The second distinction mentioned by the critic just quoted, between
disgust and other disagreeable emotions, appears in the distaste which
deformity excites in us.
“Other disagreeable passions,” he says,[157] “may sometimes, in nature
as well as in art, produce gratification, because they never arouse pure
pain. Their bitterness is always mixed with satisfaction. Our fear is
seldom devoid of hope; terror rouses all our powers to escape the
danger; anger is mixed with a desire for vengeance; sadness, with the
pleasant recollection of former happiness; and compassion is inseparable
from the tender sentiments of love and good-will. The mind is at liberty
to dwell now on the agreeable, and now on the disagreeable side, and
thus to obtain a mingling of pleasure and pain, more delightful than the
purest pleasure. Very little study of ourselves will furnish us with
abundant instances. Why else is his anger dearer to an angry man and his
sadness to a melancholy one, than all the cheerful images by which we
strive to soothe him? Quite different is the case with disgust and its
kindred sensations. Here the mind is conscious of no perceptible
admixture of pleasure. A feeling of uneasiness gains the mastery, and
under no imaginable conditions in nature or art would the mind fail to
recoil with aversion from representations of this nature.”
Very true; but, since the critic acknowledges the existence of other
sensations nearly akin to that of disgust, and producing, like that,
nothing but pain, what answers more nearly to this description than
emotions excited by the sight of physical deformity? These are not only
kindred to that of disgust, but they resemble it in being destitute of
all admixture of pleasure in art as well as in nature. Under no
imaginable conditions, therefore, would the mind fail to recoil with
aversion from such representations.
This aversion, if I have analyzed my feelings with sufficient care, is
altogether of the nature of disgust. The sensation which accompanies the
sight of physical deformity is disgust, though a low degree of it. This,
indeed, is at variance with another remark of our critic, according to
which only our more occult senses—those of taste, smell, and touch—are
capable of receiving impressions of disgust. “The first two,” he says,
“from an excessive sweetness, and the latter from an extreme softness of
bodies which offer too slight resistance to the fibres coming in contact
with them. Such objects, then, become intolerable to the sight, but
solely through the association of ideas, because we remember how
disagreeable they were to our sense of taste, smell, or touch. For,
strictly speaking, there are no objects of disgust to the eyes.” I
think, however, that some might be mentioned. A mole on the face, a
hare-lip, a flattened nose with prominent nostrils, are deformities
which offend neither taste, smell, nor touch. Yet the sight of them
excites in us something much more nearly resembling disgust than we feel
at sight of other malformations, such as a club-foot or a hump on the
back. The more susceptible the temperament, the more distinctly are we
conscious, when looking at such objects, of those motions in the body
which precede nausea. That these motions soon subside, and rarely if
ever result in actual sickness, is to be explained by the fact that the
eye receives in and with the objects causing them such a number of
pleasing images that the disagreeable impressions are too much weakened
and obscured to exert any marked influence on the body. The more occult
senses of taste, smell, and touch, on the contrary, cannot receive other
impressions when in contact with the repulsive object. The element of
disgust operates in full force, and necessarily produces much more
violent effects upon the body.
The same rules hold of things loathsome as of things ugly, in respect of
imitation. Indeed, since the disagreeable effect of the former is the
more violent, they are still less suitable subjects of painting or
poetry. Only because the effect is softened by verbal expression, did I
venture to assert that the poet might employ certain loathsome traits as
an ingredient in such mixed sensations as can with good effect be
strengthened by the use of ugliness.
The ridiculous may be heightened by an element of disgust;
representations of dignity and propriety likewise become ludicrous when
brought into contrast with the disgusting. Examples of this abound in
Aristophanes. I am reminded of the weasel that interrupted the worthy
Socrates in his astronomical observations.[158]
ΜΑΘ. πρώην δέ γε γνώμην μεγάλην ἀφῃρέθη
ὑπ’ ἀσκαλαβώτου. ΣΤΡ. τίνα τρόπον; κάτειπέ μοι.
ΜΑΘ. ζητοῦντος αὐτοῦ τῆς σελήνης τὰς ὁδοὺς
καὶ τὰς περιφοράς, εἶτ’ ἄνω κεχηνότος
ἀπὸ τῆς ὀροφῆς νύκτωρ γαλεώτης κατέχεσεν.
ΣΤΡ. ἥσθην γαλεώτῃ καταχέσαντι Σωκράτους.
