Chapter VIII — JOY, HIGH SPIRITS, LOVE, TENDER FEELINGS, DEVOTION

Laughter primarily the expression of joy—Ludicrous ideas—Movements
of the features during laughter—Nature of the sound produced—The
secretion of tears during loud laughter—Gradation from loud laughter
to gentle smiling—High spirits—The expression of love—Tender
feelings—Devotion.

Joy, when intense, leads to various purposeless movements—to dancing
about, clapping the hands, stamping, &c., and to loud laughter.
Laughter seems primarily to be the expression of mere joy or happiness. We
clearly see this in children at play, who are almost incessantly laughing.
With young persons past childhood, when they are in high spirits, there is
always much meaningless laughter. The laughter of the gods is described by
Homer as “the exuberance of their celestial joy after their daily
banquet.” A man smiles—and smiling, as we shall see, graduates into
laughter—at meeting an old friend in the street, as he does at any
trifling pleasure, such as smelling a sweet perfume.[801] Laura Bridgman, from
her blindness and deafness, could not have acquired any expression through
imitation, yet when a letter from a beloved friend was communicated to her
by gesture-language, she “laughed and clapped her hands, and the colour
mounted to her cheeks.” On other occasions she has been seen to stamp for
joy.[802]

Idiots and imbecile persons likewise afford good evidence that laughter or
smiling primarily expresses mere happiness or joy. Dr. Crichton Browne, to
whom, as on so many other occasions, I am indebted for the results of his
wide experience, informs me that with idiots laughter is the most
prevalent and frequent of all the emotional expressions. Many idiots are
morose, passionate, restless, in a painful state of mind, or utterly
stolid, and these never laugh. Others frequently laugh in a quite
senseless manner. Thus an idiot boy, incapable of speech, complained to
Dr. Browne, by the aid of signs, that another boy in the asylum had given
him a black eye; and this was accompanied by “explosions of laughter and
with his face covered with the broadest smiles.” There is another large
class of idiots who are persistently joyous and benign, and who are
constantly laughing or smiling.[803] Their countenances
often exhibit a stereotyped smile; their joyousness is increased, and they
grin, chuckle, or giggle, whenever food is placed before them, or when
they are caressed, are shown bright colours, or hear music. Some of them
laugh more than usual when they walk about, or attempt any muscular
exertion. The joyousness of most of these idiots cannot possibly be
associated, as Dr. Browne remarks, with any distinct ideas: they simply
feel pleasure, and express it by laughter or smiles. With imbeciles rather
higher in the scale, personal vanity seems to be the commonest cause of
laughter, and next to this, pleasure arising from the approbation of their
conduct.

With grown-up persons laughter is excited by causes considerably different
from those which suffice during childhood; but this remark hardly applies
to smiling. Laughter in this respect is analogous with weeping, which with
adults is almost confined to mental distress, whilst with children it is
excited by bodily pain or any suffering, as well as by fear or rage. Many
curious discussions have been written on the causes of laughter with
grown-up persons. The subject is extremely complex. Something incongruous
or unaccountable, exciting surprise and some sense of superiority in the
laugher, who must be in a happy frame of mind, seems to be the commonest
cause.[804]
The circumstances must not be of a momentous nature: no poor man would
laugh or smile on suddenly hearing that a large fortune had been
bequeathed to him. If the mind is strongly excited by pleasurable
feelings, and any little unexpected event or thought occurs, then, as Mr.
Herbert Spencer remarks,[805] “a large amount of nervous energy, instead
of being allowed to expend itself in producing an equivalent amount of the
new thoughts and emotion which were nascent, is suddenly checked in its
flow.”… “The excess must discharge itself in some other direction, and
there results an efflux through the motor nerves to various classes of the
muscles, producing the half-convulsive actions we term laughter.” An
observation, bearing on this point, was made by a correspondent during the
recent siege of Paris, namely, that the German soldiers, after strong
excitement from exposure to extreme danger, were particularly apt to burst
out into loud laughter at the smallest joke. So again when young children
are just beginning to cry, an unexpected event will sometimes suddenly
turn their crying into laughter, which apparently serves equally well to
expend their superfluous nervous energy.

