the self-pitying condition would be to realize how ugly and ill-mannered and boring a thing it may become. A display of tragic grief at a moment of mental agony is a very impressive thing; but one cannot be harassed beyond a certain point; and the complacent display of artificial misery is as objectionable a thing in the moral world as is the habit of incessant sniffing in the physical region. It may be very comfortable to sniff if one feels inclined; but what sniffers do not realize is that instead of evoking sympathy, they evoke nothing but a sort of contemptuous irritation in others.
Christ advised people who were tempted to parade their prayerfulness in public, to go home and shut the door; the same applies to genuine grief, and far more to indulged grief. Of course no one who has had much experience thinks that the world is a wholly easy or comfortable place; but by indulging self-pity, one lessens rather than increases one's capacity for endurance. A century ago it was fashion for a certain type of woman to faint as much as possible in public, and a power of unlimited swooning was a matter of pardonable pride. But when it became clear that other people were frankly bored by having to attend to rigid females, the tendency died out, to reappear in subtler forms. To indulge self-pity is not only an abnegation of courage; it is an insult to the great, interesting, exciting world. If life means anything, it means that we have the chance of a certain amount of a certain amount of experience, and a certain length of road to cover if we will.