The source of the love of nature or of the country has never been explained so well as it might. The truth is this. Natural or inanimate objects please merely as objects of sense or contemplation, and we ask no return of the passion or admiration from them, so that we cannot be disappointed or distracted in our choice. If we are delighted with a flower or a tree, we are pleased with it for its own sake; nothing more is required to make our satisfaction complete; we do not ask the flower or tree whether it likes us again; and, therefore, wherever we can meet with the same or a similar object, we may reckon upon a recurrence of the same soothing emotion. Nature is the only mistress that smiles on us still the same; and does not repay admiration with scorn, love with hatred. She is faithful to us, as long as we are faithful to ourselves. Whereas, in regard to the human species, we have not so much to consider our own dispositions towards others, as theirs towards us; a thousand caprices, interests, and opinions, may intervene before the good understanding can be mutual; we not only cannot infer of one individual from another, but the same individual may change to-morrow: so that in our intercourse with the world, there is nothing but littleness, uncertainty, suspicion, and mortification, instead of the grandeur and repose of nature.
XI
It has been objected to the soothing power of Nature, that it cannot take away the sharp pang of vehement distress, but rather barbs the dart, and seems to smile in mockery of our anguish. But the same might be said of music, poetry, and friendship, which only tantalize and torment us by offering to divert our grief in its keenest paroxysms; but yet cannot be denied to be enviable resources and consolations of the human mind, when the bitterness of the moment has passed over.
XII
Every one is a hero, the circumstances being given. All that is necessary is, that the outward impression should be so strong as to make a man forget himself. A woman rushes into the flames to save her child, not from duty or reason—but because the distracting terror for another banishes all recollection of, and fear for, herself. For the same reason, a person throws himself from a precipice, because the apprehension of danger gets the better of and confounds the sense of self-preservation. The doctrine of self-love, as an infallible metaphysical principle of action, is nonsense.
XIII
The heroical ages were those in which there was a constant question between life and death, and men ate their scanty meal with their swords in their hands.
XIV
The hero acts from outward impulse; the martyr from internal faith, and so far is the greater character of the two. And yet it may be doubted whether the latter is properly a voluntary agent, or whether, if he could do it unperceived, he would not abstract himself from the scene, instead of becoming a sacrifice and a witness to the truth.