CHAPTER XI OF THE LAWS OF THE INCREASE AND DIMINUTION OF SORROW THERE are some familiar laws of the increase and diminution to which sorrow is liable that we shall attempt to define in this chapter, to serve as a basis for the further research that will (1) reveal the facts that contradict them, and (2) bring out their remaining ambiguities: thereby taking that step in advance without which we cannot carry these laws nearer to the ideal of universally true or scientific laws. It is a general law that (64) The intensity of emotions is proportioned, other things equal, to the degree in which they contrast with preceding or accompanying states. This law has been frequently noticed. Adam Smith expressed it as follows: "The vivacity . . . of every sensation, as well as of every sentiment, seems to be greater or less in proportion to the change made by the impression of either upon the situation of the mind or organ; but this change must necessarily be the greatest when opposite sentiments and sensations are contrasted, or succeed immediately to one another." It seems to be a particular form of this law that (65) Sorrow tends to be increased by the close precedence of joy, and in proportion to the clearness of our remembrance of it in our experience; and, again, by perceiving the signs of joy around us, and in a less degree by the thought that, while we sorrow, others rejoice. Many observations in literature bear witness to this law. 1 'Hist. of Astronomy,' sect. i. Thus, Dante says, "Nessun maggior dolore Che ricordarsi del tempo felice Tennyson repeats it: "This is truth the poet sings That a sorrow's crown of sorrows is remembering happier things." » 2 It is implied in what Balzac says of the fortitude of one of his characters: "Il a fallu, comme elle, n'avoir connu qu'une rapide saison de bonheur pour résister à tant de secousses!" 8 Another says: "Le meilleur remède que je sache pour les douleurs présentes, c'est d'oublier les joies passées."4 Shakespeare represents the unfortunate queen of Richard II. as declining to hear tales of joy or sorrow? "For if of joy, being altogether wanting, It doth remember me the more of sorrow; It adds more sorrow to my want of joy ;"5 Meredith says: "The curse of sorrow is comparison As the sun casteth shade night showeth star, Moreover the comparison which increases sorrow may include not only our own past joys, but those of others around us: "Oderunt hilarem tristes, tristemque jocosi."7 For sometimes the expressions of another's happiness reminds us of our own lost happiness : "Thou'll break my heart, thou bonnie bird That sings upon the bough; Thou minds me o' the happy days When my fause love was true." 8 1 'Inferno,' canto v. line 121. 3 'Madame de la Chanterie,' ch. liv. 5 'Richard II.,' a. iii. sc. iv. 4 2 'Locksley Hall.' + Desper, 'Cymbal,' p. 157. The Shaving of Shagpat,' 'The Thwackings.' 7 Horace, 'Epistolae at Tollium,' i. 8 Robert Burns. And people are aware of this; for when they come into the presence of anyone afflicted with sorrow, they repress the expression of enjoyment, and replace it by one of sympathy and sadness. And thus it is that when disaster comes in the midst of enjoyment it would at once make the greatest impression, did we not so often fail to realise it. Adam Smith observes: "Grief comes on slowly and gradually, nor ever rises at once to that height of agony to which it is increased after a little time. But joy comes rushing upon us all at once like a torrent.”1 But with some quick minds it is different. "When any distress or terror," says Goethe, "surprises us in the midst of our amusements it naturally makes a deeper impression than at other times, either because the contrast makes us more keenly susceptible, or rather because our senses are then more open to impressions, and the shock is consequently stronger.' "2 (2) There is a complementary law to the one we have been considering: (66) Sorrow tends to be diminished by the close precedency and by the remembrance of other sorrow in our experience, and again by the perception of the signs of sorrow around us, and in some, though in a less degree, by the knowledge of such suffering. This law, like the preceding, seems to be a particular form of a more general law, which has also been referred to by Adam Smith. He states it in the following terms: "As the opposition of contrasted sentiments heightens their vivacity, so the resemblance of those which immediately succeed each other renders them more faint and languid." 