In any
case, the pathos is there. Consider a children's May party, on its way
to Central Park. A fife-and-drum corps of three little boys in uniform
leads the way. The Queen of the May, all in white, walks with her
consort under a canopy of ribbons and flowers, a little stiffly,
perhaps, and self-consciously, but not more so than older queens and
kings on parade. A long line of boys and girls in many-coloured caps
moves between flying detachments of mothers carrying baskets. The
confectioner's wagon, laden with its precious commissariat of ice cream
and cake, moves leisurely behind; for the confectioner's horse this is
evidently a holiday. Is pathos conceivable in so delightful, so smiling,
an event? Alas, I have watched May parties go by, and the serious little
faces under the red and white caps have given me a heavier case of
_Weltschmerz_ than I have ever experienced at a performance of "Tristan
und Isolde." It was the fact of those little children advancing in
unison; that is the word. If they had trudged or scurried along,
pell-mell, I should not have minded. But May parties move forward in
procession, and the movement of a compact crowd is, to me, always heavy
with pathos.
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