pirations been realized he would probably have found himself in no very comfortable condition. Yet a "thaw," as taken to symbolize the softening of an obdurate nature, has a potent plenitude of meaning; and the song of the poor maniac to his mistress is not without a certain touch of fantastic pathos "I'll weave thee a garland of straw, my love, If so she was no strong-minded woman. of sterner stuff→ Cæsar was "Think not that Cæsar bears such rebel blood And what a splendid metaphor is that of Dryden's, where he describes one of his heroes as being clad in "Burnished steel that cast a glare From far, and seemed to thaw the freezing air." But let the poets say what they may about a thaw, it is, of all things under the sun, the dreariest and most uncomfortable. It is bad enough in the streets, where it soaks you through and through, and causes you to tumble about in all directions; but it is still worse when it invades your home, and making your pipes to burst, places you at the mercy of that most unconscionable of tyrants, the plumber. When that dreadful man once crosses your threshold with his infernal soldering pots, and sets about pulling your house to pieces, shaking his head oracularly, peering down your cistern, squinting up your pipes, and telling you what a providential thing it is he has come in the nick of time, for that otherwise you would have been swept into the next parish by the rising floods-farewell to warmth and cleanliness, a long farewell to decency and comfort. The various phases of Fog, Fat, Frost and Thaw have been distinctively marked this Christmas. We who still survive have passed through them all triumphantly. We have feasted and made merry, we have quaffed our ale or wine as the case may have been, we have cut deep into our plumpuddings, we have given innumerable geese and turkeys cause to regret that they ever were born, we have had our fill of good old British roystering. The holidays are over, and right glad am I to think that we have got once more into quiet waters. SYMPAT THE USES OF SYMPATHY. YMPATHY is precisely that one touch of nature which, as Shakespeare matchlessly phrases it, "makes the whole world kin." All that is most lovable and endearing, most refined and exalted in humanity, owes its origin to the impulses of that celestial instinct which prompts us to feel for others' woe. It is the quintessence of honor; it is the soul of heroism. What leads the forlorn hope in battle?-what sends the hero of the fire brigade up blazing piles and through sheets of flame?—what mans the lifeboat amid raging waves and howling winds?-what makes women, young, lovely, and highborn, exchange the gilded saloons of fashion for the field of slaughter, "where rings the loud musket and flashes the sword?"—what urges men who, without reproach, might dwell at home at ease, to go forth with their lives in their hands to the deserts of Africa and the snow-fields of the Arctic regions in search of lost explorers?-what should it be but sympathy? This it is, and this alone that steels men and women of the noblest types to look death fearlessly in the face so that it may be said of them in aftertime that they died in a good cause the best of all causes, the rescue of their fellow-creatures. "There never was any heart truly great and generous," writes Dr. South, "that was not also tender and compassionate. It is this noble quality that makes all men to be of one kind; for every man would be a distinct species to himself were there no sympathy among individuals." Truthful as potent is the saying of Philip Massinger "The eye that will not weep another's sorrow Should boast no gentler brightness than the glare Softer and more melodious in expression, and equally true in sentiment, is Byron's verse— "What gem hath dropped and sparkles o'er his chain? The tear, most sacred, shed for other's pain, That starts at once bright pure from pity's mine Very lovely too is Keats' definition of sympathy -the exquisite faculty that teaches us to share "the inward fragrance of each other's hearts." Indeed, it is not too much to say that a man is morally precious in the exact proportion that he is discerningly sympathetic. Measured by this standard, some men who have long passed for giants would be reduced to dwarfish proportions. Take for example Dr. Samuel Johnson, formerly of Bolt Court, Fleet Street, in the City of London. Few men enjoy to this day a higher renown as a moralist than he; but what is that morality worth which is not instinct with kindness? Johnson made every now and then a mighty parade of his good nature, and there is no denying that he was occasionally capable of deeds of ostentatious benevolence; but the general bearishness of his conduct and his systematic disregard of the feelings of others forbid the thought that he was, au fond, genuinely and thoroughly sympathetic. What an insight into his hard insensate character do we obtain from the following figment of a conversation between him and his idolatrous biographer whom he took such delight in snubbing! "Boswell: Suppose, sir, that one of your intimate friends were apprehended for an offence for which he might be hanged. Johnson: I should do what I could to bail him and give him any other assistance, but if he were once fairly hanged I should not suffer. Boswell: Would you eat your dinner that day, sir. Johnson: Yes, sir, and eat it as if he were eating with me!" A Pagan philosopher in the darkest ages of Heathenism would have been ashamed to say so. To understand the height, depth and breadth of Johnson's selfishness as revealed in his own confession, we must bear in mind that he lived in an age when capital punishment by no means implied, as of necessity, heinous guilt in the offender. It was not, as in our times, murderers alone who were brought to the gallows. A man of many good qualities, who would shudder at the thought of blood, might be hanged, and as a matter of historic fact, was frequently so disposed of, who in the desperation of poverty had committed no worse offense than burglary to the value of a shilling, or having ridden off upon a neighbor's horse without that neighbor's leave. Nay, there are cases in the books of men having been delivered over to the executioner for offenses for which a brief imprisonment would now be deemed sufficient expiation. Such was the state of the law in the days of Dr. Johnson, who, making high pretension to philanthropy, did not scruple to assert that if one of his intimate friends were 66 once fairly hanged," he, the said Johnson, would eat his dinner on the day of the execution as if he were eating it in company with the very friend who had come to so horrible a death! So much for the sympathetic element in one whom posterity is wont to regard with peculiar veneration! But that sort of talk was quite of a piece with Samuel's ordinary conversation. Sir," said he, on another occasion, to his Toady, "it is affectation to pretend to feel the distress of others as much as they do themselves. It is equally so as if one should pretend to feel as much pain while a friend's leg is cutting off as he does "-a remark of which all that we need say is that its humanity is on a par with its grammar. From the coarse cynicism of Johnson to the joyous philosophy of Falstaff how delightful is the transition! It is as though one should be magically wafted from the London fog to the sunny orange-groves of Algeria. Sympathy, as interpreted by the fat knight, meant fellow-feeling, whether in weal or in woe-brotherhood of sentiment as well in joy as in sorrow. What can be more eloquent than Jack's definition? "You are not young; no more am I. Go to, then! There's sympathy. You are merry, so am I. 66 |