The great object in life is Sensation—to feel that we exist, even though in pain; it is this “craving void” which drives us to gaming, to battle, to travel, to intemperate but keenly felt pursuits of every description whose principal attraction is the agitation inseparable from their accomplishment.
ATTRIBUTION:
George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824), British poet. letter, Sept. 6, 1813, written to Annabella Millbanke, later Lady Byron. Byron’s Letters and Journals, vol. 3, ed. Leslie A. Marchand (1974).
The “craving void” was described by Alexander Pope in Epistle from Eloisa to Abelard.