The imagination is sometimes said to be tickled by a ludicrous idea; and
this so-called tickling of the mind is curiously analogous with that of
the body. Every one knows how immoderately children laugh, and how their
whole bodies are convulsed when they are tickled. The anthropoid apes, as
we have seen, likewise utter a reiterated sound, corresponding with our
laughter, when they are tickled, especially under the armpits. I touched
with a bit of paper the sole of the foot of one of my infants, when only
seven days old, and it was suddenly jerked away and the toes curled about,
as in an older child. Such movements, as well as laughter from being
tickled, are manifestly reflex actions; and this is likewise shown by the
minute unstriped muscles, which serve to erect the separate hairs on the
body, contracting near a tickled surface.[806] Yet laughter from a
ludicrous idea, though involuntary, cannot be called a strictly reflex
action. In this case, and in that of laughter from being tickled, the mind
must be in a pleasurable condition; a young child, if tickled by a strange
man, would scream from fear. The touch must be light, and an idea or
event, to be ludicrous, must not be of grave import. The parts of the body
which are most easily tickled are those which are not commonly touched,
such as the armpits or between the toes, or parts such as the soles of the
feet, which are habitually touched by a broad surface; but the surface on
which we sit offers a marked exception to this rule. According to
Gratiolet,[807] certain nerves are much more sensitive to
tickling than others. From the fact that a child can hardly tickle itself,
or in a much less degree than when tickled by another person, it seems
that the precise point to be touched must not be known; so with the mind,
something unexpected—a novel or incongruous idea which breaks
through an habitual train of thought—appears to be a strong element
in the ludicrous.

The sound of laughter is produced by a deep inspiration followed by short,
interrupted, spasmodic contractions of the chest, and especially of the
diaphragm.[808] Hence we hear of “laughter holding both his
sides.” From the shaking of the body, the head nods to and fro. The lower
jaw often quivers up and down, as is likewise the case with some species
of baboons, when they are much pleased.

During laughter the mouth is opened more or less widely, with the corners
drawn much backwards, as well as a little upwards; and the upper lip is
somewhat raised. The drawing back of the corners is best seen in moderate
laughter, and especially in a broad smile—the latter epithet showing
how the mouth is widened. In the accompanying figs. 1-3, Plate III.,
different degrees of moderate laughter and smiling have been photographed.
The figure of the little girl, with the hat is by Dr. Wallich, and the
expression was a genuine one; the other two are by Mr. Rejlander. Dr.
Duchenne repeatedly insists[809] that, under the emotion of joy, the mouth
is acted on exclusively by the great zygomatic muscles, which serve to
draw the corners backwards and upwards; but judging from the manner in
which the upper teeth are always exposed during laughter and broad
smiling, as well as from my own sensations, I cannot doubt that some of
the muscles running to the upper lip are likewise brought into moderate
action. The upper and lower orbicular muscles of the eyes are at the same
time more or less contracted; and there is an intimate connection, as
explained in the chapter on weeping, between the orbiculars, especially
the lower ones and some of the muscles running to the upper lip. Henle
remarks[810]
on this head, that when a man closely shuts one eye he cannot avoid
retracting the upper lip on the same side; conversely, if any one will
place his finger on his lower eyelid, and then uncover his upper incisors
as much as possible, he will feel, as his upper lip is drawn strongly
upwards, that the muscles of the lower eyelid contract. In Henle’s
drawing, given in woodcut, fig. 2, the musculus malaris (H) which
runs to the upper lip may be seen to form an almost integral part of the
lower orbicular muscle.

