"There is something so pathetick in this kind of Diction, that it often sets the Mind in a Flame, and makes our Hearts burn within us."

— Addison, Joseph (1672-1719)


Work Title
Date
Saturday, June 14, 1712
Metaphor
"There is something so pathetick in this kind of Diction, that it often sets the Mind in a Flame, and makes our Hearts burn within us."
Metaphor in Context
There is a certain Coldness and Indifference in the Phrases of our European Languages, when they are compared with the Oriental Forms of Speech: and it happens very luckily, that the Hebrew Idioms run into the English Tongue with a particular Grace and Beauty. Our Language has received innumerable Elegancies and Improvements, from that Infusion of Hebraisms, which are derived to it out of the Poetical Passages in Holy Writ. They give a Force and Energy to our Expressions, warm and animate our Language, and convey our Thoughts in more ardent and intense Phrases, than any that are to be met with in our own Tongue. There is something so pathetick in this kind of Diction, that it often sets the Mind in a Flame, and makes our Hearts burn within us. How cold and dead does a Prayer appear, that is composed in the most Elegant and Polite Forms of Speech, which are natural to our Tongue, when it is not heightened by that Solemnity of Phrase, which may be drawn from the Sacred Writings. It has been said by some of the Ancients, that if the Gods were to talk with Men, they would certainly speak in Plato's Style; but I think we may say, with Justice, that when Mortals converse with their Creator, they cannot do it in so proper a Style as in that of the Holy Scriptures.
(Cf. III, pp. 514-5 in Bond ed.)
Categories
Provenance
Searching in Project Gutenberg (PGDP) e-text. Confirmed in Bond.
Citation
At least 80 entries in ESTC (1711, 1712, 1713, 1714, 1715, 1716, 1717, 1718, 1720, 1721, 1723, 1724, 1726, 1729, 1733, 1734, 1735, 1737, 1738, 1744, 1745, 1747, 1748, 1749, 1750, 1753, 1754, 1755, 1756, 1756, 1757, 1761, 1763, 1765, 1766, 1767, 1769, 1771, 1776, 1778, 1785, 1788, 1789, 1781, 1793, 1797, 1799, 1800).

By Steele, Addison, Budgell and others, The Spectator (London: Printed for Sam. Buckley, at the Dolphin in Little Britain; and sold by A[nn]. Baldwin in Warwick-Lane, 1711-1714). <Link to ESTC> -- No. 1 (Thursday, March 1. 1711) through No. 555 (Saturday, December 6. 1712); 2nd series, No. 556 (Friday, June 18. 1714), ceased with No. 635 (20 Dec. 1714).

Some text from The Spectator, 3 vols. Ed. Henry Morley (London: George Routledge, 1891). <Link to PGDP edition>

Reading in Donald Bond's edition: The Spectator, 5 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965).
Date of Entry
06/06/2014

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