Men had taken greater blows: that was what made a man a man. For did they not say that a man is like a funeral ram which must take whatever beating comes to it without opening its mouth; that the silent tremor of pain down its body alone must tell of its suffering?
Women can endure pain with fortitude, and they can perform monotonous tasks with patience.
Sorrow and silence are strong, and patient endurance is godlike.
Endurance is the free companion of Sorrow, and Patience her master.
Quietly endure, silently suffer and patiently wait.
Patience and submission are very carefully to be distinguished from cowardice and indolence. We are not to repine, but we may lawfully struggle; for the calamities of life, like the necessities of Nature, are calls to labor and diligence.
To bear all kinds of tortures without a murmur of resentment is not possible for a human being without the strength that comes from God.
Thus with hir fader for a certeyn space Dwelleth this flour of wyfly pacience, That neither by hir wordes ne hir face Biforn the folk, ne eek in her absence, Ne shewed she that hir was doon offence.
