CHAPTER X OF THE LAWS OF THE TENDENCIES OF SORROW IN THE SENTIMENTS 1. Of Two Different Tendencies of Emotion IN the last chapter we dealt with the common varieties of sorrow, with the manner of its causation, and with its fundamental impulse and end; in this chapter we shall consider some of the secondary tendencies of sorrow, those which it manifests in sentiments, and of the functions that it there comes to perform. In every emotional system we may distinguish between two kinds of tendency belonging to it: (1) Those which are 'conative,' which we feel and, so far as we identify ourselves with the system, strive to realise; and (2) those tendencies which we do not feel and which are accomplished independently of our concurrence. An example of the first is the tendency of anger to threaten, injure, or destroy its object: an example of the second, is the tendency of anger to arouse pride, and of pride frequently to arouse anger, and of both frequently to exclude fear and to harden our feelings,-effects which occur without our concurrence, and sometimes to our astonishment or dismay. Yet any one of these tendencies, when we distinguish them, may be voluntarily pursued. Thus, a man may try to become angry to increase his feeling of strength, or to exclude fear, as he may take alcohol to stimulate his courage. This second class of tendencies is that by which secret changes of our character are effected, such as we do not often recognise ourselves even after they have taken place; but those who live with us often notice them. The first, being due to our concurrence, are less concealed from us. And thus through the one class or the other a man's character becomes changed, grows hard or tender, reverent or scornful, modest or shameless, according to secret laws of the emotions by which one excites or represses another, strengthens or weakens its tendencies. We shall here confine ourselves to the first class, and consider a secondary group of conative tendencies not essential to sorrow but which it assumes in sentiments of love. This is the sorrow most familiar to us, that which is caused by the frustration of love itself through the loss or destruction of the beloved object. Its tendencies are also familiar, and have been again and again described in literature. 2. The Law of Attraction The first and most familiar tendency is that sorrow, though a painful emotion, always manifests a certain attraction to its object. If sorrow is caused by separation, this attraction is shown by recollection. In the anguish at being alienated from one whom we love, we recall all the facts, and consider how the misunderstanding or the blame can be removed or forgiveness accorded, so that two who love one another may be reunited. And there is sorrow in physical separation. Lambs separated from their dams bleat or cry, and wander about in search of them. Dogs separated from their loved masters watch and whine, and travel often long distances to find them. When sorrow is caused by death, this attraction is shown by reluctance to be separated from the corpse, by gazing long and fixedly at it, and at the coffin, and for the last time into the open grave, and sometimes by a resolution to be united in death; afterwards by maintaining the recollection of the object, and by cherishing everything which keeps this recollection fresh. Thus those who sorrow shut themselves in their chambers, and refuse to see company, that the course of their thoughts and recollections may be unimpeded; or they admit only those who will talk of the dead with them, and sympathise with their grief. And they keep everything that reminds them of the departed, and which makes remembrance more vivid-old letters, keepsakes, and portraits; and they wander about the places where they were often together, and sometimes keep the rooms where they lived unchanged. Literature is full of expressions of this universal tendency of sorrow at the loss of a loved object, and how when it is opposed it becomes obstinate, and, like other obstructed impulses, often manifests anger. This obstinacy is frequently noticed. Rachel mourneth for her children, and "will not be comforted." Spenser represents this tendency in conjunction with that of self-injury and desire for solitude :— "She wilfully her sorrow did augment, And offered hope of comfort did despise ; Wilhelm, says Goethe, at the loss of Mariana, passed "days of pain unmixed, ever-returning and purposely renewed." 2 "All grief," says Seneca, "is obstinate." 3 In addressing Livia, he says: "I knew that I must not oppose your grief during its first transports, lest my very attempts at consolation might irritate it, and add fuel to it."4 "Il est des douleurs," says Marmontel, "plus attachantes que le plaisir même. Jamais, dans le plus heureux temps, lorsque la maison paternelle était pour moi si douce et si riante, je n'avais eu autant de peine à la quitter que lorsqu'elle fut dans le deuil." E "5 And of sorrow's resistance to consolation, he says: “Ne le lui proposer pas comme une dissipation; les grandes douleurs y repugnent; il faut à leur insu tâcher de les distraire et les tromper pour les guérir.”6 Resistance to consolation is secondary to this great clinging impulse of Sorrow; lest by being consoled we come to think less of the object, and finally to forget it altogether; and as 2 'Wilhelm Meister,' book ii. ch. i. 4 Ibid. 1 'Faery Queen.' 3 On Consolation,' i. (Bohn). 'Mémoires,' Livre i. p. 96. instrumental to it,-and especially in the first stage of sorrow, -we endeavour to maintain the painful remembrance of the object, and the painful state of sorrow itself: "O sorrow, then can sorrow wane? O grief, can grief be changed to less? O last regret, regret can die!" 1 And this may even become a deliberate resolution, as it is expressed in an old ballad : "The tear shall never leave my cheek, And then with thee I'll sleep in Yarrow."2 And this endeavour sometimes strengthens itself in another way, by setting up the perpetual recollection at which it aims as an ethical ideal, involving remorse in forgetfulness and failure, according to the laws of the relative ethics of the sentiment. Goethe, describing the sorrow of Meister for the loss of Mariana, writes: He "bitterly reproached himself that after so great a loss he could yet enjoy one painless, restful, indifferent moment. He despised his own heart, and longed for the balm of tears and lamentations. To awaken these again within him, he would recall to memory the scenes of his bygone happiness . . . and when standing on the highest elevation he could reach, when the sunshine of past times again seemed to animate his limbs and heave his bosom, he would look back into the fearful chasm, would feast his eyes on its dismembering depths, then plunge down into its horrors, and thus force from nature the bitterest pangs. With such repeated cruelty did he tear himself in pieces. . . ." "4 If the attraction of sorrow for its object is shown not only in maintaining union with the object in thought, in resisting consolation, in renewing its own suffering, in setting up all that it strives to do as an ethical ideal, it would seem that it must 4 'Wilhelm Meister's Apprenticeship,' book ii. ch. i. (Carlyle's trans.). on reflection attach a value to the state of sorrow itself. Augustine describing his grief in youth at the loss of a loved friend, wonders in his profound way at this value set upon the painful emotion, asking whether the tears of love are pleasant or painful: "Thus was I wretched, and that wretched life I held dearer than my friend."1 Coventry Patmore, in his description of the inconsolable sorrow of lost spirits, conceives it as preferred to enjoyment: and And Tennyson, who calls sorrow "cruel fellowship," "sweet and bitter in a breath," yet invokes her to dwell with him, and be "no casual mistress but a wife." 5 There is thus ample evidence that, in this type, sorrow is attracted to the object, and does not avoid it on account of its painfulness, whether the sorrow be caused by absence, alienation, or death. Remembrance of the object, resistance to consolation, pursuit of solitude, renewal or augmentation of suffering, valuation of sorrow, and the ideal of its constancy, are but diverse manifestations of this attraction, different means which it adopts in different situations to attain its end. Let us now attempt to express this tendency which has such various manifestations, as a universal law of the sorrow of love: (59) The sorrow of love is ever attracted to the beloved object, and, in diverse ways, strives to maintain all that remains of the former union. 3. The Law of Restoration There is a second tendency belonging to this same type of sorrow, and so much involved with the first that the two are often confused together. This is the tendency of sorrow to restore the former state of the object, or the former relation in which it stood to the subject. Thus the attraction of 1 'Confessions,' B. iv., ii. (Ed. Pusey). 'Tristitia.' 2 The Unknown Eros'" 4 Ibid. iii. b Ibid. lix. |