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.
Why suffering, when actually experienced by ourselves, excites weeping, has been discussed in a former chapter. With respect to joy, its natural and universal expression is laughter; and with all the races of man loud laughter leads to the secretion of tears more freely than does any other cause excepting distress. The suffusion of the eyes with tears, which undoubtedly occurs under great joy, though there is no laughter, can, as it seems to me, be explained through habit and association on the same principles as the effusion of tears from grief, although there is no screaming. Nevertheless it is not a little remarkable that sympathy with the distresses of others should excite tears more freely than our own distress; and this certainly is the case. Many a man, from whose eyes no suffering of his own could wring a tear, has shed tears at the sufferings of a beloved friend. It is still more remarkable that sympathy with the happiness or good fortune of those whom we tenderly love should lead to the same result, whilst a similar happiness felt by ourselves would leave our eyes dry. We should, however, bear in mind that the long-continued habit of restraint which is so powerful in checking the free flow of tears from bodily pain, has not been brought into play in preventing a moderate effusion of tears in sympathy with the sufferings or happiness of others.
Music has a wonderful power, as I have elsewhere attempted to show,[24] of recalling in a vague and indefinite manner, those strong emotions which were felt during long-past ages, when, as is probable, our early progenitors courted each other by the aid of vocal tones. And as several of our strongest emotions--grief, great joy, love, and sympathy--lead to the free secretion of tears, it is not surprising that music should be apt to cause our eyes to become suffused with tears, especially when we are already softened by any of the tenderer feelings. Music often produces another peculiar effect. We know that every strong sensation, emotion, or excitement-- extreme pain, rage, terror, joy, or the passion of love-- all have a special tendency to cause the muscles to tremble; and the thrill or slight shiver which runs down the backbone and limbs of many persons when they are powerfully affected by music, seems to bear the same relation to the above trembling of the body, as a slight suffusion of tears from the power of music does to weeping from any strong and real emotion.
_Devotion_.--As devotion is, in some degree, related to affection, though mainly consisting of reverence, often combined with fear, the expression of this state of mind may here be briefly noticed. With some sects, both past and present, religion and love have been strangely combined; and it has even been maintained, lamentable as the fact may be, that the holy kiss of love differs but little from that which a man bestows on a woman, or a woman on a man.[25] Devotion is chiefly expressed by the face being directed towards the heavens, with the eyeballs upturned. Sir C.