Elements of Criticism. Henry Home, Lord Kames
oh you gods! how dearly Caesar lov’d him;
This, this, was the unkindest cut of all;
For when the noble Caesar saw him stab,
Ingratitude, more strong than traitor’s arms,
Quite vanquish’d him; then burst his mighty heart;
And, in his mantle muffling up his face,
Which all the while ran blood, great Caesar fell,
Even at the base of Pompey’s statue.
O what a fall was there, my countrymen!
Then I and you, and all of us fell down,
Whilst bloody treason flourish’d over us.
O, now you weep; and I perceive you feel
The dint of pity; these are gracious drops.
Kind souls! what! weep you when you but behold<75>
Our Caesar’s vesture wounded? look you here!
Here is himself, marr’d, as you see, by traitors.
Julius Caesar, act 3. sc. 6.18
Had Antony endeavoured to excite his audience to vengeance, without paving the way by raising their grief, his speech would not have made the same impression.
Hatred, and other dissocial passions, produce effects directly opposite to those above mentioned. If I hate a man, his children, his relations, nay his property, become to me objects of aversion: his enemies, on the other hand, I am disposed to esteem.
The more slight and transitory relations are not favourable to the communication of passion. Anger, when sudden and violent, is one exception; for if the person who did the injury be removed out of reach, that passion will vent itself against any related object, however slight the relation be. Another exception makes a greater figure: a group of beings or things, becomes often the object of a communicated passion, even where the relation of the individuals to the percipient is but slight. Thus though I put no value upon a single man for living in the same town with myself; my townsmen, however, considered in a body, are preferred before others. This is still more remarkable with respect to my countrymen in general: the grandeur of the complex object swells<76> the passion of self-love by the relation I have to my native country; and every passion, when it swells beyond its ordinary bounds, hath a peculiar tendency to expand itself along related objects. In fact, instances are not rare, of persons, who upon all occasions are willing to sacrifice their lives and fortunes for their country. Such influence upon the mind of man hath a complex object, or, more properly speaking, a general term.*
The sense of order hath influence in the communication of passion. It is a common observation, that a man’s affection to his parents is less vigorous than to his children: the order of nature in descending to children, aids the transition of the affection: the ascent to a parent, contrary to that order, makes the transition more difficult. Gratitude to a benefactor is readily extended to his children; but not so readily to his parents. The difference however between the natural and inverted order, is not so considerable, but that it may be balanced by other circumstances. Pliny* gives an account of a woman of rank condemned to die for a crime; and, to avoid public shame, detained in prison to die of hunger: her life being prolonged beyond expectation, it was disco-<77>vered, that she was nourished by sucking milk from the breasts of her daughter. This instance of filial piety, which aided the transition, and made ascent no less easy than descent is commonly, procured a pardon to the mother, and a pension to both. The story of Androcles and the lion† may be accounted for in the same manner: the admiration, of which the lion was the object for his kindness and gratitude to Androcles, produced good-will to Androcles, and a pardon of his crime.
And this leads to other observations upon communicated passions. I love my daughter less after she is married, and my mother less after a second marriage: the marriage of my son or of my father diminishes not my affection so remarkably. The same observation holds with respect to friendship, gratitude, and other passions: the love I bear my friend, is but faintly extended to his married daughter: the resentment I have against a man, is readily extended against children who make part of his family; not so readily against children who are forisfamiliated,19 especially by marriage. This difference is also more remarkable in daughters than in sons. These are curious facts; and in order to discover the cause, we must examine minutely that operation of the mind by which a passion is extended to a related object. In consi-<78>dering two things as related, the mind is not stationary, but passeth and repasseth from the one to the other, viewing the relation from each of them perhaps oftener than once; which holds more especially in considering a relation between things of unequal rank, as between the cause and the effect, or between a principal and an accessory: in contemplating, for example, the relation between a building and its ornaments, the mind is not satisfied with a single transition from the former to the latter; it must also view the relation, beginning at the latter, and passing from it to the former. This vibration of the mind in passing and repassing between things related, explains the facts above mentioned: the mind passeth easily from the father to the daughter; but where the daughter is married, this new relation attracts the mind, and obstructs, in some measure, the return from the daughter to the father; and any circumstance that obstructs the mind in passing and repassing between its objects, occasions a like obstruction in the communication of passion. The marriage of a male obstructs less the easiness of transition; because a male is less sunk by the relation of marriage than a female.
The foregoing instances are of passion communicated from one object to another. But one passion may be generated by another, without change of object. It in general is observable, that a passion paves the way to others similar in their<79> tone, whether directed to the same or to a different object; for the mind heated by any passion, is, in that state, more susceptible of a new impression in a similar tone, than when cool and quiescent. It is a common observation, that pity generally produceth friendship for a person in distress. One reason is, that pity interests us in its object, and recommends all its virtuous qualities: female beauty accordingly shows best in distress; being more apt to inspire love, than upon an ordinary occasion. But the chief reason is, that pity, warming and melting the spectator, prepares him for the reception of other tender affections; and pity is readily improved into love or friendship, by a certain tenderness and concern for the object, which is the tone of both passions. The aptitude of pity to produce love, is beautifully illustrated by Shakespear:
Othello. Her father lov’d me; oft invited me;
Still question’d me the story of my life,
From year to year; the battles, sieges, fortunes,
That I have past.
I ran it through, e’en from my boyish days,
To th’ very moment that he bade me tell it:
Wherein I spoke of most disast’rous chances,
Of moving accidents by flood and field;
Of hair-breadth ’scapes in th’ imminent deadly breach;
Of being taken by the insolent foe,
And sold to slavery; of my redemption thence,
And with it all my travel’s history.
——— ——— All these to hear<80>
Would Desdemona seriously incline;
But still the house-affairs would draw her thence,
Which ever as she could with haste dispatch,
She’d come again, and with a greedy ear
Devour up my discourse: which I observing,
Took once a pliant hour, and found good means
To draw from her a prayer of earnest heart,
That I would all my pilgrimage dilate,
Whereof by parcels she had something heard,
But