Sometimes, as already stated, we imitate spontaneously:
Back darted Spurius Lartius; Herminius darted back: And, as they passed, beneath their feet They felt the timbers crack.
Here we imitate spontaneously the movement expressive of sudden fear. Our action is prompted by our own fears for their safety.
Sometimes the feeling is still more complex. In reading the following we spontaneously reproduce Sextus' alternate hate and fear which, moreover, we tinge with our own contempt:
Thrice looked he at the city; Thrice looked he at the dead; And thrice came on in fury, And thrice turned back in dread: And, white with fear and hatred, Scowled at the narrow way Where, wallowing in a pool of blood, The bravest Tuscans lay.
In reading the little poem from The Princess, (page [107]) note how we are influenced by the tense emotion of the attendants who speak. We do not try to imitate them; but having made the scene stand out before us, we speak as we in imagination hear them, in an aspirated tone of voice:
She must weep or she will die.
In the last line it would savour of melodrama to try to impersonate the lady as she says:
Sweet my child, I live for thee.