This strange insensibility afforded cause to fear his faculties were all too deeply absorbed in melancholy, for him ever to become a man of the world again, and as she truly loved him, gave both her, and all his other friends, an infinite concern.

CHAP.  III.

The struggles which different passions occasion in the human breast, are here exemplified; and that there is no one among them so strong, but may be extirpated by another, excepting revenge, which knows no period, but by gratification.

Though it must be acknowledged, that the passions, generally speaking, operate according to the constitution, and seem, in a manner, wholly directed by it, yet there is one, above all, which actuates alike in all, and when once entertained, is scarce ever extinguished:—­it may indeed lie dormant, for a time, but then it easily revives on the least occasion, and blazes out with greater violence than ever.  I believe every one will understand I mean revenge, since there is no other emotion of the soul, but has its antedote:  grief and joy alternately succeed each other;—­hope has its period in possession;—­fear ceases, either by the cause being removed, or by a fatal certainty of some dreaded evil;—­ambition dies within us, on a just sense of the folly of pursuing it;—­hate is often vanquished by good offices;—­even greedy avarice may be glutted; and love is, for the most part, fluctuating, and may be terminated by a thousand accidents.—­Revenge alone is implacable and eternal, not to be banished by any other passion whatsoever;—­the effects of it are the same, invariable in every constitution; and whether the man be phlegmatic or sanguine, there will be no difference in his way of thinking in this point.  The principles of religion and morality indeed may, and frequently do, hinder a man from putting into action what this cruel passion suggests, but neither of them can restrain him who has revenge in his heart, from wishing it were lawful for him to indulge it.

This being so fixed a passion, it hardly ever gains entrance on the mind, till a sufficient number of years have given a solidity to the thoughts, and made us know for what we wish, and why we wish.—­Every one, however, does not experience its force, and happy may those be accounted who are free from it, since it is not only the most unjustifiable and dangerous, but also the most restless and self-tormenting emotion of the soul.

There are, notwithstanding, some kind of provocations, which it is scarce possible, nor indeed consistent with the justice we owe to ourselves, to bury wholly in oblivion; and likewise there are some kinds of revenge, which may deserve to be excused; of these, that which Natura put in practice, as shall presently be shewn, may be reckoned of the number.