An Inquiry into those Kinds of Distress which Excite Agreeable Sensations:
1. It is undoubtedly true, though a phenomenon of the human mind difficult to account
for, that the representation of distress frequently gives pleasure; from which
general observation many of our modern writers of tragedy and romance seem to have
drawn this inference, -- that in order to please, they have nothing more to do than
to paint distress in natural and striking colours. With this view, they heap
together all the afflicting events and dismal accidents their imagination can
furnish; and when they have half broke the reader's heart, they expect he should
thank them for his agreeable entertainment. An author of this class sits down,
pretty much like an inquisitor, to compute how much suffering he can inflict upon
the hero of his tale before he makes an end of him; with this difference, indeed,
that the in-
quisitor only tortures those who are at least reputed
criminals; whereas the writer generally chooses the most excellent character in his
piece for the subject of his persecution. The great criterion of excellence is
placed in being able to draw tears plentifully; and concluding we shall weep the
more, the more the picture is loaded with doleful events, they go on, telling
........of sorrows upon sorrows |
Even to a lamentable length of woe. |
2. A monarch once proposed a reward for the discovery of a new pleasure; but if any one
could find out a new torture, or nondescript calamity, he would be more entitled to
the applause of those who fabricate books of entertainment.
3. But the springs of pity require to be touched with a more delicate hand; and it is
far from being true that we are agreeably affected by every thing that excites our
sympathy. It shall therefore be the business of this essay to distinguish those
kinds of distress which are pleasing in the representation from those which are
really painful and disgusting.
4. The view or relation of mere misery can never be pleasing. We have, indeed, a strong
sympathy with all kinds of misery; but it is a feeling of pure unmixed pain, similar
in kind, though not equal in degree, to what we feel for ourselves on
the like occasions; and never produces that melting sorrow, that thrill of
tenderness, to which we give the name of pity. They are two distinct sensations,
marked by very different external expression. One causes the nerves to tingle, the
flesh to shudder, and the whole countenance to be thrown into strong contractions;
the other relaxes the frame, opens the features, and produces tears. When we crush a
noxious or loathsome animal, we may sympathize strongly with the pain it suffers,
but with far different emotions from the tender sentiment we feel for the dog of
Ulysses, who crawled to meet his long-lost master, looked up, and died at his feet.
Extreme bodily pain is perhaps the most intense suffering we are capable of, and if
the fellow feeling with misery alone was grateful to the mind, the exhibition of a
man in a fit of the toothache, or under a chirurgical operation, would have a fine
effect in a tragedy. But there must be some other sentiment combined with this kind
of instinctive sympathy, before it becomes in any degree pleasing, or produces the
sweet emotion of pity. This sentiment is love, esteem, the complacency we take in
the contemplation of beauty, of mental or moral excellence, called forth and
rendered more interesting by circumstances of pain and danger. Tenderness is, much
more properly than sorrow, the spring of tears; for it affects us in
that manner, whether combined with joy or grief; perhaps more in the former case
than the latter. And I believe we may venture to assert, that no distress which
produces tears is wholly without a mixture of pleasure. When Joseph's brethren were
sent to buy corn, if they had perished in the desert by wild beasts, or been reduced
(as in the horrid adventures of a Pierre de Vaud) to eat one another, we might have
shuddered, but we should not have wept for them. The gush of tears breaks forth when
Joseph made himself known to his brethren, and fell on their neck, and kissed them.
When Hubert prepares to burn out prince Arthur's eyes, the shocking circumstance, of
itself, would only affect us with horror; it is the amiable simplicity of the young
prince, and his innocent affection to his intended murderer, that draws our tears,
and excites that tender sorrow which we love to feel, and which refines the heart
while we do feel it.
5. We see, therefore, from this view of our internal feelings, that no scenes of misery
ought to be exhibited which are not connected with the display of some moral
excellence or agreeable quality. If fortitude, power, and strength of mind are
called forth, they produce the sublime feelings of wonder and admiration: if the
softer qualities
of gentleness, grace, and beauty, they inspire love
and pity. The management of these latter emotions is our present object.
