Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Select Papers On Various Subjects, Read Before A Literary Society In London.
sophers , deserves attention ; I mean those of novel writers , and novel readers . When these tell you sensibility must be bora with 3-011 , as they call it , they speak more truth than they intend , or are aware of ; for , not to possess sensibility , is not to exist . When the passions , by frequent exercise , in all their various combinations and degrees , become extremely irritable , they produce a
state of mind which not only disposes but obliges lhe possessor to feel with peculiar acuteness all the pain and pleasure which comes under either his own immediate experience or observation , and those who possess this state of mind in the highest degree have , in my opinion , the greatest share of sensibility . If this be the true origin of sensibility , it follows that , as none can
he without passions , all must possess sensibility in a greater or less measure , proportioned to the exercise those passions have experienced since the commencement of their existence ; and , as a confirmation of the truth of this definition , it is obvious , that sensibility is seldom or never discovered in this exalted state among the lower orders of mankind ; I mean the absolutely illiteratewho have no ' means of
, acquiring it by conversation . Nothing contributes more toward the attainment of this state of mind than novel-reading ; here the passions , by being excited , associated , or contrasted , are much heightened and improved , while the impulse of nature , the situation of life , or a thousand other circumstances which escape common observation , exercise one passion in
preference , and often to the prejudice of the rest , producing much of that difference which we cannot help perceiving in human minds . Let us endeavour to illustrate this by example . —A girl , young and inexperienced , takes up a novel ; all her passions are quickly afloat ; but the design of the author , and the appointment of nature , single out love for her particular attention ; by degrees she perceives with what miraculous propriety the mental and personal beauties of
the hero of the piece attach themselves to the person Whom accident has made the object of her affection : from that time it becomes more . Interesting than ever ; she lays down the book , but imagination , that "busy principle , ransacks the stores of memoiy , and having collected all the-materials she can furnish toward the business in hand , sets itself with wonderful ingenuity to combine themand thereb
-, y pro duce new ; the result is , a numerous , and often contradictory heap of qualifications , which , without consideration or order , are bestowed on the man of her heart ; he not unfrequentfy exhibiting the same ridiculous appearance that an ordinary woman makes whose prevailing passion has imposed on her a load of fineiy , set off with ribbands of every breadthformand colour!—The object thus becoming her
, , own , in the most proper sense of the word ( for she made him ) , what wonder if she love him with increasing violence , a violence which , if not moderated by nearer acquaintance , converts the irritability into inflammation , induces madness , and perhaps death . Thus , too , when a person whose compassion is , from the same cause , in high cultivation , sees another in distress , the idea arising is
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software.
Select Papers On Various Subjects, Read Before A Literary Society In London.
sophers , deserves attention ; I mean those of novel writers , and novel readers . When these tell you sensibility must be bora with 3-011 , as they call it , they speak more truth than they intend , or are aware of ; for , not to possess sensibility , is not to exist . When the passions , by frequent exercise , in all their various combinations and degrees , become extremely irritable , they produce a
state of mind which not only disposes but obliges lhe possessor to feel with peculiar acuteness all the pain and pleasure which comes under either his own immediate experience or observation , and those who possess this state of mind in the highest degree have , in my opinion , the greatest share of sensibility . If this be the true origin of sensibility , it follows that , as none can
he without passions , all must possess sensibility in a greater or less measure , proportioned to the exercise those passions have experienced since the commencement of their existence ; and , as a confirmation of the truth of this definition , it is obvious , that sensibility is seldom or never discovered in this exalted state among the lower orders of mankind ; I mean the absolutely illiteratewho have no ' means of
, acquiring it by conversation . Nothing contributes more toward the attainment of this state of mind than novel-reading ; here the passions , by being excited , associated , or contrasted , are much heightened and improved , while the impulse of nature , the situation of life , or a thousand other circumstances which escape common observation , exercise one passion in
preference , and often to the prejudice of the rest , producing much of that difference which we cannot help perceiving in human minds . Let us endeavour to illustrate this by example . —A girl , young and inexperienced , takes up a novel ; all her passions are quickly afloat ; but the design of the author , and the appointment of nature , single out love for her particular attention ; by degrees she perceives with what miraculous propriety the mental and personal beauties of
the hero of the piece attach themselves to the person Whom accident has made the object of her affection : from that time it becomes more . Interesting than ever ; she lays down the book , but imagination , that "busy principle , ransacks the stores of memoiy , and having collected all the-materials she can furnish toward the business in hand , sets itself with wonderful ingenuity to combine themand thereb
-, y pro duce new ; the result is , a numerous , and often contradictory heap of qualifications , which , without consideration or order , are bestowed on the man of her heart ; he not unfrequentfy exhibiting the same ridiculous appearance that an ordinary woman makes whose prevailing passion has imposed on her a load of fineiy , set off with ribbands of every breadthformand colour!—The object thus becoming her
, , own , in the most proper sense of the word ( for she made him ) , what wonder if she love him with increasing violence , a violence which , if not moderated by nearer acquaintance , converts the irritability into inflammation , induces madness , and perhaps death . Thus , too , when a person whose compassion is , from the same cause , in high cultivation , sees another in distress , the idea arising is