"If you have reduced me to the necessity of again debating the same painful and gloomy question, if you cannot give that elasticity to my mind which will animate it to despise difficulty and steel it against injustice, however good your intentions may have been, I fear you have but imposed misery upon me."

— Holcroft, Thomas (1745-1809)


Place of Publication
London
Publisher
Printed for Shepperson and Reynolds
Date
1794, 1797
Metaphor
"If you have reduced me to the necessity of again debating the same painful and gloomy question, if you cannot give that elasticity to my mind which will animate it to despise difficulty and steel it against injustice, however good your intentions may have been, I fear you have but imposed misery upon me."
Metaphor in Context
You, Mr. Turl, say you can shew me better arguments, moral motives that are indispensable, why I ought to live. These are assertions, of which I must consider. You have restored me to life: prove that you have done me a favour! Of that I doubt! My first sensation, after recovering my faculties, was anger at your officious pity: shew me that it was ill timed and unjust. If you have reduced me to the necessity of again debating the same painful and gloomy question, if you cannot give that elasticity to my mind which will animate it to despise difficulty and steel it against injustice, however good your intentions may have been, I fear you have but imposed misery upon me.
(III.ix, pp. 209-10)
Provenance
Searching "mind" and "steel" in ECCO-TCP.
Citation
3 entries in ESTC (1794, 1795). First three volumes, same imprint as vol. I: all 1794. See separate entry for vol. IV, V, and VI (1797).

Text from The Adventures of Hugh Trevor. By Thomas Holcroft., 6 vols. (London: Printed for Shepperson and Reynolds, No. 137, Oxford-Street, 1794-97). <Link to ESTC><Link to Vol. I in ECCO-TCP><Vol. II><Link to Vol. III>
Date of Entry
03/12/2014

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