When, on the other hand, the emotions of sublimity or beauty are produced, it will be found that some affection is uniformly first excited by the presence of the object; and whether the general impression we receive is that of gayety, or tenderness, or melancholy, or solemnity, or terror, &c., we have never any difficulty of determining.
But whatever may be the nature of that simple emotion which any object is fitted to excite, if it produce not a train of kindred thought in our minds, we are conscious only of that simple emotion.
In many cases, on the contrary, we are conscious of a train of thought being immediately awakened in the imagination, analogous to the character of expression of the original object.
“Thus, when we feel either the beauty or sublimity of natural scenery—the gay lustre of a morning in spring, or the mild radiance of a summer-evening—the savage majesty of a wintry storm, or the wild magnificence of the tempestuous ocean—we are conscious of a variety of images in our minds, very different from those which the objects themselves present to the eye. Trains of pleasing or of solemn thought arise spontaneously within our minds; our hearts swell with emotions, of which the objects before us seem to afford no adequate cause; and we are never so much satiated with delight, as when, in recalling our attention, we are unable (little able, perhaps, and less disposed) to trace either the progress or the connexion of those thoughts, which have passed with so much rapidity through our imagination.
“The effect of the different arts of taste is similar. The landscapes of Claude Lorraine, the poetry of Milton, the music of the greatest masters, excite feeble emotions in our minds when our attention is confined to the qualities they present to our senses, or when it is to such qualities of their composition that we turn our regard. It is then only we feel the sublimity or beauty of their productions, when our imaginations are kindled by their power, when we lose ourselves amid the number of images that pass before our minds, and when we waken at last from this play of fancy, as from the charm of a romantic dream.
“The degree in which the emotions of sublimity or beauty are felt, is in general proportioned to the prevalence of those relations of thought in the mind, upon which this exercise of imagination depends. The principal relation which seems to take place in those trains of thought that are produced by objects of taste, is that of resemblance; the relation, of all others the most loose and general, and which affords the greatest range of thought for our imagination to pursue. Wherever, accordingly, these emotions are felt, it will be found, not only that this is the relation which principally prevails among our ideas, but that the emotion itself is proportioned to the degree in which it prevails.
“What, for instance, is the impression we feel from the scenery of spring? The soft and gentle green with which the earth is spread, the feeble texture of the plants and flowers, the young of animals just entering into life, and the remains of winter yet lingering among the woods and hills—all conspire to infuse into our minds somewhat of that fearful tenderness with which infancy is usually beheld. With such a sentiment, how innumerable are the ideas which present themselves to our imagination! ideas, it is apparent, by no means confined to the scene before our eyes, or to the possible desolation which may yet await its infant beauty, but which almost involuntarily extend themselves to analogies with the life of man, and bring before us all those images of hope or fear, which, according to our peculiar situations, have the dominion of our heart!—The beauty of autumn is accompanied with a similar exercise of thought.
“Whatever increases this exercise or employment of imagination, increases also the emotion of beauty or sublimity.
“This is very obviously the effect of all associations. There is no man who has not some interesting associations with particular scenes, or airs, or books, and who does not feel their beauty or sublimity enhanced to him by such connexions. The view of the house where one was born, of the school where one was educated, and where the gay years of infancy were passed, is indifferent to no man.
“In the case of those trains of thought, which are suggested by objects either of sublimity or beauty, it will be found, that they are in all cases composed of ideas capable of exciting some affection or emotion; and that not only the whole succession is accompanied with that peculiar emotion which we call the emotion of beauty or sublimity, but that every individual idea of such a succession is in itself productive of some simple emotion or other.