"David Hume - Of Tragedy" - читать интересную книгу автора (Hume David)

from his preceding impatience, and that the subordinate
passion is here readily transformed into the predominant one.

Difficulties encrease passions of every kind; and by rouzing
our attention, and exciting our active powers, they produce an
emotion, which nourishes the prevailing affection.

Parents commonly love that child most, whose sickly infirm
frame of body has occasioned them the greatest pains, trouble,
and anxiety in rearing him. The agreeable sentiment of
affection here acquires force from sentiments of uneasiness.

Nothing endears so much a friend as sorrow for his death. The
pleasure of his company has not so powerful an influence.

Jealousy is a painful passion; yet without some share of it,
the agreeable affection of love has difficulty to subsist in
its full force and violence. Absence is also a great source of
complaint among lovers, and gives them the greatest
uneasiness: Yet nothing is more favourable to their mutual
passion than short intervals of that kind. And if long
intervals often prove fatal, it is only because, through time,
men are accustomed to them, and they cease to give uneasiness.
Jealousy and absence in love compose the dolce peccante of the
Italians, which they suppose so essential to all pleasure.

There is a fine observation of the elder Pliny, which
illustrates the principle here insisted on. It is very
remarkable, says he, that the last works of celebrated
artists, which they left imperfect, are always the most
prized, such as the Iris of Aristides, the Tyndarides of
Nicomachus, the Medea of Timomachus, and the Venus of Apelles.
These are valued even above their finished productions: The
broken lineaments of the piece, and the half-formed idea of
the painter are carefully studied; and our very grief for that
curious hand, which had been stopped by death, is an
additional encrease to our pleasure.'[4]

These instances (and many more might be collected) are
sufficient to afford us some insight into the analogy of
nature, and to show us, that the pleasure, which poets,
orators, and musicians give us, by exciting grief, sorrow,
indignation, compassion, is not so extraordinary or
paradoxical, as it may at first sight appear. The force of
imagination, the energy of expression, the power of numbers,
the charms of imitation; all these are naturally, of
themselves, delightful to the mind: And when the object
presented lays also hold of some affection, the pleasure still
rises upon us, by the conversion of this subordinate movement
into that which is predominant. The passion, though, perhaps,