Dr. Duchenne has given a large photograph of an old man (reduced on Plate
III. fig 4), in his usual passive condition, and another of the same man
(fig. 5), naturally smiling. The latter was instantly recognized by every
one to whom it was shown as true to nature. He has also given, as an
example of an unnatural or false smile, another photograph (fig. 6) of the
same old man, with the corners of his mouth strongly retracted by the
galvanization of the great zygomatic muscles. That the expression is not
natural is clear, for I showed this photograph to twenty-four persons, of
whom three could not in the least tell what was meant, whilst the others,
though they perceived that the expression was of the nature of a smile,
answered in such words as “a wicked joke,” “trying to laugh,” “grinning
laughter…. half-amazed laughter,” &c. Dr. Duchenne attributes the
falseness of the expression altogether to the orbicular muscles of the
lower eyelids not being sufficiently contracted; for he justly lays great
stress on their contraction in the expression of joy. No doubt there is
much truth in this view, but not, as it appears to me, the whole truth.
The contraction of the lower orbiculars is always accompanied, as we have
seen, by the drawing up of the upper lip. Had the upper lip, in fig. 6,
been thus acted on to a slight extent, its curvature would have been less
rigid, the naso-labial farrow would have been slightly different, and the
whole expression would, as I believe, have been more natural,
independently of the more conspicuous effect from the stronger contraction
of the lower eyelids. The corrugator muscle, moreover, in fig. 6, is too
much contracted, causing a frown; and this muscle never acts under the
influence of joy except during strongly pronounced or violent laughter.

By the drawing backwards and upwards of the corners of the mouth, through
the contraction of the great zygomatic muscles, and by the raising of the
upper lip, the cheeks are drawn upwards. Wrinkles are thus formed under
the eyes, and, with old people, at their outer ends; and these are highly
characteristic of laughter or smiling. As a gentle smile increases into a
strong one, or into a laugh, every one may feel and see, if he will attend
to his own sensations and look at himself in a mirror, that as the upper
lip is drawn up and the lower orbiculars contract, the wrinkles in the
lower eyelids and those beneath the eyes are much strengthened or
increased. At the same time, as I have repeatedly observed, the eyebrows
are slightly lowered, which shows that the upper as well as the lower
orbiculars contract at least to some degree, though this passes
unperecived, as far as our sensations are concerned. If the original
photograph of the old man, with his countenance in its usual placid state
(fig. 4), be compared with that (fig. 5) in which he is naturally smiling,
it may be seen that the eyebrows in the latter are a little lowered. I
presume that this is owing to the upper orbiculars being impelled, through
the force of long-associated habit, to act to a certain extent in concert
with the lower orbiculars, which themselves contract in connection with
the drawing up of the upper lip.

The tendency in the zygomatic muscles to contract under pleasurable
emotions is shown by a curious fact, communicated to me by Dr. Browne,
with respect to patients suffering from GENERAL PARALYSIS OF THE INSANE.[811]
“In this malady there is almost invariably optimism—delusions as to
wealth, rank, grandeur—insane joyousness, benevolence, and
profusion, while its very earliest physical symptom is trembling at the
corners of the mouth and at the outer corners of the eyes. This is a
well-recognized fact. Constant tremulous agitation of the inferior
palpebral and great zygomatic muscles is pathognomic of the earlier stages
of general paralysis. The countenance has a pleased and benevolent
expression. As the disease advances other muscles become involved, but
until complete fatuity is reached, the prevailing expression is that of
feeble benevolence.”

As in laughing and broadly smiling the cheeks and upper lip are much
raised, the nose appears to be shortened, and the skin on the bridge
becomes finely wrinkled in transverse lines, with other oblique
longitudinal lines on the sides. The upper front teeth are commonly
exposed. A well-marked naso-labial fold is formed, which runs from the
wing of each nostril to the corner of the mouth; and this fold is often
double in old persons.

A bright and sparkling eye is as characteristic of a pleased or amused
state of mind, as is the retraction of the corners of the mouth and upper
lip with the wrinkles thus produced. Even the eyes of microcephalous
idiots, who are so degraded that they never learn to speak, brighten
slightly when they are pleased.[812] Under extreme
laughter the eyes are too much suffused with tears to sparkle; but the
moisture squeezed out of the glands during moderate laughter or smiling
may aid in giving them lustre; though this must be of altogether
subordinate importance, as they become dull from grief, though they are
then often moist. Their brightness seems to be chiefly due to their
tenseness,[813] owing to the contraction of the orbicular
muscles and to the pressure of the raised cheeks. But, according to Dr.
Piderit, who has discussed this point more fully than any other writer,[814]
the tenseness may be largely attributed to the eyeballs becoming filled
with blood and other fluids, from the acceleration of the circulation,
consequent on the excitement of pleasure. He remarks on the contrast in
the appearance of the eyes of a hectic patient with a rapid circulation,
and of a man suffering from cholera with almost all the fluids of his body
drained from him. Any cause which lowers the circulation deadens the eye.
I remember seeing a man utterly prostrated by prolonged and severe
exertion during a very hot day, and a bystander compared his eyes to those
of a boiled codfish.

