"This, indeed, is the only Situation I can imagine dreadful enough to conquer a Mind endued with true Principles, or armed with any moderate Degree of Fortitude and Patience."
— Fielding, Sarah (1710-1768)
Author
Work Title
Place of Publication
London
Publisher
Printed for A. Millar
Date
1744, 1753
Metaphor
"This, indeed, is the only Situation I can imagine dreadful enough to conquer a Mind endued with true Principles, or armed with any moderate Degree of Fortitude and Patience."
Metaphor in Context
By Poverty I mean distressed, not narrow Circumstances; and being, with a large dependent Family, in a Situation in Life, that you know not how to go out of, and yet are not able to support; and when you pay Cent. per Cent. for every Necessary of Life, by being obliged to buy every thing by retail: when, if you endeavour to keep up a fair Out-side, and paint not your Poverty in the most ghastly Shape, your nominal Friends will call you extravagant: whilst, on the other hand, if you set your Poverty in full View, such Friends will generously think you too low for their Regard; and comfort themselves, that you are too impotent to hurt them, even in the Eyes of the World. Then it is but watching over every minute Circumstance of your Life, exaggerating every human Failing, and it will be easily believed, you deserve your Fate, and they do right in abandoning you to it. Nay farther, it is very easy, in this Case, to deduce, by a malicious Representation of true Matters of Fact, every Action of your unhappy Life, from Motives you never once dreamed of. And this Advantage is generally taken when your Mind is in a State of the utmost Timidity, when the warm Affections of your Heart make you look with Dread and Horror on every Step you take, lest the Consequence of it should be any ways prejudicial to the chief Object of your Love. --This is Poverty! this is true Distress! But to eat the Bread earned by honest Labour, which Custom has made light, is Riches, and the Height of Luxury, in the Comparison. This, indeed, is the only Situation I can imagine dreadful enough to conquer a Mind endued with true Principles, or armed with any moderate Degree of Fortitude and Patience.
(pp. 75-7)
(pp. 75-7)
Categories
Provenance
Searching "conque" and "mind" in HDIS (Prose)
Citation
At least 15 entries in ESTC (1740, 1744, 1753, 1758, 1761, 1772, 1775, 1782, 1788, 1792). [Note, Volume the Last published in 1753.]
The Adventures of David Simple: Containing an Account of his Travels through the Cities of London and Westminster, in the Search of a Real Friend. By a Lady, 2 vols. (London: A. Millar, 1744) <Link to ECCO>
The Adventures of David Simple: Containing an Account of his Travels through the Cities of London and Westminster, in the Search of a Real Friend. By a Lady, 2 vols. (London: A. Millar, 1744) <Link to ECCO>
Date of Entry
09/23/2004
