Impassionateness

I may not but conjecture that Doctor Hamond is better learned in this kinde of ſcience then my ſelf, having vantage ground of me in years, ſtudy and experience, and yet he hath gone farther in diſcovering himſelf, and his paſſions then thus, in his Vindication againſt E. P. and (contrary to his profeſſed impaſſionateneſs) hath ſo far betrayed himſelf, as to tranſmit the Image and Character of the perturbation and paſſionate heat of his ſpirit, by his Pen, to the view of the world, as his ſaid Vindication will manifeſtly teſtify.

For being engaged to make Reflexions on that part of his Book which is of leaſt importance, writen in an immodeſt, uncivill, petulant ſtile, it was not fitt in my Answer to mingle conſiderations on a Subiect ſo ſerious, and ſoberly expreſſed as his Principles are, which indeed deſerve to be examined ſeparately with all poſſible calmness and impaſſionateness, as being an Argument on which all other Controverſies do depend, and which one way or other makes an end of them all.

It is chiefly in Paul’s letters to Timothy and Titus that we find the requisites for this work enumerated, and there we note about twenty specific attributes of character, as follows: […] 18. Impassionateness. “Not angry” is the reverse of irascibility or fretfulness. A wrathful shepherd is a moral anomaly.

In reference to the regulation of the Temper—(1) Passionateness, (2) Meekness, (3) Impassionateness (if there be such a word to describe a state which rarely exists).

Offer frankincense of the twenty-five essences of nature, and present the flowers of harmlessness, of intelligence, of forbearance, of mercy, of contentment, of knowledge, unenviousness, of non-illusiveness, of pridelessness, of impassionateness, of uninimicalness, and of the twelve organs of the body.

Deficiency of temper, on the other hand, whatever it be called—whether a species of impassionateness or what not, is censurable. Those whose anger is never roused against objects which deserve it, are thought to be fools, as are they also who are never incensed as they should be, nor when they should be, nor at things at which they should be. Such an one seems to have no proper feeling nor sense of pain: if he shows no anger, he is thought incapable of self-defence.

[I]n the more excitable races we find on the whole a greater tendency to hysterical excitement, in those whose national characteristic is calm and impassionateness a tendency to hysterical depression; […]

[A] gentleman is one whose aims are generous,[…]: Shakespeare’s Ferdinand, with the air of Mercutio, the manliness of Edgar, the passion of Romeo, and the constancy of Orlando. […] As for the true lady, she will be, of necessity, the counterpart of the true gentleman: pure, refined, generous, sweet of temper, gentle of speech, truthful to her heart’s core, shunning the very shadow of evil, instant in well-doing, with the enthusiasm of a Joan of Arc, the exquisite innocence of an Imogen, the devotion of a Desdemona, the frank gaiety of a Rosalind, the boundless impassionateness of a St. Theresa.

The Christian grace of meekness is a good deal more than the rather second-rate virtue which Aristotle makes to be the mean between passionateness and impassionateness, and to consist in a due regulation of one’s angry feelings (“Eth. Nic.” IV. v.).

I pour out my whole soul to you. I write by fleeting intervals: my pen runs away with my senses. The impassionateness of my sensations grows upon me.

But every succeeding piece assumed with Liszt a more pronounced character, and more exhibited the cloven foot, as it were, of Genius. What Bizarrérie is their in the recital on the “Tarentella!” What humour, caprice, intricacy, and impassionateness, and fire and glowing—all, however, superfused by the higher principle of rule, order, and system.

He looked backward to the sweet simplicity of Edith’s character; he looked forward with that high anticipation with which man’s impassionateness invests the objects of our earthly adoration.

This Journal leavens our present literature, though the fact is little known, and less acknowledged. Writers are still amongst us whose intellects were informed and directed by its pages: the labours of many more are bestowed on fields of activity which, (unconsciously to them,) its author made intelligible for sources of use and beauty, and the benign impassionateness with which they are imbued greatly owes its literary parentage to him.

[T]he time soon arrives when the soul recognizes that by the side of the Prince of Light there also dwells the Prince of Darkness; that not only is there in the Universe a great God the Good, but also a great Devil the Evil; and with the impetuosity and impassionateness of youth it gives itself up to lamentation, to indignation.