"To solace mental fatigue by the amusements of fancy, is no loss of time. Students know how often the eye is busied in wandering over the page, while the mind lies in torpid inactivity; they therefore compute their time, not by the hours consumed in study, but by the real acquisitions they obtain; they do not number the voyages they make, but the gold and the diamonds they bring home."

— Disraeli, Isaac (1766-1848)


Place of Publication
London
Publisher
Printed for C. and G. Kearsley, and J. Murray
Date
1793
Metaphor
"To solace mental fatigue by the amusements of fancy, is no loss of time. Students know how often the eye is busied in wandering over the page, while the mind lies in torpid inactivity; they therefore compute their time, not by the hours consumed in study, but by the real acquisitions they obtain; they do not number the voyages they make, but the gold and the diamonds they bring home."
Metaphor in Context
To solace mental fatigue by the amusements of fancy, is no loss of time. Students know how often the eye is busied in wandering over the page, while the mind lies in torpid inactivity; they therefore compute their time, not by the hours consumed in study, but by the real acquisitions they obtain; they do not number the voyages they make, but the gold and the diamonds they bring home. A man of letters best feels the truth of the maxim of Hesiod when applied to time, that

'Half is better than the whole.'
(p. 61)
Provenance
ECCO-TCP
Citation
Only 1 entry in ESTC (1793).

A Dissertation on Anecdotes; by the Author of Curiosities of Literature. (London: Printed for C. and G. Kearsley, and J. Murray, 1793). <Link to ESTC><Link to ECCO-TCP>
Date of Entry
04/29/2014

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