"My mind is something like the ghost of an ancient, wandering about the world and trying mentally to construct it as it used to be, in spite of ruin and confusing changes."
— Eliot, George (1819-1880)
Author
Work Title
Place of Publication
Edinburgh and London
Publisher
William Blackwood and Son
Date
1871-2, 1874
Metaphor
"My mind is something like the ghost of an ancient, wandering about the world and trying mentally to construct it as it used to be, in spite of ruin and confusing changes."
Metaphor in Context
"No," said Mr Casaubon, not keeping pace with Mr Brooke's impetuous reason, and thinking of the book only. "I have little leisure for such literature just now. I have been using up my eyesight on old characters lately; the fact is, I want a reader for my evenings; but I am fastidious in voices, and I cannot endure listening to an imperfect reader. It is a misfortune, in some senses: I feed too much on the inward sources; I live too much with the dead. My mind is something like the ghost of an ancient, wandering about the world and trying mentally to construct it as it used to be, in spite of ruin and confusing changes. But I find it necessary to use the utmost caution about my eyesight."
(I.ii, p. 9)
(I.ii, p. 9)
Categories
Provenance
Searching "mind" in HDIS edition of Middlemarch
Citation
Eliot, George. Middlemarch: A Study of Provincial Life. Edinburgh and London: William Blackwood and Sons, 1874. First published Dec 1871-Dec 1872. Text from Chadwyck-Healey.
Date of Entry
03/23/2009
