"'You know not what you ask,' cried he; 'the emotions which now rend my soul are more than my reason can endure: suffer me, then, to leave you,--impute it not to unkindness, but think of me as well as thou canst.'"

— Burney [married name D'Arblay], Frances (1752-1840)


Place of Publication
London
Publisher
Printed for T. Lowndes
Date
1778, 1779
Metaphor
"'You know not what you ask,' cried he; 'the emotions which now rend my soul are more than my reason can endure: suffer me, then, to leave you,--impute it not to unkindness, but think of me as well as thou canst.'"
Metaphor in Context
Tears and sighs seemed to choak him!--and waving his hand, he would have left me,--but, clinging to him, "Oh, Sir,"
cried I, "will you so soon abandon me?--am I again an orphan?--oh my dear, my long-lost father, leave me not, I beseech you! take pity on your child, and rob her not of the parent she so fondly hoped would cherish her!"

"You know not what you ask," cried he; "the emotions which now rend my soul are more than my reason can endure: suffer me, then, to leave you,--impute it not to unkindness, but think of me as well as thou canst.--Lord Orville has behaved nobly;--I believe he will make thee happy."
(II, p. 259)
Categories
Provenance
Searching ECCO-TCP
Citation
23 entries in ESTC (1778, 1780, 1783, 1784, 1785, 1788, 1791, 1792, 1793, 1794, 1796, 1797, 1800).

See Evelina, or, a Young Lady's Entrance into the World (London: Printed for T. Lowndes, 1778). <Link to LION>

Text also drawn from Evelina: or, a Young Lady's Entrance into the World. (Dublin: Printed for Messrs. Price, Corcoran, R. Cross, Fitzsimons, W. Whitestone [etc.], 1779). <Link to Vol. I in ECCO-TCP><Vol. II>

Reading Evelina, or the History of a Young Lady's Entrance into the World, ed. Margaret Doody (New York: Penguin, 1994). Note, Doody uses the third edition, published in 1779, as her copy-text.
Date of Entry
07/23/2014

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