The term sympathy is one of very wide application. It comprehends the whole of the kindly relational feelings, and invests even inanimate nature with the attributes of life. Dr. Lieber, in his “Political Ethics,” defines it to be “a feeling for the pains and feelings of others, though unconnected with any interest of our own, and standing in no direct connection with us, even in the way of fear for our own future protection.” Sympathy is peculiarly expansive. It fixes upon the essentials of humanity, and disregards the accidents. Tenderness of affection is indeed a noble quality. There is much sound philosophy in the following lines:—
“How oft the sterner virtues show Determined justice, truth severe, Firmness and strength to strike the blow, Courage to face the peril near,— Yet wanting hearts that feel the glow Of love, or for the rising tear Responsive sympathy ere know, Life’s light, without life’s warmth to cheer.”
Woman is constitutionally sympathetic. She delights, unbidden, to soothe the sorrows of the distressed. When that celebrated traveller, John Ledyard, approached the frontier of Poland, after his arbitrary detention in Russia, he exclaimed, “Thank heaven! petticoats appear, and the glimmering of other features.” Women are the sure harbingers of an alteration in manners. All succumb to their irresistible influence: the “divine ichor,” as Homer calls it, mounts the stolid brain, and intoxicates both rich and poor, philosopher and clown. Elsewhere he says, “I have observed among all nations, that the women ornament themselves more than the men; that wherever found, they are the same kind, civil, obliging, humane, tender beings; that they are ever inclined to be gay and cheerful, timorous and modest.” The adventurous traveller further remarks, “I never addressed myself in the language of decency and friendship to a woman, whether civilized or savage, without receiving a decent and friendly answer. With man, it has been often otherwise. In wandering over the barren plains of inhospitable Denmark, through honest Sweden, frozen Lapland, rude and churlish Finland, unprincipled Russia, and the wide-spread regions of the wandering Tartar, if hungry, dry, cold, wet, or sick, woman has ever been friendly to me, and uniformly so; and, to add to this virtue, so worthy of the appellation of benevolence, these actions have been performed in so free and kind a manner, that if I was dry, I drank the sweet draught, and if hungry ate the coarse morsel, with a double relish.”