One may spend their "life continually haunted with ghosts," formed by one's "own capricious imagination" enemies may be cherished in one's bosom
— Fielding, Sarah (1710-1768) and Jane Collier (bap. 1715, d. 1755)
Work Title
Place of Publication
London
Publisher
Printed for R. and J. Dodsley in Pall Mall
Date
1754
Metaphor
One may spend their "life continually haunted with ghosts," formed by one's "own capricious imagination" enemies may be cherished in one's bosom
Metaphor in Context
But instances of the miserable consequences which attend this false fear, and which must have fallen under every one's observation, who hath got this key to the human mind, would be endless in the repetition. It is this which makes those domestic politicians, who are filling their brains with continual suspicions and stratagems about nothing; who are a curse to every family in which they are to be found; who are the most mischievous, and I believe in their own hearts the most miserable of all beings. They can enjoy no pleasure for fear their friends and acquaintance should have lain some traps to deceive and gull them. The timorous hare doth not exceed them in fear, altho' she doth in wisdom; for the number of her foes justifies her terrors: but these voluntary seekers of objects of fear, may generally find their only enemy at home; and like Swift's fat man in the croud, if they could remove themselves from the number of those imaginary enemies which they complain of, they would find the whole croud dwindled into nothing. But I shall always esteem it as a greater effect of true wisdom, to suffer myself to be duped by a great variety of my acquaintance, than to fix myself down as a constant dupe to my own unnecessary anxieties. Nothing indeed to me could be so terrible, as to spend my life continually haunted with ghosts, form'd by my own capricious imagination: for whatever enemies I find without, I will always endeavour not to cherish one in my own bosom.
(I.i.1, pp. 37-8)
(I.i.1, pp. 37-8)
Categories
Provenance
Searching haunt and imagination in HDIS
Citation
2 entries in ESTC (1754).
See Fielding, Sarah and Jane Collier, The Cry: A New Dramatic Fable, 3 vols. (London: Printed for R. and J. Dodsley in Pall Mall, 1754). <Link to ESTC>
See Fielding, Sarah and Jane Collier, The Cry: A New Dramatic Fable, 3 vols. (London: Printed for R. and J. Dodsley in Pall Mall, 1754). <Link to ESTC>
Date of Entry
04/27/2004
