Passions And Feelings

Thomas Hope, Anastasius; or, Memoirs of a Greek (2nd edt. in three volumes, London, 1820), vol. III., pp. 103-4:

Alas! what am I to believe? Do not philosophers maintain that the passions are the only road to knowledge, to power, and to virtue? that the inert being who never has felt their influence on his own mind knows not how to guide the will of others, sees man as a machine whose movements baffle his skill, constantly miscalculates the views and conduct of his fellow creatures, and, only attempting to move men like blocks by physical force, must find a resistance which mocks his inadequate impulse. Without the passion of love would women encounter the pangs which preserve our species? without that of ambition would man endure the toil of maintaining public order, through means of a complicated polity? Is it not the passion of avarice alone that brings in contact, for universal benefit, the industry and the produce of the most distant countries? and what but the passion for fame makes man risk health, fortune, nay life itself, for the advantages, perhaps the amusement, of generations yet unborn? Like the heat of the sun, that of the passions may strengthen a few poisons, but alone it brings forth all the sweets and healthful plants of the creation.

H— shook his head. «It is feeling,» said he, «which, like the sun's genial warmth, ripens each fairest fruit. Passions, like a scorching blaze, only burn them to ashes. Would you behold the effects of the former; look at my young friend here. Calm, healthful and blooming, he is the bee that sucks the flowers of every clime, some day to add their honey to the stores of his grateful countrymen. Would you know the consequence of the latter; look in the brook beside you.»

I advanced my head over the glassy pool: but from its deep bosom up rose to meet my searching eye, a countenance so pale and ghastly—a cheek so wan and so feverish—that I started back with horror. I felt the reproof, bowed assent, and said no more.