"The Man Who Was Thursday" by G.K. Chesterton (1908)

The novel postulates an inherent merit in suffering, as if suffering entitles one to happiness, as if a universal law of the conservation of suffering holds. If such a law held, then the systematic (though not uniform) increase in the well-being of the world's poor would forebode the attrition of happiness reserved for the after-world---to the chagrin of the novel's characters.

If suffering earns one respect in the eyes of one's enemies---as the novel suggests---then why do not the pursuits of pleasure or of sin do so as well? Whence the asymmetry? Self-inflicted suffering is only excusable if it is an unwelcome by-product of aspiring to happiness or of an error. Otherwise, self-inflicted suffering is cowardice.

Luckily, the novel's characters appear to be more entertained than suffering---which is, perhaps, because the novel has been designed to be approved for all audiences.