216 EXPRESSION OF LOVE, ETC. Chap. VIII. 



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 ex- 

 plained by assuming that, when Ave see or hear of suf- 

 fering in another, the idea of suffering is called up so viv- 

 idly 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 affec- 

 tion. "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 our- 

 selves, 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 suf- 

 fusion 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 associa- 

 tion 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 dis- 

 tresses 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 be- 

 loved 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 



