189. Mourning; Sympathy [While Johnson and Boswell were away, they heard of the death of the son of the Thrales, who were good friends of Johsnon's...] I saw male succession strong in his mind, even where there was no name, no family of any long standing. I said, it was lucky he was not present when this misfortune happened. Johnson: "It was lucky for me. People in distress never think that you feel enough." Boswell: "And, Sir, they will have the hope of seeing you, which will be a relief in the mean time; and when you get to them, the pain will be so far abated, that they will be capable of being consoled by you, which in the first violence of it, I believe, would not be the case." Johnson: "No, Sir; violent pain of mind, like violent pain of body, must be severely felt." Boswell: "I own, Sir, I have not so much feeling for the distress of others, as some people have, or pretend to have: but I know this, that I would do all in my power to relieve them." Johnson: "Sir, 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. No, Sir; you have expressed the rational and just nature of sympathy. I would have gone to the extremity of the earth to have preserved this boy." Boswell: Life Link 483. Sympathy "I know that the unhappy are never pleasing, and that all naturally avoid the contagion of misery. To hear complaints is wearisome alike to the wretched and the happy; for who would cloud, by adventitious grief, the short gleams of gaiety which life allows us? or who, that is struggling under his own evils, will add to them the miseries of another? Johnson: Rasselas [Princess Nekayah] Note: If you haven't read it yet, please read this note of caution regarding quotes from Rasselas. Link 630. Old Age; Pain; Pity; Sympathy "If the purpose of lamentation be to excite pity, it is surely superfluous for age and weakness to tell their plaintive stories; for pity presupposes sympathy, and a little attention will show them, that those who do not feel pain seldom think that it is felt." Johnson: Rambler #48 (September 1, 1750) Link 684. Identification; Sympathy "All joy or sorrow for the happiness or calamities of others is produced by an act of the imagination, that realizes the event however fictitious, or approximates it however remote, by placing us, for a time, in the condition of him whose fortune we contemplate; so that we feel, while the decision lasts, whatever motions would be excited by the same good or evil happening to ourselves." Johnson: Rambler #60 (October 13, 1750) Link