232 On Means and Ends, [SEPT. 



very essence, which consists in violence and effort : they turn away from 

 whatever might afford diversion or solace, and goad us on to exertions as 

 painful as they are unavailable, and with no other companion than remorse, 

 the most intolerable of all inmates of the breast; for it is constantly urg- 

 ing us to retrieve our peace of mind by an impossibility the undoing of 

 what is past. One of the chief traits of sublimity in Milton's character of 

 Satan is this dreadful display of unrelenting pride and self-will the sense 

 of suffering joined with the sense of power and " courage never to submit 

 or yield" and the aggravation of the original purpose of lofty ambition 

 and opposition to the Almighty, with the total overthrow and signal punish- 

 ment, which ought to be reasons for its relinquishment. " His thoughts 

 burn like a hell within him !" but he gives them " neither truce nor rest," 

 and will not even sue for mercy. This kind of sublimity must be thrown 

 away upon the French critic, who would only think Satan a very ridicu- 

 lous old gentleman for adhering so obstinately to his original pretensions, 

 and not making the most of circumstances, and giving in his resignation to 

 the ruling party ! When Buonaparte fell, an English editor (of virulent 

 memory) exhausted a great number of the finest passages in Paradise 

 Lost, in applying them to his ill-fated ambition. This was an equal com- 

 pliment to the poet and the conqueror : to the last, for having realized a 

 conception of himself in the mind of his enemies on a par with the most 

 stupendous creations of imagination ; to the first, for having embodied in 

 tiction what bore so strong a resemblance to, and was constantly brought 

 to mind by, the fearful and imposing reality ! But to return to our sub- 

 ject- 

 It is the same with us in love and literature. An Englishman makes 

 love without thinking of the chances of success, his own disadvantages, or 

 the character of his mistress that is, without the adaptation of means to 

 ejids, consulting only his own humour or fancy;* and he writes a book 

 of history or travels, without acquainting himself with geography, or 

 appealing to documents or dates; substituting his own will or opinion in 

 the room of these technical helps or hindrances, as he considers them. 

 It is not right. In business it is not by any means the same ; which looks 

 as if, where interest was the moving principle, and acted as a counterpoise 

 to caprice and will, our headstrong propensity gave way, though it some- 

 times leads us into extravagant and ruinous speculations. Nor is it a dis- 

 advantage to us in war; for there the spirit of contradiction does every 

 thing, and an Englishman will go to the devil sooner than yield to any 

 odds. Courage is nothing but will, defying consequences ; and this the 

 English have in perfection. Burns somewhere calls out lustily, inspired by 

 rhyme and usquebaugh, 



Dr. Johnson has observed, that " strong passion deprives the lover of that easiness 

 of address, which is so great a recommendation to most women." Is then indifference or 

 coldness the surest passport to the female heart? A man who is much in love has not his 

 wits properly about him : he can think only of her whose image is engraven on his heart; 

 he can talk only of her ; he can only repeat the same vows, and protestations, and expres- 

 sions of rapture or despair. He may, by this means, become importunate and troublesome 

 but does he deserve to lose his mistress for the only cause that j>ives him a title to her 

 the sincerity of his passion / We may perhaps answer this question by another Is a 

 woman to accept of a madman, merely because he happens to fall in love with her? "The 

 lunatic, the lover, and the poet," as Shakspeare has said, "are of imagination all com- 

 pact," and must, in most cases, be contented with imagination as their reward. Realities 

 are out of their reach, as well as beneath their notice. 



