"Go hence, thou slave of impulse, look into the private recesses of thy heart, and take not a mote from thy brother’s eye, till thou hast removed the beam from thine own."
— Wollstonecraft, Mary (1759-1797)
Place of Publication
London
Publisher
Joseph Johnson
Date
December 1790
Metaphor
"Go hence, thou slave of impulse, look into the private recesses of thy heart, and take not a mote from thy brother’s eye, till thou hast removed the beam from thine own."
Metaphor in Context
Observe, Sir, that I called your piety affectation. – A rant to enable you to point your venomous dart, and round your period. I speak with warmth, because, of all hypocrites, my soul most indignantly spurns a religious one; – and I very cautiously bring forward such a heavy charge, to strip you of your cloak of sanctity. Your speech at the time the bill for a regency was agitated now lies before me. – Then you could in direct terms, to promote ambitious or interested views, exclaim without any pious qualms –Ought they to make a mockery of him, putting a crown of thorns on his head, a reed in his hand, and dressing him in a raiment of purple, cry, Hail! King of the British!’ Where was your sensibility when you could utter this cruel mockery, equally insulting to God and man? Go hence, thou slave of impulse, look into the private recesses of thy heart, and take not a mote from thy brother’s eye, till thou hast removed the beam from thine own.
(p. 57)
(p. 57)
Categories
Provenance
Reading
Citation
A Vindication of the Rights of Men, in a Letter to the Right Honourable Edmund Burke; Occasioned by his Reflections on the Revolution in France. (London: Printed for J. Johnson, No. 72, St. Paul’s Church-Yard, 1790).
2 entries in ESTC (1790). Anonymous, first edition appears in December of 1790 <ESTC>. Second edition, with MW's name on the cover, published December 14 <ESTC>
Reading The Vindications. eds. D. L. Macdonald and Kathleen Scherf. (Toronto: Broadview Press, 2001). [Based on the 2nd ed.] See also edition at the Online Library of Liberty <Link to OLL>.
2 entries in ESTC (1790). Anonymous, first edition appears in December of 1790 <ESTC>. Second edition, with MW's name on the cover, published December 14 <ESTC>
Reading The Vindications. eds. D. L. Macdonald and Kathleen Scherf. (Toronto: Broadview Press, 2001). [Based on the 2nd ed.] See also edition at the Online Library of Liberty <Link to OLL>.
Date of Entry
12/02/2009
