"Will not some serious thoughts mingle with thy melilot, and tear off the callus of thy mind, as that may stay the leather from thy back, and as thy epispastics may strip the parchment from thy plotting head?"

— Richardson, Samuel (bap. 1689, d. 1761)


Place of Publication
London
Publisher
Printed for S. Richardson
Date
1747-8
Metaphor
"Will not some serious thoughts mingle with thy melilot, and tear off the callus of thy mind, as that may stay the leather from thy back, and as thy epispastics may strip the parchment from thy plotting head?"
Metaphor in Context
I will suppose, that thou hast just read the letter thou callest shocking; and which I intended to be so. And let me ask, What thou thinkest of it? Dost thou not tremble at the horrors the vilest of women labours with, on the apprehensions of death, and future judgment? -- How sit the reflections that must have been raised by the perusal of this letter upon thy yet unclosed eylet-holes? Will not some serious thoughts mingle with thy melilot, and tear off the callus of thy mind, as that may stay the leather from thy back, and as thy epispastics may strip the parchment from thy plotting head? If not, then indeed is thy conscience feared, and no hopes will lie for thee.
Categories
Provenance
Searching in HDIS (Prose)
Citation
Published December 1747 (vols. 1-2), April 1748 (vols. 3-4), December 1748 (vols. 5-7). Over 28 entries in ESTC (1748, 1749, 1751, 1751, 1759, 1764, 1765, 1768, 1772, 1774, 1780, 1784, 1785, 1788, 1790, 1791, 1792, 1794, 1795, 1798, 1800). Passages "restored" in 3rd edition of 1751. An abridgment in 1756.

See Samuel Richardson, Clarissa. Or, the History of a Young Lady: Comprehending the Most Important Concerns of Private Life, 7 vols. (London: Printed for S. Richardson, 1748). <Link to ECCO>

Some text drawn from ECCO-TCP <Link to vol. I in ECCO-TCP><Link to vol. II><Link to vol. III><Link to vol. IV><Link to vol. V><Link to vol. VI><Link to vol. VII>

Reading Samuel Richardson, Clarissa; or, the History of a Young Lady, ed. Angus Ross (London: Penguin Books, 1985). <Link to LION>
Date of Entry
03/25/2005

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