In the hope of restoring his eyesight， Tarkington had to go through more than twelve operations within one year. With local anaesthetic！ Did he rail against this？ He knew it had to be done. He knew he couldn’t escape it， so the only way to lessen his suffering was to take it with grace. He refused a private room at the hospital and went into a ward， where he could be with other people who had troubles， too. He tried to cheer them up. And when he had to submit to repeated operations—fully conscious of what was being done to his eyes—he tried to remember how fortunate he was. “How wonderful！” he said. “How wonderful， that science now has the skill to operate on anything so delicate as the human eye！”
The average man would have been a nervous wreck if he had had to endure more than twelve operations and blindness. Yet Tarkington said， “I would not exchange this experience for a happier one.” It taught him acceptance. It taught him that nothing life could bring him was beyond his strength to endure. It taught him， as John Milton discovered， that “It is not miserable to be blind， it is only miserable not to be able to endure blindness.”
If we rail and kick against it and grow bitter， we won’t change the inevitable； but we will change ourselves.
I once refused to accept an inevitable situation with which I was confronted. I played the fool and railed against it， and rebelled. I turned my nights into hells of insomnia. I brought upon myself everything I didn’t want. Finally， after a year of self-torture， I had to accept what I knew from the outset I couldn’t possibly alter.
I should have cried out years ago with old Walt Whitman：
Oh， to confront night， storms， hunger， ridicule， accident， rebuffs， as the trees and animals do.
已故的布斯？塔金顿常常挂在嘴边的一句话就是：“我能承受人生旅途上的任何苦难，可唯有一样例外——失明。那是我永远都无法承受的。”