Lavengro by George Borrow

"An author," said I, addressing my host; "is it possible that I am under the roof of an author?"

"Yes," said my host, sighing, "my name is so-and-so, and I am the author of so-and-so; it is more than probable that you have heard both of my name and works. I will not detain you much longer with my history; the night is advancing, and the storm appears to be upon the increase. My life since the period of my becoming an author may be summed briefly as an almost uninterrupted series of doubts, anxieties and trepidations. I see clearly that it is not good to love anything immoderately in this world, but it has been my misfortune to love immoderately everything on which I have set my heart. This is not good, I repeat -- but where is the remedy? The ancients were always in the habit of saying, ‘Practise moderation,' but the ancients appear to have considered only one portion of the subject. It is very possible to practice moderation in some things, in drink and the like -- to restrain the appetites -- but can a man restrain the affections of his mind, and tell them, so far you shall go, and no farther? Alas, no! for the mind is a subtle principle, and cannot be confined. The winds may be imprisoned; Homer says that Odysseus carried certain winds in his ship, confined in leathern bags, but Homer never speaks of confining the affections. It were but right that those who exhort us against inordinate affections, and setting our hearts too much upon the world and its vanities, would tell us how to avoid doing so.