Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 14.djvu/206

194 Words are not merely the indications of feeling, but they may also react upon our feelings, modify them, in some cases even produce new groups of emotions.

If the emotions are a desirable and essential element of the human mind, and if language can thus react upon our emotional nature, the expression of these desirable emotions ought not to be neglected, but even positively cultivated. If we compare the German language with the English, we are struck by the poverty of the latter as regards the expression of emotions, and especially of those indicating contentment.

The wealth of the German language in expressions of feeling and general moods admits of no doubt. In what language do we meet with such a wealth of words expressing mental pain, from the most marked shadings down to the finest, until pain gently overlaps into pleasure? Let us attempt an incomplete enumeration of such expressions, omitting the numerous foreign words (such as Melancholie, Apathie, Misere, Agonie, Tortur, etc.), which have been embodied in German idiom: Verzweiflung, Marter, Pein, Jammer (Herzensjammer), Elend, Gram, Kummer, Leid (Herzeleid), Herzensnoth, Herzensangst, Bangen, Trauer, Harm, Betrübniss, Trübsal, Trübsinn, Unglück, Schmerz, Weh, Unlust, Schmachten, Hinschmachten, Hindarben, Vergehen, Hinbrüten, Schwermuth, Wehmuth, Sehnsucht, Sehnen, Drängen, etc. Besides these there are numerous expressive compounds.

Now, it is true that the German, as well as every language, is richer in words expressive of grief than of joy; and this is a characteristic common to all language, because it springs from psychological facts common to all men. We do not so readily express our joy as our grief, because, in the first place, grief is more dignified than joy. We do not like to show our joy, because it is easily unbridled, and the boundless is less comely than the bounded. Joy is elation, which implies opposition to the usual fetters and to form; while grief is a contraction, which implies a closer sinking into form, and seeks the plastic. The facial expression of joy and grief corresponds to this—nay, perhaps was a cause in determining our inclination or repugnance as regards the expression of these emotions. Joy manifests itself in an expansion of the facial muscles, and avoids the eye of the sculptor who wishes to render a beautiful harmonious display of features. The sinking and contraction of grief, on the other hand, bring out more markedly the fine features and the modeling. Then, again, elation means motion and unrest; it points to restless diffusion, while contraction must end, and points to quiet and rest; and therefore sculptors, to whom to a great extent we owe the creation of the ideal of human beauty, rendered the latter and shunned the former.

In the second place, sympathy, if sought by the happy, is less sure to be obtained; for man has the evil tendency to envy, and, though it is easy for him to feel the delight of compassion and pity, he is more grudging with his sympathy with others' joy. He has also the