6. And let it be remembered, in the first place, that the misfortunes which excite pity
must not be too horrid and overwhelming. The mind is rather stunned than softened by
great calamities. They are little circumstances that work most sensibly upon the
tender feelings. For this reason, a well-written novel generally draws more tears
than a tragedy. The distresses of tragedy are more calculated to amaze and terrify,
than to move compassion. Battles, torture and death are in every page. The dignity
of the characters, the importance of the events, the pomp of verse and imagery
interest the grander passions, and raise the mind to an enthusiasm little favourable
to the weak and languid notes of pity. The tragedies of Young are in a fine strain
of poetry, and the situations are worked up with great energy; but the pictures are
in too deep a shade: all his pieces are full of violent and gloomy passions, and so
over-wrought with horror, that instead of awakening any pleasing sensibility, they
leave on the mind an impression of sadness mixed with terror. Shakespear is
sometimes guilty of presenting scenes too shocking. Such is the trampling out of
Gloster's eyes; and such is the whole play of
Titus Andronicus. But
Lee, beyond all others, abounds with this kind of images. He delighted in painting
the most daring crimes and cruel massacres; and though he has shown himself
extremely capable of raising tenderness, he continually checks its course by
shocking and disagreeable expressions. His pieces are in the same taste with the
pictures of Spagnolet, and there are many scenes in his tragedies which no one can
relish who would not look with pleasure on the flaying of St. Bartholomew. The
following speech of Marguerite, in the Massacre of Paris, was, I suppose, intended
to express the utmost tenderness of affection.
Die for him! that's too little; I could burn |
Piece-meal away, or bleed to death by drops, |
Be flayed alive, then broke upon the wheel, |
Yet with a smile endure it all for Guise: |
And when let loose from torments, all one wound, |
Run with my mangled arms and crush him dead. |
7. Images like these will never excite the softer passions. We are less moved at the
description of an Indian tortured with all the dreadful ingenuity of that savage
people, than with the fatal mistake of the lover in the Spectator, who pierced an
artery in the arm of his mistress as he was letting her blood. Tragedy and romance
writers are likewise apt to make too free with the more violent expressions of
passion and distress, by
which means they lose their effect. Thus an
ordinary author does not know how to express any strong emotion otherwise than by
swoonings or death; so that a person experienced in this kind of reading, when a
girl faints away at parting with her lover, or a hero kills himself for the loss of
his mistress, considers it as the established etiquette upon such occasions, and
turns over the pages with the utmost coolness and unconcern; whereas real
sensibility, and a more intimate knowledge of human nature, would have suggested a
thousand little touches of grief, which, though slight, are irresistible. We are too
gloomy a people. Some of the French novels are remarkable for little affecting
incidents, imagined with delicacy, and told with grace. Perhaps they have a better
turn than we have for this kind of writing.
8. A judicious author will never attempt to raise pity by any thing mean or disgusting.
As we have already observed, there must be a degree of complacence mixed with our
sorrows to produce an agreeable sympathy; nothing, therefore, must be admitted which
destroys the grace and dignity of suffering; the imagination must have an amiable
figure to dwell upon: there are circumstances so ludicrous or disgusting, that no
character can preserve a proper decorum under them, or appear in an agreeable light.
Who can read the following description of Polypheme without finding his
compassion entirely destroyed by aversion and loathing?
