Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
On The Impression Of Reality Attending Dramatic Representations.
Sitting alone in my study , I shut my book , lean back in m ^ chair , and following , either involuntarily or with design , a particular train of ideas , soon become insensible to all the objects around me , and with the mind ' s eye behold a course of action with its correspondent scenery , in which I appear engaged either as a spectator or an actor . The consciousness of my real condition is for a time suspended ; and I feel leasure or painapprobation or
disgustacp , , cording to the nature of the fancied scene . Nor are actions indicatory of what passes within , entirely wanting ; and though I may not , with the violence of Alanascar kicking the basket , spurn the table from me , yet I smile , frown , move my lips , and assume imperfect gestures and attitudes , in correspondence with my internal emotions . Herethenis a perfect illusion effected bthe
, , y mental faculties alone ; commencing with complete consciousness of my real situation , and proceeding to as complete a forgetfulness of it . A person enters the room—and the pageant vanishes . Again—I sit in the same place , and take up Sterne ' s story of Le Fevre . I am perfectly apprized , not only that Le Fevre is not in the roombut that no such person ever existed . But as I read
, 1 suffer the writer to lead me into the same kind of reverie which I had in the former instance created for myself ; and I follow him with the greater ease , as my mind is not encumbered with the labour of invention , but passively admits those representations of action and discourse , which he has wrought into such an admirable resemblance of nature . I soon become so rivetted to the book
that external objects are obliterated to me . I pity , glow , admire ; my eyes are suffused ; I sob ; I am even audible in my expressions of sympathy ; till a message breaks the charm , and summons me away , full of shame at the real tokens remaining of emotions founded en fiction . Now will any one , fairly consulting his feelings , assertthat in such a case he weeps merely from the reflection on possible human calamities ; and that Le Fevre is not for the time a real
person in his imagination ? Once more—I read' in Tacitus the highly-wrought description given by that historian of the return of Agrippina to Ital y , after the death of Germanicus . I feel myself much interested ; but from the rapidity of the narration , the want of those minute strokes which are necessary to fill up the picture of real life , and the intermixture
of the author ' s reflections , the whole is rather addressed to the intellect than to the imagination ; audi rather cry , " Plow admirably this is described ! " than view a distinct spectacle passino- before my si ght . But in the midst of my reading , I chance to cast my eyes upon West ' s picture of Agrippina landing at Brundusium : I see herwith downcast eyespale and extenuatedembracing the
, , , funeral urn—her little children hanging at her garment ; - —I see the awe-struck crowd , the mourning lictors , and the hardy veterans ¦ bursting into tears . Now , indeed , the illusion is complete . I think no longer of Tacitus or West—my heart and my eyes obey without resistance every call to sympathize with the widowed Agrippina . Here , then , an external object , addressed to one sf
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
On The Impression Of Reality Attending Dramatic Representations.
Sitting alone in my study , I shut my book , lean back in m ^ chair , and following , either involuntarily or with design , a particular train of ideas , soon become insensible to all the objects around me , and with the mind ' s eye behold a course of action with its correspondent scenery , in which I appear engaged either as a spectator or an actor . The consciousness of my real condition is for a time suspended ; and I feel leasure or painapprobation or
disgustacp , , cording to the nature of the fancied scene . Nor are actions indicatory of what passes within , entirely wanting ; and though I may not , with the violence of Alanascar kicking the basket , spurn the table from me , yet I smile , frown , move my lips , and assume imperfect gestures and attitudes , in correspondence with my internal emotions . Herethenis a perfect illusion effected bthe
, , y mental faculties alone ; commencing with complete consciousness of my real situation , and proceeding to as complete a forgetfulness of it . A person enters the room—and the pageant vanishes . Again—I sit in the same place , and take up Sterne ' s story of Le Fevre . I am perfectly apprized , not only that Le Fevre is not in the roombut that no such person ever existed . But as I read
, 1 suffer the writer to lead me into the same kind of reverie which I had in the former instance created for myself ; and I follow him with the greater ease , as my mind is not encumbered with the labour of invention , but passively admits those representations of action and discourse , which he has wrought into such an admirable resemblance of nature . I soon become so rivetted to the book
that external objects are obliterated to me . I pity , glow , admire ; my eyes are suffused ; I sob ; I am even audible in my expressions of sympathy ; till a message breaks the charm , and summons me away , full of shame at the real tokens remaining of emotions founded en fiction . Now will any one , fairly consulting his feelings , assertthat in such a case he weeps merely from the reflection on possible human calamities ; and that Le Fevre is not for the time a real
person in his imagination ? Once more—I read' in Tacitus the highly-wrought description given by that historian of the return of Agrippina to Ital y , after the death of Germanicus . I feel myself much interested ; but from the rapidity of the narration , the want of those minute strokes which are necessary to fill up the picture of real life , and the intermixture
of the author ' s reflections , the whole is rather addressed to the intellect than to the imagination ; audi rather cry , " Plow admirably this is described ! " than view a distinct spectacle passino- before my si ght . But in the midst of my reading , I chance to cast my eyes upon West ' s picture of Agrippina landing at Brundusium : I see herwith downcast eyespale and extenuatedembracing the
, , , funeral urn—her little children hanging at her garment ; - —I see the awe-struck crowd , the mourning lictors , and the hardy veterans ¦ bursting into tears . Now , indeed , the illusion is complete . I think no longer of Tacitus or West—my heart and my eyes obey without resistance every call to sympathize with the widowed Agrippina . Here , then , an external object , addressed to one sf