To the influence of ennui must be traced the passion for strong excitement. When life has become almost stagnant, when the ordinary course of events has been unable to excite any strong interest, ennui assumes a terrific power over the mind, and clamours for emotion, though that emotion is to be purchased by scenes of horror and of crime. "What a magnificent spectacle," said the Parisian mob, "how interesting a spectacle to see a woman of the wit and courage of Madame Roland on the scaffold!" And it is precisely the same power, which excites the sensitive admirer of works of fiction to ransack the shelves of a library for works of thrilling and "painful" interest.
To the same kind of restless curiosity we have to ascribe the passionate declamations of the tragic actor, and the splendid music of the opera; the cunning feats of the village conjuror, and the lascivious pantomime of the city ballet-dancers; the disgusting varieties of bull-fights, and the celebrated feats of pugilism; the locomotive zeal of the great pedestrians, and the perfect quiescence of the "pillar saints."
The habits of ancient Rome illustrate most clearly the extent to which this passion for strong sensations may hurry the public mind into extravagances, and repress every sentiment of sympathy and generosity. Ambition itself is not so reckless of human life as ennui; clemency is the favourite attribute of the former; but ennui has the tastes of a cannibal, and the sight of human blood, shed for its amusement, makes it greedy after a renewal of the dreadful indulgence. No one need be informed, that the shows of ancient gladiators were attended by an infinitely more numerous throng than is ever gathered by any modern spectacle. And let it not be supposed, that the life of one of these combatants was the more safe, because it depended on the interposition of the Roman fair. The fondness for murderous exhibitions finally raged with such vehemence, that they were at length introduced as an attraction at a banquet, and the guests, as they reclined at table in the luxury of physical ease, have been wet by the life-blood from the veins of the wounded gladiators.
Quinetiam exhilarare viris convivia cæde
Mos olim, et miscere epulis spectacula dira
Certantum ferro, sæpe et super ipsa cadentum
Pocula, respersis non parco sanguine mensis.
Time would fail us were we to illustrate the various horrors which attended these amusements, designed to entertain the most refined population of Rome. Time would fail us were we to enumerate the various classifications in the art of murder on the stage, the signals which were made by the multitude in token of relenting clemency, the more usual signal, made by virgins and matrons, demanding the continuance of the combat unto death. Do we not call Titus the delight of the human race? Do we not praise his commonplace puerility, perdidi diem, the exclamation of conceit, rather than of manliness? And yet it was this philanthropist, this favourite of humanity, who caused the vast amphitheatre to be erected, as it were a monument to all ages of the barbarous civilization of the capital of his empire. And as to the numbers who appeared on these occasions, do we suppose it was a pair? or a score? We will not ask after the horrors commended and consummated by a Tiberius or a Caligula. Was not Trajan a moderate prince? Was he not disposed to introduce habits of a reasonable industry? Yet the active Trajan kept up a succession of games to cheat the population of Rome of ennui, during a hundred and twenty-three days, in which time ten thousand gladiators were decked for sacrifice.
Thus the vehemence of this passion is evident from the atrocity of the resources by which its cravings are satisfied. We may also remark, that superstition itself, interwoven as it is with all the fears and weaknesses of humanity, subjects the human mind to a bondage less severe and less permanent than that of the terrific craving after something to dissipate the weariness of the heart. At Rome the sacrifices to the heathen deities were abolished before the games of the gladiators were suppressed; it was less difficult to take from the priests their spoils, from the altars their victims, from the prejudices of the people their religious faith, than to rescue from ennui the miserable wretches whose lives were to be the sport of the idle. The laws already forbade the offering the bull to Jove, when the poet still had to pray that none might perish in the city under the condemnation of pleasure,
Nullus in urbe cadat, cujus sit pœna voluptas.
Philosophy itself offers no guarantee against the common infirmities of listlessness. Many a stoic has resisted the attacks of external evils with an exemplary fortitude; and has yet failed in his encounters with time. Strange indeed that time should be an encumbrance to a sage! Strange indeed, that, when life is so short, and philosophy boundless, and time a gift of the most precious nature, dealt out to us in successive moments, a possession which is most coveted, and can the least be hoarded, which comes, but never returns, which departs as soon as given, and is lost even in the receiving,—strange indeed that such a gift, so precious, so transient, so fleeting, should ever press severely upon a philosopher!
And yet wisdom is no security against ennui. The man who made Europe ring with his eloquence, and largely contributed to the spirit of republican enthusiasm, wasted away for months in a state of the most foolish languor, under the idea that he was dying of a polypus at his heart.[4] Nay, this philosopher, who presumed to believe himself skilled in the ways of man, and an adept in the character of women, who dared to expound religion and proposed to reform Christianity, who committed and confessed the meanest actions,—and yet, as if in the presence of the Supreme Arbiter of life and before the tribunal of Eternal Justice, arrogated to himself an equality with the purest in the innumerable crowd of immortal souls,—he, the proud one, would so far yield to ennui, as to put the final and eternal welfare of his soul at issue on the throw of a stone. La Harpe, no correct writer, nor sound critic, affirms, that Rousseau undertook to decide the question of a Superintending Providence by throwing stones at a tree. That would have been not merely an imbecile but a blasphemous act. As the case stood, Jean Jacques must be acquitted of any charge worse than that of excessive and even ridiculous weakness. "Je m'en vais," he says to himself, "je m'en vais jeter cette pierre contre l'arbre qui est vis-a-vis de moi: si je le touche, signe de salut; si je le marque, signe de damnation."
But Jean Jacques passes for an inspired madman. What shall we say to the temperate Spinoza, whose life was not variegated by the brightness of domestic scenes, and who, being cut off from active life and from social love, necessarily encountered a void within himself. It was his favourite resource against the visits of ennui, to catch spiders and teach them to fight; and when he had so far made himself master of the nature of these animals, that he could get them as angry as game cocks, he would, all thin and feeble as he was, break out into a roar of laughter, and chuckle to see his champions engage, as if they, too, were fighting for honour.