"We often see that to reverse this boasted constancy is the work of but a single minute,--and then in vain their past professions recoil upon their minds;--in vain the idea of the forsaken fair haunts them in nightly visions."
— Haywood [née Fowler], Eliza (1693?-1756)
Work Title
Place of Publication
London
Publisher
T. Gardner
Date
1753
Metaphor
"We often see that to reverse this boasted constancy is the work of but a single minute,--and then in vain their past professions recoil upon their minds;--in vain the idea of the forsaken fair haunts them in nightly visions."
Metaphor in Context
How uncertain,--how wandering are the passions of mankind,--how yielding to every temptation that presents itself;--seldom are they masters of their own hearts or actions, especially at Jemmy's years; and well may they deceive others in what they are deceived themselves.
When they protest to love no other object than the present, they may, perhaps, resolve to be as just as they pretend;--but alas!--this is not in their power, even though it may in their will;--they can no more command their wishes than they can their thoughts, which, as Shakespear tells us,--'Once lost, are gone beyond the clouds.' --We often see that to reverse this boasted constancy is the work of but a single minute,--and then in vain their past professions recoil upon their minds;--in vain the idea of the forsaken fair haunts them in nightly visions.
(II.xxii, pp. 232-3)
When they protest to love no other object than the present, they may, perhaps, resolve to be as just as they pretend;--but alas!--this is not in their power, even though it may in their will;--they can no more command their wishes than they can their thoughts, which, as Shakespear tells us,--'Once lost, are gone beyond the clouds.' --We often see that to reverse this boasted constancy is the work of but a single minute,--and then in vain their past professions recoil upon their minds;--in vain the idea of the forsaken fair haunts them in nightly visions.
(II.xxii, pp. 232-3)
Categories
Provenance
Searching "haunt" and "mind" in HDIS (Prose Fiction)
Citation
5 entries in ESTC (1753, 1769, 1776, 1785).
Haywood, Eliza. The History of Jemmy and Jenny Jessamy. 3 vols. (London: Printed for T. Gardner, 1753).
Haywood, Eliza. The History of Jemmy and Jenny Jessamy. 3 vols. (London: Printed for T. Gardner, 1753).
Date of Entry
04/27/2004
