Suffering becomes beautiful when anyone bears great calamities with cheerfulness, not through insensibility but through greatness of mind.

A distinction is being drawn between two states that look alike from outside. One is numbness, where the blow does not land because the person has stopped feeling much of anything. The other is someone who feels the full weight and still turns outward, still notices you, still makes a joke at their own expense. The second is rarer and costs far more.

Nothing here requires you to perform good spirits while you are in the middle of something. If you are, being unable to is not a failure of character. What is on offer, once you are steady enough to want it, is a picture of dignity that does not depend on pretending the loss was small.