To return to the sounds produced during laughter. We can see in a vague
manner how the utterance of sounds of some kind would naturally become
associated with a pleasurable state of mind; for throughout a large part
of the animal kingdom vocal or instrumental sounds are employed either as
a call or as a charm by one sex for the other. They are also employed as
the means for a joyful meeting between the parents and their offspring,
and between the attached members of the same social community. But why the
sounds which man utters when he is pleased have the peculiar reiterated
character of laughter we do not know. Nevertheless we can see that they
would naturally be as different as possible from the screams or cries of
distress; and as in the production of the latter, the expirations are
prolonged and continuous, with the inspirations short and interrupted, so
it might perhaps have been expected with the sounds uttered from joy, that
the expirations would have been short and broken with the inspirations
prolonged; and this is the case.

It is an equally obscure point why the corners of the mouth are retracted
and the upper lip raised during ordinary laughter. The mouth must not be
opened to its utmost extent, for when this occurs during a paroxysm of
excessive laughter hardly any sound is emitted; or it changes its tone and
seems to come from deep down in the throat. The respiratory muscles, and
even those of the limbs, are at the same time thrown into rapid vibratory
movements. The lower jaw often partakes of this movement, and this would
tend to prevent the mouth from being widely opened. But as a full volume
of sound has to be poured forth, the orifice of the mouth must be large;
and it is perhaps to gain this end that the corners are retracted and the
upper lip raised. Although we can hardly account for the shape of the
mouth during laughter, which leads to wrinkles being formed beneath the
eyes, nor for the peculiar reiterated sound of laughter, nor for the
quivering of the jaws, nevertheless we may infer that all these effects
are due to some common cause. For they are all characteristic and
expressive of a pleased state of mind in various kinds of monkeys.

A graduated series can be followed from violent to moderate laughter, to a
broad smile, to a gentle smile, and to the expression of mere
cheerfulness. During excessive laughter the whole body is often thrown
backward and shakes, or is almost convulsed; the respiration is much
disturbed; the head and face become gorged with blood, with the veins
distended; and the orbicular muscles are spasmodically contracted in order
to protect the eyes. Tears are freely shed. Hence, as formerly remarked,
it is scarcely possible to point out any difference between the
tear-stained face of a person after a paroxysm of excessive laughter and
after a bitter crying-fit.[815] It is probably due to the close similarity
of the spasmodic movements caused by these widely different emotions that
hysteric patients alternately cry and laugh with violence, and that young
children sometimes pass suddenly from the one to the other state. Mr.
Swinhoe informs me that he has often seen the Chinese, when suffering from
deep grief, burst out into hysterical fits of laughter.

I was anxious to know whether tears are freely shed during excessive
laughter by most of the races of men, and I hear from my correspondents
that this is the case. One instance was observed with the Hindoos, and
they themselves said that it often occurred. So it is with the Chinese.
The women of a wild tribe of Malays in the Malacca peninsula, sometimes
shed tears when they laugh heartily, though this seldom occurs. With the
Dyaks of Borneo it must frequently be the case, at least with the women,
for I hear from the Rajah C. Brooke that it is a common expression with
them to say “we nearly made tears from laughter.” The aborigines of
Australia express their emotions freely, and they are described by my
correspondents as jumping about and clapping their hands for joy, and as
often roaring with laughter. No less than four observers have seen their
eyes freely watering on such occasions; and in one instance the tears
rolled down their cheeks. Mr. Bulmer, a missionary in a remote part of
Victoria, remarks, “that they have a keen sense of the ridiculous; they
are excellent mimics, and when one of them is able to imitate the
peculiarities of some absent member of the tribe, it is very common to
hear all in the camp convulsed with laughter.” With Europeans hardly
anything excites laughter so easily as mimicry; and it is rather curious
to find the same fact with the savages of Australia, who constitute one of
the most distinct races in the world.

