SIMPLE EMOTIONS. CHAPTER I. INSTINCTIVE EMOTIONS. Previous Analysis.—It will be recollected that in the analysis which has been given of the sensibilities, they were arranged under three generic classes, viz., Simple Emotions, Affections, and Desires, all, however, having this in common, that they are in themselves agreeable or disagreeable, as states of mind, according as the object which awakens them is viewed as either good or evil. Nature of simple Emotions. Of these, the simple emotions, which are first to be considered, comprise, it will be remembered, that large class of feelings which, in their various modifications and degrees, constitute the joys and sorrows of life. They may be comprised, with some latitude of meaning, under the general terms joy and sorrow, as modifications of that comprehensive principle or phase of human experience. They are awakened in view of an object regarded as good or as evil; an object, moreover, of present possession and present enjoyment or suffering; in which last respect they differ from desires, which have respect always to some good, or apparent good, not in present pos session, but viewed as attainable. Division of simple Emotions. Of these simple emotions, again, some may be called instinctive, as belonging to the animal nature, and, to some extent, common to man with the brutes, in distinction from others of a higher order, invosving or presupposing the exercise of reason and the reflective powers. It is of the former class that we are to treat in the present chapter. L-OF THAT GENERAL STATE OF THE MIND KNOWN AS CHEERFUL NESS; AND ITS OPPOSITE, MELANCHOLY. Nature of this Feeling.-There is a state of mind, of which every one is at times conscious, in which, without any immediately exciting cause, a general liveliness and joyous ness of spirit, seldom rising to the definiteness of a distinct emotion, a subdued under-current of gladness, seems to fill the soul, and flow on through all its channels. It is not so much itself joy, as a disposition to be joyful; not so much itself a visible sun in the heavens, as a mild, gently-diffused light filling the sky, and bathing all objects in its serene loveliness and beauty. It has been well termed "a sort of perpetual gladness." Prevalence at different Periods of Life.—There are those, of fortunate temperament, with whom this seems to be the prevailing disposition, to whom every thing wears a cheerful and sunny aspect. Of others, the reverse is true. In early life this habitual joyousness of spirit is more commonly prev alent; in advanced years, more rarely met with. Whether it be that age has chilled the blood, or that the sober experience of life has saddened the heart, and corrected the more romantic visions of earlier years, as life passes on we are less habitually under the influence of this disposition. It is no longer the prevailing frame of the mind. In the beautiful language of another, "We are not happy, without knowing why we are happy, and though we may still be sus ceptible of joy, perhaps as intense, or even more intense, than in our years of unreflecting merriment, our joy must arise from a cause of corresponding importance; yet ever down to the close of extreme old age there still recur occs sionally some gleams of this almost instinctive happiness, like a vision of other years, or like those brilliant and unexpected corruscations which sometimes flash along the midnight of a wintry sky, and of which we are too ignorant of the cir cumstances that produce them, to know when to predict their return." The opposite Feeling. — Corresponding to this general state of mind now described, is one of quite the opposite character that habitual disposition to sadness which is usually called melancholy. Like its opposite, cheerfulness, it is rather a frame of mind than a positive emotion, and, like its opposite, it exists, often, without any marked and definite cause to which we can attribute it. It is that state in which subsiding grief, or the pressure of any severe calamity now passing away, leaves the mind, the grey and solemn twilight that succeeds a partial or total eclipse. It is, with many persons, the habitual state of mind, through long periods, perhaps even the greater part, of life. Not unfrequently it occurs that minds, of the rarest genius and most delicate sensibility, are subject to that extreme and habitual depression of spirits which casts a deep gloom over the brightest objects, and renders life itself a burden. This state of habitual gloom and despondency, itself usually a form of disease, the result of some physical derangement, deepens sometimes into a fixed and permanent disorder of the mind, and constitutes one of the most pitiable and hopeless forms of insanity. Such was the case with the melancholy, but most amiable and gentle Cowper. Element of poetic Sensibility. — In its milder forms, the state of mind which I describe, constitutes, not unfrequently, an element of what is termed poetic genius, a melancholy arising from some sad experience of the troubles and conflicts of life, and from sympathy with the suffering and sorrowing world, the great sad heart of humanity — a melancholy that, like the plaint of the Eolian harp, lends sweetness and richness to the music of its strain. Such are many of the strains of Tennyson; such the deep under-a rent of Milton's poetry; such, preeminently, the spirit and tone of John Foster, one of the truest and noblest specimens of poetic genius, although a writer of prose. A quick and lively sensibility, itself an inseparable concomitant of true genius, is not unfrequently accompanied with this gentler form of melancholy. The truly great soul that communes with itself, with nature, and with eternal truth, is no stranger to this subdued yet pleasing sadness. It is this to which Milton pays beautiful tribute in the Il Penseroso, and which he thus invokes : "But hail, thou goddess, sage and holy, Hail, divinest Melancholy! Come, pensive nun, devout and pure, Not inconsistent with Wit. It should be remarked that the disposition of which we speak is not inconsistent with the occasional and even frequent prevalence of feelings of directly the opposite nature. A prevailing tendency to sad ness is not unfrequently associated with an almost equally prevailing tendency to emotions of the ludicrous. The same liveliness of sensibility which prepares the soul to feel keenly whatever in life is adapted to awaken sad and sober reflec tions, also disposes it to notice quickly the little incongruities of character, the foibles and follies of mankind, in which a duller eye would detect nothing absurd or comical. It is, moreover, the natural tendency of the mind to spring back, like the bow unstrung, from one extreme of feeling to its |