Similarly, a lover will read fine thoughts or sentiments into the mind of his mistress under the influence of a strong wish to admire.
And what applies to the illusory interpretation of others' feelings applies to the ascription of feelings to inanimate objects.

This is due not simply to the impulse to expand one's conscious existence through far-reaching resonances of sympathy, but also to a permanent or temporary disposition to attribute a certain kind of feeling to an object.

Thus, the poet personifies nature in part because his emotional cravings prompt him to construct the idea of something that can be admired or worshipped.

Once more, the action of a momentary feeling when actually excited is seen in the "mechanical" impulse of a man to retaliate when he strikes his foot against an object, as a chair, which clearly involves a tendency to attribute an intention to hurt to the unoffending body, and the _rationale_ of which odd procedure is pretty correctly expressed in the popular phrase: "It relieves the feelings." It is worth noting, perhaps, that these illusions of insight, like those of perception, may involve an inattention to the actual impression of the moment.

To erroneously attribute a feeling to another through an excess of sympathetic eagerness is often to overlook what a perfectly dispassionate observer would see, as, for example, the immobility of the features or the signs of a deliberate effort to simulate.