Sympathy was a byword in the Scottish Enlightenment – an intellectual movement that influenced the development of American politics, education, and capitalism. Adam Smith and David Hume were equally fond of the term, which meant “fellow-feeling” – a sense of imaginative empathy wherein a person realized that they could not judge the life or actions of another without first trying to vividly understand the pathos of their situation. Mrs Oliphant was a ghost story writer of the

The Victorian Age brings with it a tremendous amount of associations, baggage, and stereotypes that make it one of the most colorful periods in British history (or at least filmable; I myself am partial to the Georgian period, the Enlightenment, and the Civil War -- but that's my cross to bear). The Victorians are known -- someties unfairly -- for their saccharine sentimentalism, sexual repression, and jingoistic nationalism, and -- more or less fairly -- for a great thirst f