_S._ If we could indulge our affections while they run on smoothly, and discard them from our breasts the instant they fail of their objects, it might be well. But the feelings, the habitual and rooted sentiments of the soul, are not the creatures of choice or of a fanciful theory. To take the utmost possible interest in an object, and be utterly and instantaneously indifferent to the loss of it, is not exactly in the order of human nature. We may blunt or extirpate our feelings altogether with proper study and pains, by ill-humour, conceit, and affectation, but not make them the playthings of a verbal paradox. I fancy if Mr. —— had lost a hundred pounds by a bad debt, or if a lump of soot had fallen into his broth, it would have spoiled his dinner. The doctrine of Utility would not have come to his aid here. It is reserved for great and trying occasions; or serves as an excuse for not affecting grief which its professors do not feel. So much for reason against passion. _R._ But if they do not possess all the softness and endearing charities of private life, they have the firmness and unflinching hardihood of patriotism and devotion to the public cause. _S._ That is what I have yet to learn. They are a kind of Ishmaelites, whose hand is _against_ others—what or who they are for (except themselves) I do not know. They do not willingly come forward into the front nor even show themselves in the rear of the battle, but are very ready to denounce and disable those who are indiscreet enough to do so. They are not for precipitating a crisis, but for laying down certain general principles, which will do posterity a world of good and themselves no harm. They are a sort of _occult_ reformers, and patriots _incognito_. They get snug places under Government, and mar popular Elections—but it is to advance the good of the cause. Their theories are as whole and as sleek as their skins, but that there is a certain jejuneness and poverty in both which prevents their ever putting on a wholesome or comfortable appearance. _R._ But at least you will not pretend to deny the distinction (you just now hinted at) between things of real Utility and merely fanciful interest? _S._ No, I admit that distinction to the full. I only wish you and others not to mistake it. _R._ I have not the slightest guess at what you mean. _S._ Is there any possible view of the subject that has not been canvassed over and over again in the _School_? Or do you pass over all possible objections as the dreams of idle enthusiasts? Let me ask, have you not a current dislike to any thing in the shape of sentiment or _sentimentality_? for with you they are the same. Yet a thing and the _cant_ about it are not the same. The cant about Utility does not destroy its essence. What do you mean by _sentimentality_? _R._ I do not know.