"These wickets of the soul are plac'd so high, Because all sounds do highly move aloft; And that they may not pierce too violently, They are delay'd with turns and twinings oft. For should the voice directly strike the brain, It would astonish and confuse it much; Therefore these plaits and folds the sound restrain. That it the organ may more gently touch."

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All the inducements of early society tend to foster immediate action; all its penalties fall on the man who pauses; the traditional wisdom of those times was never weary of inculcating that "delays are dangerous," and that the sluggish man the man "who roasteth not that which he took in hunting" will not prosper on the earth, and indeed will very soon perish out of it. And in consequence an inability to stay quiet, an irritable desire to act directly, is one of the most conspicuous failings of mankind.

— Walter Bagehot