........ His bloody hand |
Snatched two unhappy of my martial band, |
And dashed like dogs against the stony floor, |
The pavement swims with brains and mingled gore; |
Torn limb from limb, he spreads his horrid feast, |
And fierce devours it like a mountain beast; |
He sucks the marrow, and the blood he drains, |
Nor entrails, flesh, not solid bone remains. |
9. Or that of Scylla,
In the wide dungeon she devours her food, |
And the flesh trembles while she churns the blood. |
10. Deformity is always disgusting, and the imagination cannot reconcile it with the idea
of a favourite character; therefore the poet and romance-writer are fully justified
in giving a larger share of beauty to their principal figures than is usually met
with in common life. A late genius, indeed, in whimsical mood, gave us a lady with
her nose crushed for the heroine of his story: but the circumstance spoils the
picture; and though in the course of the story it is kept a good deal out of sight,
whenever it does recur to the imagination we are hurt and disgusted. It was an
heroic instance of virtue in the nuns of a certain abbey, who cut off their noses
and lips to avoid violation; yet this would make a very bad subject for a poem or
play. Something akin to this is the representation of any thing unnatural; of which
kind is the famous story of the Roman charity, and for this reason
I cannot but think it an unpleasing subject for either the pen or the pencil.
11. Poverty, if truly represented, shocks our nicer feelings; therefore, whenever it is
made use of to awaken our compassion, the rags and dirt, the squalid appearance and
mean employments incident to that state, must be kept out of sight, and the distress
must arise from the idea of depression, and the shock of falling from higher
fortunes. We do not pity Belisarius as a poor blind beggar; and a painter would
succeed very ill who should sink him to the meanness of that condition. He must let
us still discover the conqueror of the Vandals, the general of the imperial armies,
or we shall be little interested. Let us look at the picture of the old woman in
Otway:
.... A wrinkled hag with age grown double, |
Picking dry sticks, and muttering to herself; |
Her eyes with scalding rheum were galled and red; |
Cold palsy shook her head; her hands seemed withered; |
And on her crooked shoulder had she wrapt |
The tattered remnant of an old striped hanging, |
Which served to keep her carcase from the cold; |
So there was nothing of a-piece about her. |
12. Here is the extreme of wretchedness, and instead of melting into pity, we should turn
away with disgust, if we were not pleased with it, as we are with a Dutch painting,
from its exact imitation of nature. Indeed the author only intended it to
strike horror. But how different are the sentiments we feel for the
lovely Belvidera! We see none of those circumstances which render poverty an
unamiable thing. When the goods are seized by an execution, our attention is turned
to the piles of massy plate, and all the ancient, most domestic
ornaments, which imply grandeur and consequence; or to such instances of
their hard fortune as will lead us to pity them as lovers: we are struck and
affected with the general face of ruin; but we are not brought near enough to
discern the ugliness of its features. Belvidera ruined, Belvidera deprived of
friends, without a home, abandoned to the wide world -- we can contemplate with all
the pleasing sympathy of pity; but had she been represented as really sunk into low
life, had we seen her employed in the most servile offices of poverty, our
compassion would have given way to contempt and disgust. Indeed, we may observe in
real life, that poverty is only pitied so long as people can keep themselves from
the effects of it. When in common language we say a miserable object,
we mean an object of distress which, if we relieve, we turn away from at the same
time. To make pity pleasing, the object of it must not in any view be disagreeable
to the imagination. How admirably has the author of Clarissa managed this point!
Amidst scenes of suffering which rend the heart, in poverty, in a prison, under the most shocking outrages, the grace and delicacy of her character
never suffers even for a moment: there seems to be a charm about her which prevents
her receiving a stain from any thing which happens; and Clarissa, abandoned and
undone, is the object not only of complacence, but veneration.
