Brown, Charles Brockden (1771-1810)

Arthur Mervyn; or, Memoirs of the Year 1793 [First Part]

Philadelphia

Hugh Maxwell

1799

The mind may be a theater "of discord and agony"

By this untoward event my hopes were irreparably blasted. The utmost efforts were demanded to conceal my thoughts from my companion. the anguish that preyed upon my heart was endeavoured to be masked by looks of indifference. I pretended to have been previously informed by the messenger, not only of the capture, but of the cause that led to it, and forbore to expatiate upon my loss, or to execrate the authors of my disappointment. My mind, however, was the theatre of discord and agony, and I waited with impatience for the opportunity to leave him.
(Part I, chapter 11, p. 321)

Architecture::Theater

Reading

First part published in 1799; second in 1800. Reading and transcribing text from Charles Brockden Brown, Three Gothic Novels. New York: Library of America,1998.

07/18/2003