And if we obey God, we must disobey ourselves; and it is in disobeying ourselves, wherein the hardness of obeying God consists. - Herman Melville

It was not a very white jacket, but white enough, in all conscience, as the sequel will show.
The way I came by it was this...

So true it is, and so terrible too, that up to a certain point the thought or sight of misery enlists our best affections; but, in certain special cases, beyond that point it does not. They err who would assert that invariably this is owing to the inherent selfishness of the human heart. It rather proceeds from a certain hopelessness of remedying excessive and organic ill. To a sensitive being, pity is not seldom pain. And when at last it is perceived that such pity cannot lead to effectual succor, common sense bids the soul rid of it.

See how elastic our prejudices grow when once love comes to bend them.