And on their weepings had gone down the day,
But that at last Telemachus found words to say.
_Worsley s Translation of the Odyssey_, Book xvi. st. 27.
So again when Penelope at last recognized her husband:
Then from her eyelids the quick tears did start
And she ran to him from her place, and threw
Her arms about his neck, and a warm dew
Of kisses poured upon him, and thus spake:
Book xxiii. st. 27.
The vivid recollection of our former home, or of long-past happy days,
readily causes the eyes to be suffused with tears; but here, again, the
thought naturally occurs that these days will never return. In such
cases we may be said to sympathize with ourselves in our present, in
comparison with our former, state. Sympathy with the distresses of
others, even with the imaginary distresses of a heroine in a pathetic
story, for whom we feel no affection, readily excites tears. So does
sympathy with the happiness of others, as with that of a lover, at last
successful after many hard trials in a well-told tale.
Sympathy appears to constitute a separate or distinct emotion; and it
is especially apt to excite the lacrymal glands. This holds good
whether we give or receive sympathy. Every one must have noticed how
readily children burst out crying if we pity them for some small hurt.
With the melancholic insane, as Dr. Crichton Browne informs me, a kind
word will often plunge them into unrestrained weeping. As soon as we
express our pity for the grief of a friend, tears often come into our
own eyes. The feeling of sympathy is commonly explained by assuming
that, when we see or hear of suffering in another, the idea of
suffering is called up so vividly in our own minds that we ourselves
suffer. But this explanation is hardly sufficient, for it does not
account for the intimate alliance between sympathy and affection. We
undoubtedly sympathize far more deeply with a beloved than with an
indifferent person; and the sympathy of the one gives us far more
relief than that of the other. Yet assuredly we can sympathize with
those for whom we feel no affection.
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