prosperity of the
other; for terror is a passion which always produces delight when it
does not press too close; and pity is a passion accompanied with
pleasure, because it arises from love and social affection. Whenever we
are formed by nature to any active purpose, the passion which animates
us to it is attended with delight; and as our creator has designed we
should be united by the bond of SYMPATHY, he has strengthened that bond
by a proportionable delight; and there most, where our sympathy is most
wanted, in the distresses of others. If this passion was simply painful
we should shun with the greatest care all persons and places that could
excite such a passion; as some, who are so far gone in indolence as not
to endure any strong impression, actually do. But the case is widely
different with the greater part of mankind; there is no spectacle we so
eagerly pursue as that of some uncommon and grievous calamity; so that
whether the misfortune is before our eyes, or whether they are turned
back to it in history, it always touches with delight. This is not an
unmixed delight, but blended with no small uneasiness. _The delight we
have in such things, hinders us from shunning scenes of misery_; and the
pain we feel _prompts us to relieve ourselves in relieving those who
suffer_; and all this antecedent to any reasoning by an instinct that
works us to its own purposes without our concurrence."

The great author then proceeds to illustrate this position further, and
after some observations says:

"The nearer tragedy approaches the reality, and the further it removes
us from all ideas of fiction, the more perfect is its power. But be its
power what it will, it never approaches to what it represents. Choose a
day to represent the most sublime and affecting tragedy we have; appoint
the most favourite actors; spare no cost upon the scenes and
decorations; unite the greatest efforts of poetry, painting and music;
and when you have collected your audience, just when their minds are
erect with expectation, let it be reported that a state criminal of high
rank is on the point of being executed in the adjoining square; in a
moment the emptiness of the theatre would demonstrate the comparative
weakness of the imitative arts, and proclaim the triumph of the _real_
sympathy. This notion of our having a simple pain in the reality, yet a
delight in the representation, arises hence, that we do not sufficiently
distinguish what we would