13. I would likewise observe, that if an author would have us feel a strong degree of
compassion, his characters must not be too perfect. The stern fortitude and
inflexible resolution of a Cato may command esteem, but does not excite tenderness;
and faultless rectitude of conduct, though no rigour be mixed with it, is of too
sublime a nature to inspire compassion. Virtue has a kind of self-sufficiency; it
stands upon its own basis, and cannot be injured by any violence. It must therefore
be mixed with something of helplessness and imperfection, with an excessive
sensibility, or a simplicity bordering upon weakness, before it raises, in any great
degree, either tenderness or familiar love. If there be a fault in the masterly
performance just now mentioned, it is that the character of Clarissa is so
inflexibly right, her passions are under such perfect command, and her prudence is
so equal to every occasion, that she seems not to need that sympathy we should
bestow upon one of a less elevated character; and perhaps we should feel a livelier
emotion of ten-
derness for the innocent girl whom Lovelace calls his
Rose-bud, but that the story of Clarissa is so worked up by the strength of
colouring, and the force of repeated impressions, as to command all our sorrow.
14. Pity seems too degrading a sentiment to be offered at the shrine of faultless
excellence. The sufferings of martyrs are rather beheld with admiration and
sympathetic triumph than with tears; and we never feel much for those whom we
consider as themselves raised above common feelings.
15. The last rule I shall insist upon is, that scenes of distress should not be too long
continued. All our finer feelings are in a manner momentary, and no art can carry
them beyond a certain point, either in intenseness or duration. Constant suffering
deadens the heart to tender impressions; as we many observe in sailors and others
who are grown callous by a life of continual hardships. It is therefore highly
necessary, in a long work, to relieve the mind by scenes of pleasure and gaiety; and
I cannot think it so absurd a practice as our modern delicacy has represented it, to
intermix wit and fancy with the pathetic, provided care be taken not to check the
passions while they are flowing. The transition from a pleasurable state of mind to
tender sorrow is not so difficult as we imagine. When the mind is opened by gay and
agreeable scenes, every impression is felt more sensibly. Persons
of lively temper are much more susceptible of that sudden swell of sensibility which
occasions tears, than those of a grave and saturnine cast: for this reason women are
more easily moved to weeping than men. Those who have touched the springs of pity
with the finest hand, have mingled light strokes of pleasantry and mirth in their
most pathetic passages. Very different is the conduct of many novel-writers, who, by
plunging us into scenes of distress without end or limit, exhaust the powers, and
before the conclusion either render us insensible to every thing, or fix a real
sadness upon the mind. The uniform style of tragedies is one reason why they affect
so little. In our old plays, all the force of language is reserved for the more
interesting parts; and in the scenes of common life there is no attempt to rise
above common language: whereas we, by that pompous manner and affected solemnity
which we think it necessary to preserve through the whole piece, lose the force of
an elevated or passionate expression where the occasion really suggests it.
16. Having thus considered the manner in which fictitious distress must be managed to
render it pleasing, let us reflect a little upon the moral tendency of such
representations. Much has been said in favour of them, and they are generally
thought to improve the tender and humane feelings; but this, I own,
appears to me very dubious. That they exercise sensibility, is true; but sensibility
does not increase with exercise. By the constitution of our frame our habits
increase, our emotions decrease, by repeated acts; and thus a wise provision is
made, that as our compassion grows weaker, its place should be supplied by habitual
benevolence. But in these writings our sensibility is strongly called forth without
any possibility of exerting itself in virtuous action, and those emotions, which we
shall never feel again with equal force, are wasted without advantage. Nothing is
more dangerous than to let virtuous impressions of any kind pass through the mind
without producing their proper effect. The awakenings of remorse, virtuous shame and
indignation, the glow of moral approbation -- if they do not lead to action, grow
less and less vivid every time they recur, till at length the mind grows absolutely
callous. The being affected with a pathetic story is undoubtedly a sign of an
amiable disposition, but perhaps no means of increasing it. On the contrary, young
people, by a course of this kind of reading, often acquire something of that apathy
and indifference which the experience of real life would have given them, without
its advantages.
