"Your Letter has so ruffled my whole Interior, that I know not how to write common Sense."
— Barker, Jane (1675-1743)
Author
Place of Publication
London
Publisher
Printed for E. Curll and T. Payne
Date
1723
Metaphor
"Your Letter has so ruffled my whole Interior, that I know not how to write common Sense."
Metaphor in Context
SIR,
Your Letter has so ruffled my whole Interior, that I know not how to write common Sense: Therefore, if my Answer be unintelligible, blame me not, for I am utterly lost in an Abyss of Confusion: The Thoughts of breaking my holy Resolutions on one Hand, and the Sufferings which the keeping them, makes us both undergo, on the other, distracts me. My dear Chevalier! change your Reproaches into Pity: I will endeavour to repair my Faults: Faults! did I say? Ah me! it is a Crime, to call this my Religious Enterprize a Fault! My Thoughts, Words, Writings, on this Occasion, are Faults! The very Corresponding with the young Lady you placed here, is a Fault! Yet, a Fault so sweet, so delicious, that I cannot refrain, because she recounts a thousand tender Things of you; repeats your Sighs and Grief in such soft and melting Words and Accents, as would soften the most obdurate Heart.
Your Letter has so ruffled my whole Interior, that I know not how to write common Sense: Therefore, if my Answer be unintelligible, blame me not, for I am utterly lost in an Abyss of Confusion: The Thoughts of breaking my holy Resolutions on one Hand, and the Sufferings which the keeping them, makes us both undergo, on the other, distracts me. My dear Chevalier! change your Reproaches into Pity: I will endeavour to repair my Faults: Faults! did I say? Ah me! it is a Crime, to call this my Religious Enterprize a Fault! My Thoughts, Words, Writings, on this Occasion, are Faults! The very Corresponding with the young Lady you placed here, is a Fault! Yet, a Fault so sweet, so delicious, that I cannot refrain, because she recounts a thousand tender Things of you; repeats your Sighs and Grief in such soft and melting Words and Accents, as would soften the most obdurate Heart.
Categories
Provenance
Searching in HDIS (Prose)
Citation
Only one entry in the ESTC (1723).
A Patch-Work Screen for the Ladies; or Love and Virtue Recommended: In a Collection of Instructive Novels. Related After a Manner Intirely New, and Interspersed with Rural Poems, describing the Innocence of a Country-Life. By Mrs. Jane Barker, of Wilsthorp, near Stamford, in Lincolnshire (London: Printed for E. Curll and T. Payne, 1723.) <Link to ECCO> <Link to Google>
A Patch-Work Screen for the Ladies; or Love and Virtue Recommended: In a Collection of Instructive Novels. Related After a Manner Intirely New, and Interspersed with Rural Poems, describing the Innocence of a Country-Life. By Mrs. Jane Barker, of Wilsthorp, near Stamford, in Lincolnshire (London: Printed for E. Curll and T. Payne, 1723.) <Link to ECCO> <Link to Google>
Theme
Inwardness
Date of Entry
08/09/2005