In Southern Africa with two tribes of Kafirs, especially with the women,
their eyes often fill with tears during laughter. Gaika, the brother of
the chief Sandilli, answers my query on this head, with the words, “Yes,
that is their common practice.” Sir Andrew Smith has seen the painted face
of a Hottentot woman all furrowed with tears after a fit of laughter. In
Northern Africa, with the Abyssinians, tears are secreted under the same
circumstances. Lastly, in North America, the same fact has been observed
in a remarkably savage and isolated tribe, but chiefly with the women; in
another tribe it was observed only on a single occasion.

Excessive laughter, as before remarked, graduates into moderate laughter.
In this latter case the muscles round the eyes are much less contracted,
and there is little or no frowning. Between a gentle laugh and a broad
smile there is hardly any difference, excepting that in smiling no
reiterated sound is uttered, though a single rather strong expiration, or
slight noise—a rudiment of a laugh—may often be heard at the
commencement of a smile. On a moderately smiling countenance the
contraction of the upper orbicular muscles can still just be traced by a
slight lowering of the eyebrows. The contraction of the lower orbicular
and palpebral muscles is much plainer, and is shown by the wrinkling of
the lower eyelids and of the skin beneath them, together with a slight
drawing up of the upper lip. From the broadest smile we pass by the finest
steps into the gentlest one. In this latter case the features are moved in
a much less degree, and much more slowly, and the mouth is kept closed.
The curvature of the naso-labial furrow is also slightly different in the
two cases. We thus see that no abrupt line of demarcation can be drawn
between the movement of the features during the most violent laughter and
a very faint smile.[816]

A smile, therefore, may be said to be the first stage in the development
of a laugh. But a different and more probable view may be suggested;
namely, that the habit of uttering load reiterated sounds from a sense of
pleasure, first led to the retraction of the corners of the mouth and of
the upper lip, and to the contraction of the orbicular muscles; and that
now, through association and long-continued habit, the same muscles are
brought into slight play whenever any cause excites in us a feeling which,
if stronger, would have led to laughter; and the result is a smile.

Whether we look at laughter as the full development of a smile, or, as is
more probable, at a gentle smile as the last trace of a habit, firmly
fixed during many generations, of laughing whenever we are joyful, we can
follow in our infants the gradual passage of the one into the other. It is
well known to those who have the charge of young infants, that it is
difficult to feel sure when certain movements about their mouths are
really expressive; that is, when they really smile. Hence I carefully
watched my own infants. One of them at the age of forty-five days, and
being at the time in a happy frame of mind, smiled; that is, the corners
of the mouth were retracted, and simultaneously the eyes became decidedly
bright. I observed the same thing on the following day; but on the third
day the child was not quite well and there was no trace of a smile, and
this renders it probable that the previous smiles were real. Eight days
subsequently and during the next succeeding week, it was remarkable how
his eyes brightened whenever he smiled, and his nose became at the same
time transversely wrinkled. This was now accompanied by a little bleating
noise, which perhaps represented a laugh. At the age of 113 days these
little noises, which were always made during expiration, assumed a
slightly different character, and were more broken or interrupted, as in
sobbing; and this was certainly incipient laughter. The change in tone
seemed to me at the time to be connected with the greater lateral
extension of the mouth as the smiles became broader.

In a second infant the first real smile was observed at about the same
age, viz. forty-five days; and in a third, at a somewhat earlier age. The
second infant, when sixty-five days old, smiled much more broadly and
plainly than did the one first mentioned at the same age; and even at this
early age uttered noises very like laughter. In this gradual acquirement,
by infants, of the habit of laughing, we have a case in some degree
analogous to that of weeping. As practice is requisite with the ordinary
movements of the body, such as walking, so it seems to be with laughing
and weeping. The art of screaming, on the other hand, from being of
service to infants, has become finely developed from the earliest days.

