It is a comfort to the wretched to have companions in their misfortunes. It is pleasant, Lucretius says, standing on the shore to see a ship driven about by a tempest; or from the window of a castle, to see a battle; not that we rejoice in the sufferings of the unhappy people in the vessel, who all of them, perhaps, after long struggling with the danger, perish in the ocean; or at the fate of those who are killed or wounded in the battle: the pleasure arises from our being exempt from the danger in which we see so many of our fellow creatures immersed. The comfort, therefore, that we experience in having companions in our troubles, in finding others suffering pains similar to those with which we are afflicted, does not arise from seeing them in pain, but from finding that we are not singled out in a particular manner to bear a greater portion of evil than falls to the lot of others: whenever this does happen, it adds greatly to the misery of what kind so ever it may be. Some men are peculiarly unhappy in this way; in all public calamities, whether by sickness, fire, or inundations, a much larger than their proportion of the evil, being sure to fall upon them. But upon what principle are we to account for the avidity with which people flock to be present at executions? Here they become voluntary spectators of one of the most distressing and afflicting scenes that can be well imagined; particularly when the execution is attended with any additional circumstances of horror; when the criminals are made to suffer the most excruciating torture before death relieves them from their misery. May we attribute this propensity to curiosity, to a desire to see in what manner human strength or courage is able to bear such an extremity of evil? It were much to be wished, that women, whose soft and delicate frames seem to render them unfit for such scenes, did not make so large a portion of the spectators on such occasions.
«I have long been sorry», Mrs. Montagu says, Letters, Vol. IV, «to see the best of our sex running continually after public spectacles and diversions, to the ruin of their health and understandings, and neglect of all domestic duties: but I own the late instance of their going to hear Lord Ferrers's sentence particularly provoked me: the ladies crowded to the House of Lords, to see a wretch brought loaded with crime and shame to the bar, to hear sentence of a cruel and ignominious death; which, considering only this world, cast shame on his ancestors and all his succeeding family. There was in this case every thing that could disgrace human nature and civil distinctions; but it was a sight, and in spite of all pretences to tenderness and delicacy they went adorned with jewels, and laughing and gay to see their fellow creature in the most horrid situation, making a sad end of this life, and in fearful expectation of the commencement of another». Lord Ferrers, it is known, was hanged for shooting one of his servants, in the year 1760.
Fuente: Horace.
