"All the Reasons on which she had founded her Love, recurred in the strongest and liveliest Colours to her Mind, and all the Causes of her Hatred sunk down and disappeared; or if the least Remembrance of any thing which had disobliged her remained, her Heart became his zealous Advocate, and soon satisfied her that her own Fates were more to be blamed than he, and that without being a Villain, he could have acted no otherwise than he had done."
— Fielding, Henry (1707-1754)
Author
Work Title
Place of Publication
London
Publisher
Printed for A. Millar
Date
1752
Metaphor
"All the Reasons on which she had founded her Love, recurred in the strongest and liveliest Colours to her Mind, and all the Causes of her Hatred sunk down and disappeared; or if the least Remembrance of any thing which had disobliged her remained, her Heart became his zealous Advocate, and soon satisfied her that her own Fates were more to be blamed than he, and that without being a Villain, he could have acted no otherwise than he had done."
Metaphor in Context
Miss Mathews therefore no sooner heard that Booth was killed, (for so was the Report at first, and by a Colonel of the Army) than she immediately concluded it to be James. She was extremely shock'd with the News, and her Heart instantly began to relent. All the Reasons on which she had founded her Love, recurred in the strongest and liveliest Colours to her Mind, and all the Causes of her Hatred sunk down and disappeared; or if the least Remembrance of any thing which had disobliged her remained, her Heart became his zealous Advocate, and soon satisfied her that her own Fates were more to be blamed than he, and that without being a Villain, he could have acted no otherwise than he had done.
In this Temper of Mind, she looked on herself as the Murderer of an innocent Man, and what to her was much worse, of the Man she had loved, and still did love with all the Violence imaginable. She looked on James as the Tool with which she had done this Murder; and as it is usual for People who have rashly or inadvertently made any animate or inanimate thing the Instrument of Mischief, to hate the innocent Means by which the Mischief was effected: (for this is a subtle Method which the Mind invents to excuse ourselves, the last Objects on whom we would willingly wreak our Vengeance;) so Miss Mathews now hated and cursed James as the efficient Cause of that Act which she herself had contrived, and laboured to carry into Execution. (II.v.9)
In this Temper of Mind, she looked on herself as the Murderer of an innocent Man, and what to her was much worse, of the Man she had loved, and still did love with all the Violence imaginable. She looked on James as the Tool with which she had done this Murder; and as it is usual for People who have rashly or inadvertently made any animate or inanimate thing the Instrument of Mischief, to hate the innocent Means by which the Mischief was effected: (for this is a subtle Method which the Mind invents to excuse ourselves, the last Objects on whom we would willingly wreak our Vengeance;) so Miss Mathews now hated and cursed James as the efficient Cause of that Act which she herself had contrived, and laboured to carry into Execution. (II.v.9)
Categories
Provenance
HDIS (Personification)
Citation
13 entries in ESTC (1752, 1762, 1771, 1775, 1777, 1780, 1790, 1793).
See Amelia. By Henry Fielding, 4 vols. (London: A. Millar, 1752). <Link to ECCO>
Reading Henry Fielding, Amelia, ed. David Blewett (London: Penguin Books, 1987).
See Amelia. By Henry Fielding, 4 vols. (London: A. Millar, 1752). <Link to ECCO>
Reading Henry Fielding, Amelia, ed. David Blewett (London: Penguin Books, 1987).
Date of Entry
11/18/2004
