CXX
Vulgarity, by stifling imagination, instantly produces in me a deadly boredom. Charming Countess K——, showing me this evening her lovers' letters, which to my mind were in bad taste. (Forlì, March 17th, Henri.)
Imagination was not stifled: it was only deranged, and very soon from mere repugnance ceased to picture the unpleasantness of these dull lovers.
CXXI
Metaphysical Reverie
Belgirate, 26th October, 1816.
Real passion has only to be crossed for it to produce apparently more unhappiness than happiness. This thought may not be true in the case of gentle souls, but it is absolutely proved in the case of the majority of men, and particularly of cold philosophers, who, as regards passion, live, one might say, only on curiosity and self-love.
I said all this to the Contessina Fulvia yesterday evening, as we were walking together near the great pine on the eastern terrace of Isola Bella. She answered: "Unhappiness makes a much stronger impression on a man's life than pleasure.
"The prime virtue in anything which claims to give us pleasure, is that it strikes hard.
"Might we not say that life itself being made up only of sensation, there is a universal taste in all living beings for the consciousness that the sensations of their life are the keenest that can be? In the North people are hardly alive—look at the slowness of their movements. The Italian's dolce far niente is the pleasure of relishing one's soul and one's emotions, softly reclining on a divan. Such pleasure is impossible, if you are racing all day on horseback or in a drosky, like the Englishman or the Russian. Such people would die of boredom on a divan. There is no reason to look into their souls.