Seward, Anna (1742-1809)

Louisa, a Poetical Novel, in Four Epistles

Lichfield

Printed and sold by J. Jackson, and G. Robinson, London

1784

"She awakens with new vivacity to the impressions of pleasure, which her mind was accustomed to receive from scenic objects"

Upon reading this third epistle to a friend, he observed, that perhaps a comparison of Louisa's own situation with the harder fate of her lover, and her tender pity for the inevitable miseries of such a union, might have been acceptable in the place of the episode of Clairmont, and the description of the bower; but it should be considered, that Louisa wrote under the immediate impression of her extacy to find Eugenio guiltless; that her mind was not sobered enough for reflection. To have investigated the unhappy lot of her lover, must have been a melancholy employment. Eased of an oppressive weight of misery, her exhilarated spirits admit not, so early, any painful ideas. She does not discriminate, she felicitates her destiny. Her sympathy in the fate of her friends grows more lively--she recollects the situation of Clairmont--Joy is naturally loquacious, and she is gratified in relating his story to her Emma. She awakens with new vivacity to the impressions of pleasure, which her mind was accustomed to receive from scenic objects. The propensity to dwell on them prevailed even in the hours of her unhappiness. It is an habit which compares and assimilates the smiling, or the [end page 69] gloomy views of nature, to the internal feelings, and is common to people of a lively imagination. In the exultation of her heart to find her lover yet estimable, Louisa speeds to the bower, so impressed with his image. Its beauties strike her more forcibly than ever, and in this frame of mind she naturally feels delight in painting them.
(pp. 69-70)

Impressions

Searching "mind" and "impression" in HDIS (Poetry)

7 entries in ESTC (1784, 1789, 1792).

See Louisa, a Poetical Novel, in Four Epistles. By Miss Seward. (Lichfield: Printed and sold by J. Jackson, and G. Robinson, in Pater-Noster-Row, London, 1784). <Link to ESTC>

05/04/2005