from The Bijou, 1828, pp. 191-219 |
ENQUIRY
into those kinds of
DISTRESS
which excite
AGREEABLE SENSATIONS. 1
It is undoubtedly true, though a phænomenon of the human mind difficult to account for, that the representation of distress frequently gives pleasure; from </p>
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<p class="pnoindent">
—————— 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 non-descript calamity, he would be more entitled to the applause of those who fabricate books of entertainment.
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 </p>
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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
</p>
O |
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</p>
O 2 |
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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.
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 </p>
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</p>
O 3 |
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<p class="pnoindent">
Die for him! that's too little; I could burn Piece-meal away, or bleed to death by drops, Be flay'd alive, then broke upon the wheel, </table></blockquote> Yet with a smile endure it all for Guise:
<blockquote><table class="poem">
[Page 199] And when let loose from torments, all one wound, Run with my mangled arms, and crush him dead.8
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.9
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
</p>
O 4 |
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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 </p>
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<p class="pnoindent"> Or that of Scylla, </p>
——————————— His bloody hand Snatch'd two unhappy of my martial band, And dash'd 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, nor solid bone remains.10
<p class="pnoindent"> </p>
In the wide dungeon she devours her food, And the flesh trembles while she churns the blood.11
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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;</p>
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<p class="pnoindent"> Here is the extreme of wretchedness, and instead of melting into pity we turn away with aversion. Indeed the author only intended it to strike horror. But how different are the sentiments we feel for the lovely Belvidera!16 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 antient 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 </p>
————— A wrinkled hag with age grown double, Picking dry sticks, and muttering to herself; Her eyes with scalding rheum were gall'd and red; Cold palsie shook her head; her hands seem'd wither'd; And on her crooked shoulder had she wrapt The tatter'd remnant of an old strip'd hanging, Which serv'd to keep her carcase from the cold; So there was nothing of a piece about her.15
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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-suffi-</p>
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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.
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 ab- </p>
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</p>
P |
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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 </p>
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</p>
P 2 |
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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 </p>
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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 dig-
</p>
P 3 |
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A TALE.
____________
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. Wherever
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 so soon as they were
arrived at maturer years. But in the mean time the sons of men deviated
</p>
P 4 |
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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 </p>
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THE END.
1. Miscellaneous Pieces, in Prose, by J. and A.L. Aikin (London: Printed for J. Johnson, in St. Paul's Church-yard, 1773), 190-219. The essay is identified as Barbauld's by her niece Lucy Aikin in , The Works of Anna Lætitia Barbauld. With a Memoir by Lucy Aikin (London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green, Paternoster-Row, 1825). Michael Cole, Rachel Dejmal, and Mary A. Waters co-edited this essay for The Criticism Archive. Back
2. Ulysses IV.i. by Nicholas Rowe. Back
3. After a decade of fighting in the Trojan War and a decade-long return voyage, Ulysses returned to his native Ithaca. When he arrived home, he had been so changed during his twenty year absence that he was recognized only by his old and faithful nurse Eurycleia, who noticed a familiar scar while bathing his feet, and by his dog Argus, who jumped up for joy and died. Back
4. Barbauld refers to the account in The Shipwreck And Adventures Of Monsieur Pierre Viaud: A Native Of Bourdeaux, And Captain Of A Ship. Translated From The French, by Mrs. Griffith , which had been published in London in 1771. Thanks to my colleague Carl Thompson for help with this reference. Back
5. See Genesis 42-45. Back
6. According to the legend, Arthur I, Duke of Brittany (1187-1203) had been named successor to the throne over his uncle John, King of England (1167-1216), who therefore had the young duke imprisoned. The prison warden, Hubert de Burgh, was ordered to put out Arthur's eyes, but he was so touched by the boy's appeal to his pity and affection that he could not do it but instead falsely reported to the king that he had carried out the mutilation. See Shakespeare's King John IV.i. Back
7. See King Lear III.vii. Back
8. The Massacre of Paris; A Tragedy III.i.22-7. Back
9. Spectator No. 368 (Friday, 2 May 1712). Back
10. The Odyssey of Homer, translated by Alexander Pope (London: Bernard Lintot, 1725-1726) IX.342-9, slightly altered. Back
11. The Odyssey of Homer, translated by Alexander Pope (London: Bernard Lintot, 1725-1726) XII.306-7. Back
12. The eponymous heroine of Henry Fielding's Amelia (1751) suffered from this disfiguing injury in a carriage accident. Back
13. Threatened by an invasion of Viking pirates, St. Ebba, the ninth-century abbess of the monastery of Coldingham, urged her nuns to disfigure themselves in this way. They successfully avoided rape, but the pirates returned to burn the monastery and its inhabitants to the ground. Back
14. Referring to the story of Cimon and his daughter Pero. When Cimon was starving in prison, Pero visited him to feed him from her own breast. The incident had inspired many visual representation, including a painting by Jean-Baptiste Grueze entitled "Roman Charity," which had been exhibited in France to much acclaim shortly before Barbauld penned the present essay. Back
15. Thomas Otway, The Orphan II.i.267-74. Back
16. Character in Otway's Venice Preserv'd (1682). Back
17. An inn-keeper's daughter, nicknamed so by the libertine Lovelace, who declines to seduce her partly because her relatives acknowledged his power by pleading with him to "spare" the girl's innocence and partly because he feared an account of the seduction might reach Clarissa. Back