This circumstance serves still farther to
smooth the motions of passion, and convert the whole feeling
into one uniform and strong enjoyment. Objects of the greatest
terror and distress please in painting, and please more than
the most beautiful objects, that appear calm and
indifferent.[3] The affection, rousing the mind, excites a
large stock of spirit and vehemence; which is all transformed
into pleasure by the force of the prevailing movement. It is
thus the fiction of tragedy softens the passion, by an
infusion of a new feeling, not merely by weakening or
diminishing the sorrow. You may by degrees weaken a real
sorrow, till it totally disappears; yet in none of its
graduations will it ever give pleasure; except, perhaps, by
accident, to a man sunk under lethargic indolence, whom it
rouzes from that languid state.
To confirm this theory, it will be sufficient to produce other
instances, where the subordinate movement is converted into
the predominant, and gives force to it, though of a different,
and even sometimes though of a contrary nature.
Novelty naturally rouzes the mind, and attracts our attention;
and the movements, which it causes, are always converted into
any passion, belonging to the object, and join their force to
it.
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