High spirits, cheerfulness.—A man in high spirits, though he
may not actually smile, commonly exhibits some tendency to the retraction
of the corners of his mouth. From the excitement of pleasure, the
circulation becomes more rapid; the eyes are bright, and the colour of the
face rises. The brain, being stimulated by the increased flow of blood,
reacts on the mental powers; lively ideas pass still more rapidly through
the mind, and the affections are warmed. I heard a child, a little under
four years old, when asked what was meant by being in good spirits,
answer, “It is laughing, talking, and kissing.” It would be difficult to
give a truer and more practical definition. A man in this state holds his
body erect, his head upright, and his eyes open. There is no drooping of
the features, and no contraction of the eyebrows. On the contrary, the
frontal muscle, as Moreau observes,[817] tends to contract
slightly; and this smooths the brow, removes every trace of a frown,
arches the eyebrows a little, and raises the eyelids. Hence the Latin
phrase, exporrigere frontem—to unwrinkle the brow—means,
to be cheerful or merry. The whole expression of a man in good spirits is
exactly the opposite of that of one suffering from sorrow. According to
Sir C. Bell, “In all the exhilarating emotions the eyebrows, eyelids, the
nostrils, and the angles of the mouth are raised. In the depressing
passions it is the reverse.” Under the influence of the latter the brow is
heavy, the eyelids, cheeks, mouth, and whole head droop; the eyes are
dull; the countenance pallid, and the respiration slow. In joy the face
expands, in grief it lengthens. Whether the principle of antithesis has
here come into play in producing these opposite expressions, in aid of the
direct causes which have been specified and which are sufficiently plain,
I will not pretend to say.

With all the races of man the expression of good spirit appears to be the
same, and is easily recognized. My informants, from various parts of the
Old and New Worlds, answer in the affirmative to my queries on this head,
and they give some particulars with respect to Hindoos, Malays, and New
Zealanders. The brightness of the eyes of the Australians has struck four
observers, and the same fact has been noticed with Hindoos, New
Zealanders, and the Dyaks of Borneo.

Savages sometimes express their satisfaction not only by smiling, but by
gestures derived from the pleasure of eating. Thus Mr. Wedgwood[818]
quotes Petherick that the negroes on the Upper Nile began a general
rubbing of their bellies when he displayed his beads; and Leichhardt says
that the Australians smacked and clacked their mouths at the sight of his
horses and bullocks, and more especially of his kangaroo dogs. The
Greenlanders, “when they affirm anything with pleasure, suck down air with
a certain sound;”[819] and this may be an imitation of the act of
swallowing savoury food.

Laughter is suppressed by the firm contraction of the orbicular muscles of
the mouth, which prevents the great zygomatic and other muscles from
drawing the lips backwards and upwards. The lower lip is also sometimes
held by the teeth, and this gives a roguish expression to the face, as was
observed with the blind and deaf Laura Bridgman.[820] The great zygomatic
muscle is sometimes variable in its course, and I have seen a young woman
in whom the depressores anguli oris were brought into strong action
in suppressing a smile; but this by no means gave to her countenance a
melancholy expression, owing to the brightness of her eyes.

Laughter is frequently employed in a forced manner to conceal or mask some
other state of mind, even anger. We often see persons laughing in order to
conceal their shame or shyness. When a person purses up his mouth, as if
to prevent the possibility of a smile, though there is nothing to excite
one, or nothing to prevent its free indulgence, an affected, solemn, or
pedantic expression is given; but of such hybrid expressions nothing more
need here be said. In the case of derision, a real or pretended smile or
laugh is often blended with the expression proper to contempt, and this
may pass into angry contempt or scorn. In such cases the meaning of the
laugh or smile is to show the offending person that he excites only
amusement.

Love, tender feelings, &c.—Although the emotion of love,
for instance that of a mother for her infant, is one of the strongest of
which the mind is capable, it can hardly be said to have any proper or
peculiar means of expression; and this is intelligible, as it has not
habitually led to any special line of action. No doubt, as affection is a
pleasurable sensation, it generally causes a gentle smile and some
brightening of the eyes. A strong desire to touch the beloved person is
commonly felt; and love is expressed by this means more plainly than by
any other.[821] Hence we long to clasp in our arms those
whom we tenderly love. We probably owe this desire to inherited habit, in
association with the nursing and tending of our children, and with the
mutual caresses of lovers.

