HUMAN ACTION.
37
others from knowing what they feel, habitually make this knowledge the foundation of their sympathy[1]. In general
- ↑ The general clue to that enigma, the character of the French, seems to be that their feelings are very imperfectly modified by the objects exciting them. That is, the difference between the several degrees and kinds of feeling in them does not correspond, as much as it does in most other people, with the different degrees and kinds of power in the external objects. They want neither feeling nor ideas in the abstract; but there seems to be no connection in their minds between the one and the other. Consequently their feelings want compass and variety, and whatever else must depend on the "building up of our feelings through the imagination." The feelings of a Frenchman seem to be all one feeling. The moment any thing produces a change in him, he is thrown completely out of his character, he is quite beside himself. This is perhaps in a great measure owing to their quickness of perception. They do not give the object time to be thoroughly impressed on their minds, their feelings are roused at the first notice of it's approach, and if I may so express myself, fairly run away from the object instead of grappling with it. The least stimulus is sufficient to excite them and more is superfluous, for they do not wait for the whole impression, or stop to inquire what degree or kind it is of. There is not resistance enough in the matter to receive those sharp incisions, those deep marked, and strongly rooted impressions, the traces of which remain for ever. From whatever cause it proceeds, the sensitive principle in them does not seem to be susceptible of the same modification and variety of action as it does in others; and certainly the outward forms of things do not adhere to, nor wind themselves round their feelings in the same manner. For anything that appears to the contrary, objects might be supposed to have no direct communication with the internal sense of pleasure or pain, but to act upon it through some intermediate very confined organ, capable of transmitting little more than the simple impulse. But the same thing will follow, if we suppose the principle itself to be this very organ, that is, to want comprehensiveness, elasticity, and plastic force. (It is difficult to express this in English: but the French have a word, ressort, which expresses it exactly. This is possibly owing to their feeling the want of it; as there is no word
