t once upon this
knowledge, when the occasion arises we are prepared to act. So, when
literature presents examples of emotional experience, it informs us of
the nature of emotion, its causes, occasions, and results, its value in
character, its influence on action, the modes of its expression; it
breeds habits of right thinking in respect to these, and is educative;
and, just as in the preceding case, though we do not act at once upon
this knowledge, when the occasion arises we are prepared to act.
Concurrently with emotions thus objectively presented there arises in us
a similar series of emotions in the beholding; by sympathy we ourselves
feel what is before us, the emotions there are also in us in proportion
as we identify ourselves with the character; or, in proportion as our
own individuality asserts itself by revolt, a contrary series arises of
hatred, indignation, or contempt, of pity for the character or of terror
in the feeling that what has happened to one may happen to us in our
humanity. We are taught in a more intimate and vital way than through
ideas alone; the lesson has entered into our bosoms; we have lived the
life. Literature is thus far more powerfully educative emotionally than
intellectually; and if the poet has worked with wisdom, he has bred in
us habits of right feeling in respect to life, he has familiarized our
hearts with love and anger, with compassion and fear, with courage, with
resolve, has exercised us in them upon their proper occasions and in
their noble expression, has opened to us the world of emotion as it
ought to be in showing us that world as it is in men with all its
possibilities of baseness, ugliness, and destruction. This is the
service which literature performs in this field. Imagination shows us a
scheme of emotion attending the scheme of events and presents it in its
general connection with life, in simple, powerful, and complete
expression, on the lines of inevitable law in its sphere. We go out from
the sway of this imagined world, more sensitive to life, more accessible
to emotion, more likely and more capable, when the occasion arises, to
feel rightly, and to carry that feeling out into an act. In all
literature the knowledge gained objectively, whether of action or
emotion, is a preparation for life; but this intimate experience of
emotion in connection with an imagined world is a more vital
preparation, and enters more directly, easily, and effectually into
men's bosom