1.2.2. Chap. II
Of those Passions which take their origin from a particular turn
or habit of the Imagination
Even of the passions derived from the imagination, those
which take their origin from a peculiar turn or habit it has
acquired, though they may be acknowledged to be perfectly
natural, are, however, but little sympathized with. The
imaginations of mankind, not having acquired that particular
turn, cannot enter into them; and such passions, though they may
be allowed to be almost unavoidable in some part of life, are
always, in some measure, ridiculous. This is the case with that
strong attachment which naturally grows up between two persons of
different sexes, who have long fixed their thoughts upon one
another. Our imagination not having run in the same channel with
that of the lover, we cannot enter into the eagerness of his
emotions. If our friend has been injured, we readily sympathize
with his resentment, and grow angry with the very person with
whom he is angry. If he has received a benefit, we readily enter
into his gratitude, and have a very high sense of the merit of
his benefactor. But if he is in love, though we may think his
passion just as reasonable as any of the kind, yet we never think
ourselves bound to conceive a passion of the same kind, and for
the same person for whom he has conceived it. The passion appears
to every body, but the man who feels it, entirely disproportioned
to the value of the object; and love, though it is pardoned in a
certain age because we know it is natural, is always laughed at,
because we cannot enter into it. All serious and strong
expressions of it appear ridiculous to a third person; and though
a lover may be good company to his mistress, he is so to nobody
else. He himself is sensible of this; and as long as he continues
in his sober senses, endeavours to treat his own passion with
raillery and ridicule. It is the only style in which we care to
hear of it; because it is the only style in which we ourselves
are disposed to talk of it. We grow weary of the grave, pedantic,
and long-sentenced love of Cowley and Petrarca, who never have
done with exaggerating the violence of their attachments; but the
gaiety of Ovid, and the gallantry of Horace, are always
agreeable.
But though we feel no proper sympathy with an attachment of
this kind, though we never approach even in imagination towards
conceiving a passion for that particular person, yet as we either
have conceived, or may be disposed to conceive, passions of the
same kind, we readily enter into those high hopes of happiness
which are proposed from its gratification, as well as into that
exquisite distress which is feared from its disappointment. It
interests us not as a passion, but as a situation that gives
occasion to other passions which interest us; to hope, to fear,
and to distress of every kind: in the same manner as in a
description of a sea voyage, it is not the hunger which interests
us, but the distress which that hunger occasions. Though we do
not properly enter into the attachment of the lover, we readily
go along with those expectations of romantic happiness which he
derives from it. We feel how natural it is for the mind, in a
certain situation, relaxed with indolence, and fatigued with the
violence of desire, to long for serenity and quiet, to hope to
find them in the gratification of that passion which distracts
it, and to frame to itself the idea of that life of pastoral
tranquillity and retirement which the elegant, the tender, and
the passionate Tibullus takes so much pleasure in describing; a
life like what the poets describe in the Fortunate Islands, a
life of friendship, liberty, and repose; free from labour, and
from care, and from all the turbulent passions which attend them.
Even scenes of this kind interest us most, when they are painted
rather as what is hoped, than as what is enjoyed. The grossness
of that passion, which mixes with, and is, perhaps, the
foundation of love, disappears when its gratification is far off
and at a distance; but renders the whole offensive, when
described as what is immediately possessed. The happy passion,
upon this account, interests us much less than the fearful and
the melancholy. We tremble for whatever can disappoint such
natural and agreeable hopes: and thus enter into all the anxiety,
and concern, and distress of the lover.
Hence it is, that, in some modern tragedies and romances,
this passion appears so wonderfully interesting. It is not so
much the love of Castalio and Monimia which attaches us in the
Orphan, as the distress which that love occasions. The author who
should introduce two lovers, in a scene of perfect security,
expressing their mutual fondness for one another, would excite
laughter, and not sympathy. If a scene of this kind is ever
admitted into a tragedy, it is always, in some measure, improper,
and is endured, not from any sympathy with the passion that is
expressed in it, but from concern for the dangers and
difficulties with which the audience foresee that its
gratification is likely to be attended.
The reserve which the laws of society impose upon the fair
sex, with regard to this weakness, renders it more peculiarly
distressful in them, and, upon that very account, more deeply
interesting. We are charmed with the love of Phaedra, as it is
expressed in the French tragedy of that name, notwithstanding all
the extravagance and guilt which attend it. That very
extravagance and guilt may be said, in some measure, to recommend
it to us. Her fear, her shame, her remorse, her horror, her
despair, become thereby more natural and interesting. All the
secondary passions, if I may be allowed to call them so, which
arise from the situation of love, become necessarily more furious
and violent; and it is with these secondary passions only that we
can properly be said to sympathize.
Of all the passions, however, which are so extravagantly
disproportioned to the value of their objects, love is the only
one that appears, even to the weakest minds, to have any thing in
it that is either graceful or agreeable. In itself, first of all,
though it may be ridiculous, it is not naturally odious; and
though its consequences are often fatal and dreadful, its
intentions are seldom mischievous. And then, though there is
little propriety in the passion itself, there is a good deal in
some of those which always accompany it. There is in love a
strong mixture of humanity, generosity, kindness, friendship,
esteem; passions with which, of all others, for reasons which
shall be explained immediately, we have the greatest propensity
to sympathize, even notwithstanding we are sensible that they
are, in some measure, excessive. The sympathy which we feel with
them, renders the passion which they accompany less disagreeable,
and supports it in our imagination, notwithstanding all the vices
which commonly go along with it; though in the one sex it
necessarily leads to the last ruin and infamy; and though in the
other, where it is apprehended to be least fatal, it is almost
always attended with an incapacity for labour, a neglect of duty,
a contempt of fame, and even of common reputation.
Notwithstanding all this, the degree of sensibility and
generosity with which it is supposed to be accompanied, renders
it to many the object of vanity. and they are fond of appearing
capable of feeling what would do them no honour if they had
really felt it.
It is for a reason of the same kind, that a certain reserve
is necessary when we talk of our own friends, our own studies,
our own professions. All these are objects which we cannot expect
should interest our companions in the same degree in which they
interest us. And it is for want of this reserve, that the one
half of mankind make bad company to the other. A philosopher is
company to a philosopher, only. the member of a club, to his own
little knot of companions.