If what fell into the open mouth had not been disgusting, there would be
nothing ludicrous in the story.
An amusing instance of this occurs in the Hottentot story of Tquassouw
and Knonmquaiha, attributed to Lord Chesterfield, which appeared in the
“Connoisseur,” an English weekly, full of wit and humor. The filthiness
of the Hottentots is well known, as also the fact of their regarding as
beautiful and holy what excites our disgust and aversion. The pressed
gristle of a nose, flaccid breasts descending to the navel, the whole
body anointed with a varnish of goat’s fat and soot, melted in by the
sun, hair dripping with grease, arms and legs entwined with fresh
entrails,—imagine all this the object of an ardent, respectful, tender
love; listen to expressions of this love in the noble language of
sincerity and admiration, and keep from laughing if you can.[159]
The disgusting seems to admit of being still more closely united with
the terrible. What we call the horrible is nothing more than a mixture
of the elements of terror and disgust. Longinus[160] takes offence at
the “Τῆς ἐκ μὲν ῥινῶν μύξαι ῥέον (mucus flowing from the nostrils) in
Hesiod’s picture of Sorrow;[161] but not, I think, so much on account of
the loathsomeness of the trait, as from its being simply loathsome with
no element of terror. For he does not seem inclined to find fault with
the μακροὶ δ’ ὄνυχες χείρεσσιν ὑπῆσαν, the long nails projecting beyond
the fingers. Long nails are not less disgusting than a running nose, but
they are at the same time terrible. It is they that tear the cheeks till
the blood runs to the ground:
... ἐκ δὲ παρειῶν
αἶμ’ ἀπελείβετ’ ἔραζε....
The other feature is simply disgusting, and I should advise Sorrow to
cease her crying.
Read Sophocles’ description of the desert cave of his wretched
Philoctetes. There are no provisions to be seen, no comforts beyond a
trampled litter of dried leaves, an unshapely wooden bowl, and a
tinder-box. These constitute the whole wealth of the sick, forsaken man.
How does the poet complete the sad and frightful picture? By introducing
the element of disgust. “Ha!” Neoptolemus draws back of a sudden, “here
are rags drying full of blood and matter.”[162]
NE. ὁρώ κενὴν οἴκησιν ἀνθρώπων δίχα.
ΟΔ. οὐδ’ ἔνδον οἰκοποιός ἐστί τις τροφή;
ΝΕ. στείπτή γε φυλλὰς ὡς ἐναυλίζοντί τῳ.
OΔ. τὰ δ’ ἄλλ’ ἔρημα, κοὔδέν ἐσθ’ ὑπόστεγον;
ΝΕ. αὐτόξυλόν γ’ ἔκπωμα φαυλουργοῦ τινὸς
τεχνήματ’ ἀνδρὸς, καὶ πυρεῖ’ ὁμοῦ τάδε.
OΔ. κείνου τὸ θησαύρισμα σημαίνεις τόδε.
ΝΕ. ἰοὺ, ἰού· καὶ ταῦτά γ’ ἄλλα θάλπεται
ῥάκη, βαρείας του νοσηλείας πλέα.
So in Homer, Hector dragged on the ground, his face foul with dust, his
hair matted with blood,
Squalentem barbam et concretos sanguine crines,
(as Virgil expresses it[163]) is a disgusting object, but all the more
terrible and touching.
Who can recall the punishment of Marsyas, in Ovid, without a feeling of
disgust?[164]
Clamanti cutis est summos direpta per artus:
Nec quidquam, nisi vulnus erat; cruor undique manat:
Detectique patent nervi: trepidæque sine ulla
Pelle micant venæ: salientia viscera possis,
Et perlucentes numerare in pectore fibras.
But the loathsome details are here appropriate. They make the terrible
horrible, which in fiction is far from displeasing to us; since, even in
nature, where our compassion is enlisted, things horrible are not wholly
devoid of charm.
I do not wish to multiply examples, but this one thing I must further
observe. There is one form of the horrible, the road to which lies
almost exclusively through the disgusting, and that is the horror of
famine. Even in ordinary life we can convey no idea of extreme hunger
save by enumerating all the innutritious, unwholesome, and particularly
disgusting things with which the stomach would fain appease its
cravings. Since imitation can excite nothing of the feeling of actual
hunger, it has recourse to another disagreeable sensation which, in
cases of extreme hunger, is felt to be a lesser evil. We may thus infer
how intense that other suffering must be which makes the present
discomfort in comparison of small account.