With the lower animals we see the same principle of pleasure derived from
contact in association with love. Dogs and cats manifestly take pleasure
in rubbing against their masters and mistresses, and in being rubbed or
patted by them. Many kinds of monkeys, as I am assured by the keepers in
the Zoological Gardens, delight in fondling and being fondled by each
other, and by persons to whom they are attached. Mr. Bartlett has
described to me the behaviour of two chimpanzees, rather older animals
than those generally imported into this country, when they were first
brought together. They sat opposite, touching each other with their much
protruded lips; and the one put his hand on the shoulder of the other.
They then mutually folded each other in their arms. Afterwards they stood
up, each with one arm on the shoulder of the other, lifted up their heads,
opened their mouths, and yelled with delight.[822]

We Europeans are so accustomed to kissing as a mark of affection, that it
might be thought to be innate in mankind; but this is not the case. Steele
was mistaken when he said “Nature was its author, and it began with the
first courtship.” Jemmy Button, the Fuegian, told me that this practice
was unknown in his land. It is equally unknown with the New Zealanders,
Tahitians, Papuans, Australians, Somals of Africa, and the Esquimaux. But
it is so far innate or natural that it apparently depends on pleasure from
close contact with a beloved person; and it is replaced in various parts
of the world, by the rubbing of noses, as with the New Zealanders and
Laplanders, by the rubbing or patting of the arms, breasts, or stomachs,
or by one man striking his own face with the hands or feet of another.
Perhaps the practice of blowing, as a mark of affection, on various parts
of the body may depend on the same principle.[823]

The feelings which are called tender are difficult to analyse; they seem
to be compounded of affection, joy, and especially of sympathy. These
feelings are in themselves of a pleasurable nature, excepting when pity is
too deep, or horror is aroused, as in hearing of a tortured man or animal.
They are remarkable under our present point of view from so readily
exciting the secretion of tears. Many a father and son have wept on
meeting after a long separation, especially if the meeting has been
unexpected. No doubt extreme joy by itself tends to act on the lacrymal
glands; but on such occasions as the foregoing vague thoughts of the grief
which would have been felt had the father and son never met, will probably
have passed through their minds; and grief naturally leads to the
secretion of tears. Thus on the return of Ulysses:—

“Telemachus Rose, and clung weeping round his father’s breast.
There the pent grief rained o’er them, yearning thus.
* * * * * *
Thus piteously they wailed in sore unrest,
And on their weepings had gone down the day,
But that at last Telemachus found words to say.”
Worsley’s Translation of the Odyssey, Book xvi. st. 27.

So again when Penelope at last recognized her husband:—

“Then from her eyelids the quick tears did start
And she ran to him from her place, and threw
Her arms about his neck, and a warm dew
Of kisses poured upon him, and thus spake:”
—Book xxiii. st. 27.

The vivid recollection of our former home, or of long-past happy days,
readily causes the eyes to be suffused with tears; but here, again, the
thought naturally occurs that these days will never return. In such cases
we may be said to sympathize with ourselves in our present, in comparison
with our former, state. Sympathy with the distresses of others, even with
the imaginary distresses of a heroine in a pathetic story, for whom we
feel no affection, readily excites tears. So does sympathy with the
happiness of others, as with that of a lover, at last successful after
many hard trials in a well-told tale.

Sympathy appears to constitute a separate or distinct emotion; and it is
especially apt to excite the lacrymal glands. This holds good whether we
give or receive sympathy. Every one must have noticed how readily children
burst out crying if we pity them for some small hurt. With the melancholic
insane, as Dr. Crichton Browne informs me, a kind word will often plunge
them into unrestrained weeping. As soon as we express our pity for the
grief of a friend, tears often come into our own eyes. The feeling of
sympathy is commonly explained by assuming that, when we see or hear of
suffering in another, the idea of suffering is called up so vividly in our
own minds that we ourselves suffer. But this explanation is hardly
sufficient, for it does not account for the intimate alliance between
sympathy and affection. We undoubtedly sympathize far more deeply with a
beloved than with an indifferent person; and the sympathy of the one gives
us far more relief than that of the other. Yet assuredly we can sympathize
with those for whom we feel no affection.

