"The mind is in a sad state when Sleep, the all-involving, cannot confine her spectres within the dim region of her sway, but suffers them to break forth, affrighting this actual life with secrets that perchance belong to a deeper one."
— Hawthorne, Nathaniel (1804-1864)
Work Title
Date
March 1843
Metaphor
"The mind is in a sad state when Sleep, the all-involving, cannot confine her spectres within the dim region of her sway, but suffers them to break forth, affrighting this actual life with secrets that perchance belong to a deeper one."
Metaphor in Context
The mind is in a sad state when Sleep, the all-involving, cannot confine her spectres within the dim region of her sway, but suffers them to break forth, affrighting this actual life with secrets that perchance belong to a deeper one. Aylmer now remembered his dream. He had fancied himself with his servant Aminadab attempting an operation for the removal of the birthmark; but the deeper went the knife, the deeper sank the hand, until at length its tiny grasp appeared to have caught hold of Georgiana's heart; whence, however, her husband was inexorably resolved to cut or wrench it away.
Provenance
Reading
Citation
Hawthorne, Nathaniel. "The Birth-Mark." First published in the Pioneer. March, 1843. Reprinted in Mosses from an Old Manse. London, Wiley & Putnam,1846. <Link to Google Books>
Date of Entry
03/23/2010
