passion, until, at its height, it is the bulwark of patience, the tutor
of honour, and the perfectness of praise.

94. You will find farther, that as of love, so of all the other
passions, the right government and exaltation begins in that of the
Imagination, which is lord over them. For to _subdue_ the passions,
which is thought so often to be the sum of duty respecting them, is
possible enough to a proud dulness; but to _excite_ them rightly, and
make them strong for good, is the work of the unselfish imagination. It
is constantly said that human nature is heartless. Do not believe it.
Human nature is kind and generous; but it is narrow and blind; and can
only with difficulty conceive anything but what it immediately sees and
feels. People would instantly care for others as well as themselves if
only they could _imagine_ others as well as themselves. Let a child fall
into the river before the roughest man's eyes;--he will usually do what
he can to get it out, even at some risk to himself; and all the town
will triumph in the saving of one little life. Let the same man be shown
that hundreds of children are dying of fever for want of some sanitary
measure which it will cost him trouble to urge, and he will make no
effort; and probably all the town would resist him if he did. So, also,
the lives of many deserving women are passed in a succession of petty
anxieties about themselves, and gleaning of minute interests and mean
pleasures in their immediate circle, because they are never taught to
make any effort to look beyond it; or to know anything about the mighty
world in which their lives are fading, like blades of bitter grass in
fruitless fields.

95. I had intended to enlarge on this--and yet more on the kingdom which
every man holds in his conceptive faculty, to be peopled with active
thoughts and lovely presences, or left waste for the springing up of
those dark desires and dreams of which it is written that "every
imagination of the thoughts of man's heart is evil continually." True,
and a thousand times true it is, that, here at least, "greater is he
that ruleth his spirit, than he that taketh a city." But this you can
partly follow out for yourselves without help, partly we must leave it
for future enquiry. I press to the conclusion which I wish to leave with
you, that all you can rightly do, or honourably become, depends on the
government of these two instincts of order and kindness, by this great
Imagina