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LMOST with their earliest breath the tortures of the sensitive begin; in the very dawn of their existence, the first foreboding signs of shrinking and of suffering are apparent. The bright eye of infancy will suddenly fill with tears, the rosy lip curl and quiver, the soft cheek flush through wounded feeling. A chiding word, a mocking laugh, has pierced the tender soul; it recoils instinctively from blame or ridicule, ay, even before the child knows the meaning of the words. Who can note these touching indications of acute sensibility, without a sigh at the thought of the rude blasts, the beating rain, the pinching frosts, that must blow about, and prostrate, and wither that delicate shoot of humanity, in its upward struggle through life?

Now and then these sensitive natures are dulled and hardened by contact with the world; now and then, through severe self-discipline, they learn to resist the cruel blow; or to draw, with resolute hands, the veil of seeming indifference over the bleeding wound, and hide the throes of anguish