3 "A parent," he proceeds, "who has lost several children immediately after one another, will be less affected with the death of the last than with that of the first, though the loss in itself be, in this case, undoubtedly greater; but his mind being already sunk in sorrow, the new misfortune seems to produce no other effect than a continuance of the same melancholy. . . ." "Those who have been unfortunate through the whole course of their lives are often indeed habitually melancholy, and 1 'History of Astronomy,' sect. i. 2 The Sorrows of Werther,' June 16. + Ibid. sometimes peevish and splenetic, yet upon any fresh disappointment, though they are vexed and complain a little, they seldom fly out into any more violent passion, and never fall into those transports of rage or grief which often, upon the like occasions, distract the fortunate and successful." 1 Adam Smith concludes that on this law are founded "in a great measure, some of the effects of habit and custom. It is well-known that custom deadens the vivacity of both pain and pleasure, abates the grief we should feel for the one, and weakens the joy we should derive from the other . . . : because custom and the frequent repetition of any object comes at last to form and bend the mind or organ to that habitual mood and disposition which fits them to receive its impression, without undergoing any very violent change." 2 Whether this law that, where successive emotions resemble one another the last tends to be on that account weaker, can be maintained with the generality which Adam Smith ascribed to it may be doubted. Our experience of the behaviour of anger seems to contradict it. If a man is already in some degree under the influence of anger, it will probably be increased by opposition to his wishes. Children are so well aware of this fact that they select the most favourable times for requesting favours of a parent that are likely at others to be refused. There are indeed some men, says Gratian, "who cannot refuse"; with them no skill is required. "But with others their first word at all times is No; with them great art is required. . . Surprise them when in a pleasant mood, when a repast of body or soul has just left them refreshed. . . The days of joy are the days of favour, for joy overflows from the inner man into the outward creation." It is not "a good time after sorrow."3 In a quarrel we often observe anger to be steadily increased as the insults become more degrading to the person to whom they are offered. It seems to be partially the same with fear. For although sudden fears are the worst, the coward's fears grow with his cowardice. The fact that he has frequently experienced fear 1 'History of Astronomy,' sect. i. 2 Ibid. 3 'Art of Worldly Wisdom,' trans. J. Jacobs, ccxxxv. Ꮓ in the past does not render his sensibility to it the less lively in the future. There are therefore limiting conditions of the truth of the law; and we have here to contract it to those cases of sorrow to which it seems perfectly applicable. A succession of sorrows tends to blunt our sensibility to fresh ones. A Spanish author observes: "one sorrow soothes another's bitterness";1 and another that "To think of bygone sorrows soothes the troubles of to-day." 2 Seneca observes that a "long course of adversity has this good in it-that though it vexes a body a great while, it comes to harden us at last." & It is a part or consequence of this same law, though it shocks us to recognise it, that Sorrow is lessened or consoled by the perception or the knowledge that others suffer around us, or have similarly suffered in the past. You "cannot mention," says Seneca," any house so miserable as not to find comfort in the fact of another being yet more miserable."4 Cicero thinks this consolation superficial: "Levis est consolatio ex miseriâ aliorum." 5 Yet death would be a more terrible evil to contemplate were it not common to us all; and it is a noteworthy fact that if the evil from which we suffer seems peculiar to ourselves, or not fairly distributed in the world, we are apt to have an angry feeling at its injustice. Here is that railing against governments, or that "challenging of the heavens" which De Quincey found in certain kinds of sorrow, which those who have respect or piety will repress, although their sorrow none the less tends to evoke it under these conditions. What we suffer we think others ought to suffer. "Mythology tells us that the Gods are not exempt from suffering, its aim, I suppose, being to lighten our sorrow at death by the thought that even deities are subject to it." And "it is a consolation," says Seneca, "to a humble man in trouble that the greatest are subject to reverses of fortune, and a man weeps more calmly over his dead son in the corner of his hovel, if he sees a piteous funeral proceed out of the 1 'Vayas-y-Ponce,' quoted by Harbottle, 'Dict. of Quotations,' p. 37. 2 Op. cit. p. 49. 3 'Of Consolation': To Helvia, ii. ' 'Epistolæ,' vi. 3. 4 'On Consolation,' xii. Seneca, op. cit., xii. |