"When his reason returned, it settled into a melancholy, which time has soothed, not extinguished, which indeed seems to have become the habitual tone of his mind."
— Mackenzie, Henry (1745-1831)
Author
Place of Publication
London
Publisher
W. Strahan, T. Cadell, W. Creech
Date
1777
Metaphor
"When his reason returned, it settled into a melancholy, which time has soothed, not extinguished, which indeed seems to have become the habitual tone of his mind."
Metaphor in Context
You can judge of the feelings of a man, who upbraided himself as their murderer. An interval of madness, he informed me, succeeded the account he received of their death. When his reason returned, it settled into a melancholy, which time has soothed, not extinguished, which indeed seems to have become the habitual tone of his mind. Yet is it gentle, though deep, in its effects; it disturbs not the circle of society around him, and few, except such as are formed to discover and to pity it, observe any thing peculiar in his behaviour. But he holds it not the less sacred to himself; and often retires from the company of those, whom he has entertained with the good humour of a well-bred man, to arrange the memorials of his much-loved Emily, and call up the sad remembrance of his former joys.
Having acquired a sort of privilege with his distress, from my acquaintance with its cause, I entred his room yesterday, when he had thus shut out the world, and found him with some letters on the table before him, on which he looked, with a tear, not of anguish, but of tenderness. I stopped short on perceiving him thus employed; he seemed unable to speak, but making a movement, as if he desired that I should come forward, put two of those letters successively into my hand. They were written by his wife: the first, soon after their marriage, when some business had called him away from her into the country; and the second, addressed to him in the West-Indies, where, by that time, their illfortune had driven him. They pleased me so much, that I asked his leave to keep them for a day or two. He would not absolutely refuse me; but said they had never been out of his possession. I pressed him no further: I could only read them over repeatedly, and some parts, that struck most forcibly on my memory, which you know is pretty tenacious, I can recollect almost verbatim. To another, it might seem odd to write such things as these; but my Beauvaris is never inattentive to the language of nature, or the voice of misfortune.
(pp.47-9)
Having acquired a sort of privilege with his distress, from my acquaintance with its cause, I entred his room yesterday, when he had thus shut out the world, and found him with some letters on the table before him, on which he looked, with a tear, not of anguish, but of tenderness. I stopped short on perceiving him thus employed; he seemed unable to speak, but making a movement, as if he desired that I should come forward, put two of those letters successively into my hand. They were written by his wife: the first, soon after their marriage, when some business had called him away from her into the country; and the second, addressed to him in the West-Indies, where, by that time, their illfortune had driven him. They pleased me so much, that I asked his leave to keep them for a day or two. He would not absolutely refuse me; but said they had never been out of his possession. I pressed him no further: I could only read them over repeatedly, and some parts, that struck most forcibly on my memory, which you know is pretty tenacious, I can recollect almost verbatim. To another, it might seem odd to write such things as these; but my Beauvaris is never inattentive to the language of nature, or the voice of misfortune.
(pp.47-9)
Categories
Provenance
HDIS (Prose)
Citation
11 entries in ESTC (1777, 1778, 1781, 1782, 1787, 1793, 1795, 1796).
Henry Mackenzie, Julia de Roubigné, A Tale in a Series of Letters. Published by The Author of The Man of Feeling, and The Man of The World, 2 vols. (London: W. Strahan, T. Cadell, W. Creech, 1777). <Link to ECCO>
Henry Mackenzie, Julia de Roubigné, A Tale in a Series of Letters. Published by The Author of The Man of Feeling, and The Man of The World, 2 vols. (London: W. Strahan, T. Cadell, W. Creech, 1777). <Link to ECCO>
Date of Entry
09/14/2009
Date of Review
10/23/2003
