neglectingly, I know not what:
He should, or should not; for he made me mad,
To see him shine so brisk, and smell so sweet,
And talk so like a waiting gentlewoman,
Of guns, and drums, and wounds; (God save the mark!)
And telling me, the sovereign’st thing on earth
Was parmacity, for an inward bruise;
And that it was great pity, so it was,
This villanous saltpetre should be digg’d,
Out of the bowels of the harmless earth,
Which many a good, tall fellow had destroy’d
So cowardly: and but for these vile guns,
He would himself have been a soldier.—
First part, Henry IV. act 1. sc. 4.4
Passions and emotions are also inflamed by comparison. A man of high rank humbles the bystanders, even to annihilate them in their own opinion: Caesar, beholding the statue of Alexander, was greatly mortified, that now at the age of thir-<285>ty-two when Alexander died, he had not performed one memorable action.
Our opinions also are much influenced by comparison. A man whose opulence exceeds the ordinary standard, is reputed richer than he is in reality; and wisdom or weakness, if at all remarkable in an individual, is generally carried beyond the truth.
The opinion a man forms of his present distress is heightened by contrasting it with his former happiness:
Could I forget
What I have been, I might the better bear
What I am destin’d to. I’m not the first
That have been wretched: but to think how much
I have been happier.
Southern’s Innocent adultery, act 2.5
The distress of a long journey makes even an indifferent inn agreeable: and in travelling, when the road is good and the horseman well covered, a bad day may be agreeable by making him sensible how snug he is.
The same effect is equally remarkable, when a man opposes his condition to that of others. A ship tossed about in a storm, makes the spectator reflect upon his own ease and security, and puts these in the strongest light:
Suave, mari magno turbantibus aequora ventis,
E terra magnum alterius spectare laborem;<286>
Non quia vexari quemquam est jucunda voluptas,
Sed quibus ipse malis careas, quia cernere suave est.
Lucret. l. 2. principio.6
A man in grief cannot bear mirth: it gives him a more lively notion of his unhappiness, and of course makes him more unhappy. Satan contemplating the beauties of the terrestrial paradise, has the following exclamation.
With what delight could I have walk’d thee round,
If I could joy in ought, sweet interchange
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