ons are
superficial, they imagine the Seat of Love and Friendship to be placed
visibly in the Eyes: They judge what Stock of Kindness you had for the
Living, by the Quantity of Tears you pour out for the Dead; so that if
one Body wants that Quantity of Salt-water another abounds with, he is
in great Danger of being thought insensible or ill-natured: They are
Strangers to Friendship, whose Grief happens not to be moist enough to
wet such a Parcel of Handkerchiefs. But Experience has told us,
nothing is so fallacious as this outward Sign of Sorrow; and the
natural History of our Bodies will teach us that this Flux of the
Eyes, this Faculty of Weeping, is peculiar only to some Constitutions.
We observe in the tender Bodies of Children, when crossed in their
little Wills and Expectations, how dissolvable they are into Tears. If
this were what Grief is in Men, Nature would not be able to support
them in the Excess of it for one Moment. Add to this Observation, how
quick is their Transition from this Passion to that of their Joy. I
won't say we see often, in the next tender Things to Children, Tears
shed without much Grieving. Thus it is common to shed Tears without
much Sorrow, and as common to suffer much Sorrow without shedding
Tears. Grief and Weeping are indeed frequent Companions, but, I
believe, never in their highest Excesses. As Laughter does not proceed
from profound Joy, so neither does Weeping from profound Sorrow. The
Sorrow which appears so easily at the Eyes, cannot have pierced deeply
into the Heart. The Heart distended with Grief, stops all the Passages
for Tears or Lamentations.

'Now, Sir, what I would incline you to in all this, is, that you would
inform the shallow Criticks and Observers upon Sorrow, that true
Affliction labours to be invisible, that it is a Stranger to Ceremony,
and that it bears in its own Nature a Dignity much above the little
Circumstances which are affected under the Notion of Decency. You must
know, Sir, I have lately lost a dear Friend, for whom I have not yet
shed a Tear, and for that Reason your Animadversions on that Subject
would be the more acceptable to',
SIR,
_Your most humble Servant_,
B.D.

June _the_ 15_th_.

_Mr_. SPECTATOR,

'As I hope there are but few who have so little Gratitude as not to
acknowledge the Usefulness of your Pen, and to esteem it a Publick
Benefit; so I am sensib