"Would you have me tamely sit down and flatter our infamous betrayer; and to avoid a prison continually suffer the more galling bonds of mental confinement! No, never. If we are to be taken from this abode, only let us hold to the right, and wherever we are thrown, we can still retire to a charming apartment, when we can look round our own hearts with intrepidity and pleasure!"
— Goldsmith, Oliver (1728?-1774)
Work Title
Place of Publication
Salisbury
Publisher
Printed by B. Collins for F. Newbery in Pater-Noster Row
Date
1766
Metaphor
"Would you have me tamely sit down and flatter our infamous betrayer; and to avoid a prison continually suffer the more galling bonds of mental confinement! No, never. If we are to be taken from this abode, only let us hold to the right, and wherever we are thrown, we can still retire to a charming apartment, when we can look round our own hearts with intrepidity and pleasure!"
Metaphor in Context
[...] The terrors of a prison, in so rigorous a season as the present, with the danger that threatened my health from the late accident that happened by the fire. But I continued inflexible.
Why my treasures,' cried I, 'why will you thus attempt to persuade me to the thing that is not right! My duty has taught me to forgive him; but conscience will not permit me to approve. Would you have me tamely sit down and flatter our infamous betrayer; and to avoid a prison continually suffer the more galling bonds of mental confinement! No, never. If we are to be taken from this abode, only let us hold to the right, and wherever we are thrown, we can still retire to a charming apartment, when we can look round our own hearts with intrepidity and pleasure!'
(XXIV, p. 150)
Why my treasures,' cried I, 'why will you thus attempt to persuade me to the thing that is not right! My duty has taught me to forgive him; but conscience will not permit me to approve. Would you have me tamely sit down and flatter our infamous betrayer; and to avoid a prison continually suffer the more galling bonds of mental confinement! No, never. If we are to be taken from this abode, only let us hold to the right, and wherever we are thrown, we can still retire to a charming apartment, when we can look round our own hearts with intrepidity and pleasure!'
(XXIV, p. 150)
Categories
Provenance
Reading
Citation
68 entries in the ESTC (1766, 1767, 1769, 1772, 1774, 1775, 1776, 1777, 1778, 1779, 1780, 1781, 1783, 1784, 1785, 1786, 1787, 1788, 1789, 1790, 1791, 1792, 1793, 1795, 1797, 1799, 1800).
See also Oliver Goldsmith, The Vicar of Wakefield: A Tale. Supposed to be Written by Himself, 2 vols. (Salisbury: B. Collins, 1766). <Link to ECCO><Link to Vol. I in ECCO-TCP><Vol. II>
Reading Oliver Goldsmith, The Vicar of Wakefield, ed. Stephen Coote (London and New York: Penguin Books, 1986).
See also Oliver Goldsmith, The Vicar of Wakefield: A Tale. Supposed to be Written by Himself, 2 vols. (Salisbury: B. Collins, 1766). <Link to ECCO><Link to Vol. I in ECCO-TCP><Vol. II>
Reading Oliver Goldsmith, The Vicar of Wakefield, ed. Stephen Coote (London and New York: Penguin Books, 1986).
Theme
Retirement
Date of Entry
09/14/2009
Date of Review
04/15/2011
