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The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals by Charles Darwin: 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
Expression of Emotion in Man and Animals |