17. Another reason why plays and romances do not
improve our humanity is,
that they lead us to require a certain elegance of manners and delicacy of virtue
which is not often found with poverty, ignorance and meanness. The objects of pity
in romance are as different from those in real life as our husbandmen from the
shepherds of Arcadia; and a girl who will sit weeping the whole night at the
delicate distresses of a lady Charlotte, or lady Julia, shall be little moved at the
complaint of her neighbour, who, in a homely phrase and vulgar accent, laments to
her that she is not able to get bread for her family. Romance-writers likewise make
great misfortunes so familiar to our ears, that we have hardly any pity to spare for
the common accidents of life: but we ought to remember, that misery has a claim to
relief, however we may be disgusted with its appearance; and that we must not fancy
ourselves charitable, when we are only pleasing our imagination.
18. It would perhaps be better, if our romances were more like those of the old stamp,
which tended to raise human nature, and inspire a certain grace and dignity of
manners of which we have hardly the idea. The high notions of honour, the wild and
fanciful spirit of adventure and romantic love, elevated the mind; our novels tend
to depress and enfeeble it. Yet there is a species of this kind of writing which
must ever afford an exquisite pleasure to persons of taste and sensi-
bility; where noble sentiments are mixed with well-fancied incidents, pathetic
touches with dignity and grace, and invention with chaste correctness. Such will
ever interest our sweetest passions. I shall conclude this paper with the following
tale.
19.
20. In the happy period of the golden age, when all the celestial inhabitants descended
to the earth, and conversed familiarly with mortals, among the most cherished of the
heavenly powers were twins, the offspring of Jupiter, Love and Joy. Where they
appeared, the flowers sprung up beneath their feet, the sun shone with a brighter
radiance, and all nature seemed embellished by their presence. They were inseparable
companions, and their growing attachment was favoured by Jupiter, who had decreed
that a lasting union should be solemnized between them as soon as they were arrived
at maturer years. But in the mean time the sons of men deviated from their native
innocence; vice and ruin over-ran the earth with giant strides; and Astrea, with her
train of celestial visitants, forsook their polluted abodes. Love alone remained,
having been stolen away by Hope, who was his nurse, and conveyed by her to the
forests of Arcadia, where he was brought up among the shepherds. But Jupiter
assigned
him a different partner, and commanded him to espouse Sorrow,
the daughter of Ate. He complied with reluctance; for her features were harsh and
disagreeable, her eyes sunk, her forehead contracted into perpetual wrinkles, and
her temples were covered with a wreath of cypress and wormwood. From this union
sprung a virgin, in whom might be traced a strong resemblance to both her parents;
but the sullen and unamiable features of her mother were so mixed and blended with
the sweetness of her father, that her countenance, though mournful, was highly
pleasing. The maids and shepherds of the neighbouring plains gathered round, and
called her Pity. A redbreast was observed to build in the cabin where she was born;
and while she was yet an infant, a dove, pursued by a hawk, flew into her bosom.
This nymph had a dejected appearance, but so soft and gentle a mien that she was
beloved to a degree of enthusiasm. Her voice was low and plaintive, but
inexpressibly sweet; and she loved to lie for hours together on the banks of some
wild and melancholy stream, singing to her lute. She taught men to weep, for she
took a strange delight in tears; and often, when the virgins of the hamlet were
assembled at their evening sports, she would steal in amongst them, and captivate
their hearts by her tales full of a charming sadness. She wore on her head a garland
composed of her father's myrtles twisted with her mother's cypress.
21. One day, as she sat musing by the waters of Helicon, her tears by chance fell into
the fountain; and ever since, the Muses' spring has retained a strong taste of the
infusion. Pity was commanded by Jupiter to follow the steps of her mother through
the world, dropping balm into the wounds she made, and binding up the hearts she had
broken. She follows with her hair loose, her bosom bare and throbbing, her garments
torn by the briars, and her feet bleeding with the roughness of the path. The nymph
is mortal, for her mother is so; and when she has fulfilled her destined course upon
the earth, they shall both expire together, and love be again united to Joy, his
immortal and long-betrothed bride.
Date: 1825
(revised 02/08/2005) Author: Anna Letitia Barbauld
(revised Zach Weir).
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