A criticism,
shallow in human nature, however deep in Campbell's Rhetoric, has blamed
him for making persons, under great excitement of sorrow, or whatever
other emotion, parenthesize some trifling play upon words in the very
height of their passion. Those who make such criticisms have either never
felt a passion or seen one in action, or else they forget the exaltation
of sensibility during such crises, so that the attention, whether of the
senses or the mind, is arrested for the moment by what would be
overlooked in ordinary moods. The more forceful the current, the more
sharp the ripple from any alien substance interposed. A passion that
looks forward, like revenge or lust or greed, goes right to its end, and
is straightforward in its expression; but a tragic passion, which is in
its nature unavailing, like disappointment, regret of the inevitable, or
remorse, is reflective, and liable to be continually diverted by the
suggestions of fancy. The one is a concentration of the will, which
intensifies the character and the phrase that expresses it; in the other,
the will is helpless, and, as in insanity, while the flow of the mind
sets imperatively in one direction, it is liable to almost ludicrous
interruptions and diversions upon the most trivial hint of involuntary
association.
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