"I continued it from habit, and because I knew not how to employ my time otherwise; but I felt a dreary vacuity in my heart; and amid splendor and admiration was unhappy."

— Smith, Charlotte (1749-1806)


Place of Publication
London
Publisher
Printed for T. Cadell
Date
1788
Metaphor
"I continued it from habit, and because I knew not how to employ my time otherwise; but I felt a dreary vacuity in my heart; and amid splendor and admiration was unhappy."
Metaphor in Context
[...] It was yet however very much the fashion to admire me; and my husband seemed still to take some delight in hearing and reading in the daily papers that Lady Adelina Trelawny was the most elegant figure at Court, or that every beauty at the Opera was eclipsed on her entrance. The eagerness and avidity with which I had entered, from the confinement of the nursery, to a life of continual dissipation, was now considerably abated. I continued it from habit, and because I knew not how to employ my time otherwise; but I felt a dreary vacuity in my heart; and amid splendor and admiration was unhappy.
(II, pp. 241-2)
Categories
Provenance
Searching in C-H Lion
Citation
At least 6 entries in ESTC (1788, 1789, 1799).

Emmeline, the Orphan of the Castle. By Charlotte Smith, 4 vols. (London: Printed for T. Cadell, 1788). <Link to ECCO>
Date of Entry
06/14/2013

The Mind is a Metaphor is authored by Brad Pasanek, Assistant Professor of English, University of Virginia.