Page:Littell's Living Age - Volume 131.djvu/384

 many more. The Delaware Water Gap, a mountain resort, and four or five other well-known places in my mind, all within easy reach of this city, have room for from twelve to fifteen thousand. Atlantic City will take another fifteen thousand. All these places are quite as apt to be full as Saratoga. During the present season visitors to the Centennial are running to and fro between these resorts and Philadelphia. To the English visitor desirous of seeing something of American society, a trip to any of them is exceedingly interesting; quite as interesting, perhaps, as what he may find at the exhibition. The "season" is at its height in the early days of August, and it continues for about six weeks longer.



From The Saturday Review.

THE LUXURY OF GRIEF.

remarks, in his "Principles of Psychology," upon the indulgence generally known as the "luxury of grief," and otherwise called "self-pity." He offers an explanation of its meaning, but admits that his explanation does not completely satisfy himself. One explanation is, as he remarks, that, pity being in some sense an agreeable feeling, the pleasure remains even when we are ourselves the object of the emotion. This explanation, if partly sound, still leaves it to be explained why pity should be agreeable. We need not consider how Mr. Spencer accounts for this last phenomenon, as he offers a different account of the pleasure of "self-pity." He thinks that it may perhaps arise from a vague impression in the mind of the sufferer that he has received less than his deserts. It is natural, for example, to a rejected contributor to think that the editor must be stupid. By a natural association of ideas, he learns, to dwell upon the fact of the rejection as illustrating the fact that he is not properly appreciated. Logically speaking, such a fact is hardly consolatory. The true conclusion is, "The world does not value me as it ought." The proposition confounded with it is, "I am worth more than the world thinks." If my own merits are taken as the starting-point, the opinion is painful; if the world's opinion is the starting-point, the opinion is pleasant. The bare fact, then, that a certain person does not do me justice can afford no legitimate ground for satisfaction; but when converted by an illogical process into a proof that I am worth more than that person thinks, it may be made to flatter that most illogical passion, my vanity.

The pleasure which people often take in contemplating injustice to themselves seems to show that this explanation is often correct. A pet grievance becomes a hobby with many men. In setting forth their grievance to the world, or even on brooding over it in solitude, they are necessarily dwelling upon their own virtues. And it is not surprising that, in many cases, the habit should generate an unreasonable self-complacency. We should doubt, however, whether this doctrine is wide enough to cover all cases. The most familiar examples of the "luxury of grief" seem to be but indirectly connected with any form of vanity. A sentimentalist takes a perverse pleasure in cultivating melancholy, after the fashion of Jaques, and delights in self-abasement and exaggeration of his own incapacity for action; or a widow cherishes her grief for a dead husband till she resents any attempts at comfort, and takes a pride in self-torture. In such cases, unfortunately familiar enough, it is often almost impossible to say what are the ultimate components of the passion. We have such marvellous skill in deceiving ourselves that nothing is more difficult than to give a fair account of our own emotions. The morbid recluse may be really nothing but a thoroughly indolent man, who dwells upon his weaknesses to excuse himself from action. Excessive grief for the dead easily connects itself with personal vanity. We are really seeking for the praise of constancy, or yielding to a sort of superstitious belief that the dead will take pleasure in our useless sacrifice of our own happiness. The play of motives is so intricate that the attempt to analyze them or sum up the result in a single formula is necessarily illusory. Much, therefore that passes for self-pity may be really some more intelligible passion in a metamorphic state.

The feeling, however, seems to be so distinct that we do not doubt its real existence. Without attempting a full explanation, or denying the validity of Mr. Spencer's explanation as far as it goes, we are inclined to ask the previous question, whether any logical explanation is to be expected. An emotion is something different from a belief, though the two are closely connected. Now the method applied by Mr. Spencer seems to assume that any emotion must have, so to speak, a given formula, and that, if this formula be contradictory, the emotion ought to be