"If I am accidentally left alone for a few hours, said he, my inveterate persuasion rushes upon my soul, and my thoughts are chained down by some irresistible violence, but they are soon disentangled by the prince's conversation, and instantaneously released at the entrance of Pekuah."
— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)
Author
Place of Publication
London
Publisher
Printed for R. and J. Dodsley; and W. Johnston
Date
1759
Metaphor
"If I am accidentally left alone for a few hours, said he, my inveterate persuasion rushes upon my soul, and my thoughts are chained down by some irresistible violence, but they are soon disentangled by the prince's conversation, and instantaneously released at the entrance of Pekuah."
Metaphor in Context
The sage confessed to Imlac, that since he had mingled in the gay tumults of life, and divided his hours by a succession of amusements, he found the conviction of his authority over the skies fade gradually from his mind, and began to trust less to an opinion which he never could prove to others, and which he now found subject to variation from causes in which reason had no part. "If I am accidentally left alone for a few hours, said he, my inveterate persuasion rushes upon my soul, and my thoughts are chained down by some irresistible violence, but they are soon disentangled by the prince's conversation, and instantaneously released at the entrance of Pekuah. I am like a man habitually afraid of spectres, who is set at ease by a lamp, and wonders at the dread which harrassed him in the dark, yet, if his lamp be extinguished, feels again the terrours which he knows that when it is light he shall feel no more. But I am sometimes afraid lest I indulge my quiet by criminal negligence, and voluntarily forget the great charge with which I am intrusted. If I favour myself in a known errour, or am determined by my own ease in a doubtful question of this importance, how dreadful is my crime!"
Categories
Provenance
The sage confessed to Imlac, that since he had mingled in the gay tumults of life, and divided his hours by a succession of amusements, he found the conviction of his authority over the skies fade gradually from his mind, and began to trust less to an opinion which he never could prove to others, and which he now found subject to variation from causes in which reason had no part. "If I am accidentally left alone for a few hours, said he, my inveterate persuasion rushes upon my soul, and my thoughts are chained down by some irresistible violence, but they are soon disentangled by the prince's conversation, and instantaneously released at the entrance of Pekuah. I am like a man habitually afraid of spectres, who is set at ease by a lamp, and wonders at the dread which harrassed him in the dark, yet, if his lamp be extinguished, feels again the terrours which he knows that when it is light he shall feel no more. But I am sometimes afraid lest I indulge my quiet by criminal negligence, and voluntarily forget the great charge with which I am intrusted. If I favour myself in a known errour, or am determined by my own ease in a doubtful question of this importance, how dreadful is my crime!"
Citation
At least 37 entries in the ESTC (1759, 1760, 1766, 1768, 1775, 1777, 1783, 1785, 1786, 1787, 1789, 1790, 1791, 1792, 1793, 1794, 1795, 1796, 1798, 1799, 1800).
See The Prince of Abissinia. A Tale. In Two Volumes. (London: Printed for R. and J. Dodsley; and W. Johnston, 1759). <Link to ESTC> <Link to Jack Lynch's online edition>
Reading The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia, ed. Thomas Keymer (Oxford: OUP, 2009).
See The Prince of Abissinia. A Tale. In Two Volumes. (London: Printed for R. and J. Dodsley; and W. Johnston, 1759). <Link to ESTC> <Link to Jack Lynch's online edition>
Reading The History of Rasselas, Prince of Abissinia, ed. Thomas Keymer (Oxford: OUP, 2009).
Date of Entry
07/20/2011