Why suffering, when actually experienced by ourselves, excites weeping,
has been discussed in a former chapter. With respect to joy, its natural
and universal expression is laughter; and with all the races of man loud
laughter leads to the secretion of tears more freely than does any other
cause excepting distress. The suffusion of the eyes with tears, which
undoubtedly occurs under great joy, though there is no laughter, can, as
it seems to me, be explained through habit and association on the same
principles as the effusion of tears from grief, although there is no
screaming. Nevertheless it is not a little remarkable that sympathy with
the distresses of others should excite tears more freely than our own
distress; and this certainly is the case. Many a man, from whose eyes no
suffering of his own could wring a tear, has shed tears at the sufferings
of a beloved friend. It is still more remarkable that sympathy with the
happiness or good fortune of those whom we tenderly love should lead to
the same result, whilst a similar happiness felt by ourselves would leave
our eyes dry. We should, however, bear in mind that the long-continued
habit of restraint which is so powerful in checking the free flow of tears
from bodily pain, has not been brought into play in preventing a moderate
effusion of tears in sympathy with the sufferings or happiness of others.

Music has a wonderful power, as I have elsewhere attempted to show,[824]
of recalling in a vague and indefinite manner, those strong emotions which
were felt during long-past ages, when, as is probable, our early
progenitors courted each other by the aid of vocal tones. And as several
of our strongest emotions—grief, great joy, love, and sympathy—lead
to the free secretion of tears, it is not surprising that music should be
apt to cause our eyes to become suffused with tears, especially when we
are already softened by any of the tenderer feelings. Music often produces
another peculiar effect. We know that every strong sensation, emotion, or
excitement—extreme pain, rage, terror, joy, or the passion of love—all
have a special tendency to cause the muscles to tremble; and the thrill or
slight shiver which runs down the backbone and limbs of many persons when
they are powerfully affected by music, seems to bear the same relation to
the above trembling of the body, as a slight suffusion of tears from the
power of music does to weeping from any strong and real emotion.

Devotion.—As devotion is, in some degree, related to
affection, though mainly consisting of reverence, often combined with
fear, the expression of this state of mind may here be briefly noticed.
With some sects, both past and present, religion and love have been
strangely combined; and it has even been maintained, lamentable as the
fact may be, that the holy kiss of love differs but little from that which
a man bestows on a woman, or a woman on a man.[825] Devotion is chiefly
expressed by the face being directed towards the heavens, with the
eyeballs upturned. Sir C. Bell remarks that, at the approach of sleep, or
of a fainting-fit, or of death, the pupils are drawn upwards and inwards;
and he believes that “when we are wrapt in devotional feelings, and
outward impressions are unheeded, the eyes are raised by an action neither
taught nor acquired.” and that this is due to the same cause as in the
above cases.[826] That the eyes are upturned during sleep is,
as I hear from Professor Donders, certain. With babies, whilst sucking
their mother’s breast, this movement of the eyeballs often gives to them
an absurd appearance of ecstatic delight; and here it may be clearly
perceived that a struggle is going on against the position naturally
assumed during sleep. But Sir C. Bell’s explanation of the fact, which
rests on the assumption that certain muscles are more under the control of
the will than others is, as I hear from Professor Donders, incorrect. As
the eyes are often turned up in prayer, without the mind being so much
absorbed in thought as to approach to the unconsciousness of sleep, the
movement is probably a conventional one—the result of the common
belief that Heaven, the source of Divine power to which we pray, is seated
above us.

A humble kneeling posture, with the hands upturned and palms joined,
appears to us, from long habit, a gesture so appropriate to devotion, that
it might be thought to be innate; but I have not met with any evidence to
this effect with the various extra-European races of mankind. During the
classical period of Roman history it does not appear, as I hear from an
excellent classic, that the hands were thus joined during prayer. Mr.
Rensleigh Wedgwood has apparently given[827] the true
explanation, though this implies that the attitude is one of slavish
subjection. “When the suppliant kneels and holds up his hands with the
palms joined, he represents a captive who proves the completeness of his
submission by offering up his hands to be bound by the victor. It is the
pictorial representation of the Latin dare manus, to signify
submission.” Hence it is not probable that either the uplifting of the
eyes or the joining of the open hands, under the influence of devotional
feelings, are innate or truly expressive actions; and this could hardly
have been expected, for it is very doubtful whether feelings, such as we
should now rank as devotional, affected the hearts of men, whilst they
remained during past ages in an uncivilized condition.