1.2.5. Chap. V
Of the selfish Passions
Besides those two opposite sets of passions, the social and
unsocial, there is another which holds a sort of middle place
between them; is never either so graceful as is sometimes the one
set, nor is ever so odious as is sometimes the other. Grief and
joy, when conceived upon account of our own private good or bad
fortune, constitute this third set of passions. Even when
excessive, they are never so disagreeable as excessive
resentment, because no opposite sympathy can ever interest us
against them: and when most suitable to their objects, they are
never so agreeable as impartial humanity and just benevolence;
because no double sympathy can ever interest us for them. There
is, however, this difference between grief and joy, that we are
generally most disposed to sympathize with small joys and great
sorrows. The man who, by some sudden revolution of fortune, is
lifted up all at once into a condition of life, greatly above
what he had formerly lived in, may be assured that the
congratulations of his best friends are not all of them perfectly
sincere. An upstart, though of the greatest merit, is generally
disagreeable, and a sentiment of envy commonly prevents us from
heartily sympathizing with his joy. If he has any judgment, he is
sensible of this, and instead of appearing to be elated with his
good fortune, he endeavours, as much as he can, to smother his
joy, and keep down that elevation of mind with which his new
circumstances naturally inspire him. He affects the same
plainness of dress, and the same modesty of behaviour, which
became him in his former station. He redoubles his attention to
his old friends, and endeavours more than ever to be humble,
assiduous, and complaisant. And this is the behaviour which in
his situation we most approve of; because we expect, it seems,
that he should have more sympathy with our envy and aversion to
his happiness, than we have with his happiness. It is seldom that
with all this he succeeds. We suspect the sincerity of his
humility, and he grows weary of this constraint. In a little
time, therefore, he generally leaves all his old friends behind
him, some of the meanest of them excepted, who may, perhaps,
condescend to become his dependents: nor does he always acquire
any new ones; the pride of his new connections is as much
affronted at finding him their equal, as that of his old ones had
been by his becoming their superior: and it requires the most
obstinate and persevering modesty to atone for this mortification
to either. He generally grows weary too soon, and is provoked, by
the sullen and suspicious pride of the one, and by the saucy
contempt of the other, to treat the first with neglect, and the
second with petulance, till at last he grows habitually insolent,
and forfeits the esteem of all. If the chief part of human
happiness arises from the consciousness of being beloved, as I
believe it does, those sudden changes of fortune seldom
contribute much to happiness. He is happiest who advances more
gradually to greatness, whom the public destines to every step of
his preferment long before he arrives at it, in whom, upon that
account, when it comes, it can excite no extravagant joy, and
with regard to whom it cannot reasonably create either any
jealousy in those he overtakes, or any envy in those he leaves
behind.
Mankind, however, more readily sympathize with those smaller
joys which flow from less important causes. It is decent to be
humble amidst great prosperity; but we can scarce express too
much satisfaction in all the little occurrences of common life,
in the company with which we spent the evening last night, in the
entertainment that was set before us, in what was said and what
was done, in all the little incidents of the present
conversation, and in all those frivolous nothings which fill up
the void of human life. Nothing is more graceful than habitual
cheerfulness, which is always founded upon a peculiar relish for
all the little pleasures which common occurrences afford. We
readily sympathize with it: it inspires us with the same joy, and
makes every trifle turn up to us in the same agreeable aspect in
which it presents itself to the person endowed with this happy
disposition. Hence it is that youth, the season of gaiety, so
easily engages our affections. That propensity to joy which seems
even to animate the bloom, and to sparkle from the eyes of youth
and beauty, though in a person of the same sex, exalts, even the
aged, to a more joyous mood than ordinary. They forget, for a
time, their infirmities, and abandon themselves to those
agreeable ideas and emotions to which they have long been
strangers, but which, when the presence of so much happiness
recalls them to their breast, take their place there, like old
acquaintance, from whom they are sorry to have ever been parted,
and whom they embrace more heartily upon account of this long
separation.
It is quite otherwise with grief. Small vexations excite no
sympathy, but deep affliction calls forth the greatest. The man
who is made uneasy by every little disagreeable incident, who is
hurt if either the cook or the butler have failed in the least
article of their duty, who feels every defect in the highest
ceremonial of politeness, whether it be shewn to himself or to
any other person, who takes it amiss that his intimate friend did
not bid him good-morrow when they met in the forenoon, and that
his brother hummed a tune all the time he himself was telling a
story; who is put out of humour by the badness of the weather
when in the country, by the badness of the roads when upon a
journey, and by the want of company, and dulness of all public
diversions when in town; such a person, I say, though he should
have some reason, will seldom meet with much sympathy. Joy is a
pleasant emotion, and we gladly abandon ourselves to it upon the
slightest occasion. We readily, therefore, sympathize with it in
others, whenever we are not prejudiced by envy. But grief is
painful, and the mind, even when it is our own misfortune,
naturally resists and recoils from it. We would endeavour either
not to conceive it at all, or to shake it off as soon as we have
conceived it. Our aversion to grief will not, indeed, always
hinder us from conceiving it in our own case upon very trifling
occasions, but it constantly prevents us from sympathizing with
it in others when excited by the like frivolous causes: for our
sympathetic passions are always less irresistible than our
original ones. There is, besides, a malice in mankind, which not
only prevents all sympathy with little uneasinesses, but renders
them in some measure diverting. Hence the delight which we all
take in raillery, and in the small vexation which we observe in
our companion, when he is pushed, and urged, and teased upon all
sides. Men of the most ordinary good-breeding dissemble the pain
which any little incident may give them; and those who are more
thoroughly formed to society, turn, of their own accord, all such
incidents into raillery, as they know their companions will do
for them. The habit which a man, who lives in the world, has
acquired of considering how every thing that concerns himself
will appear to others, makes those frivolous calamities turn up
in the same ridiculous light to him, in which he knows they will
certainly be considered by them.
Our sympathy, on the contrary, with deep distress, is very
strong and very sincere. It is unnecessary to give an instance.
We weep even at the feigned representation of a tragedy. If you
labour, therefore, under any signal calamity, if by some
extraordinary misfortune you are fallen into poverty, into
diseases, into disgrace and disappointment; even though your own
fault may have been, in part, the occasion, yet you may generally
depend upon the sincerest sympathy of all your friends, and, as
far as interest and honour will permit, upon their kindest
assistance too. But if your misfortune is not of this dreadful
kind, if you have only been a little baulked in your ambition, if
you have only been jilted by your mistress, or are only
hen-pecked by your wife, lay your account with the raillery of
all your acquaintance.