"We must class him, like Bunyan and Tolstoy, amongst those upon whose soul the iron of melancholy left a permanent imprint."
— James, William (1842-1910)
Author
Place of Publication
New York
Publisher
Longman, Green, and Co
Date
1901-2, 1902
Metaphor
"We must class him, like Bunyan and Tolstoy, amongst those upon whose soul the iron of melancholy left a permanent imprint."
Metaphor in Context
Young Mr. Alline, after the briefest of delays, and with no book-learning but his Bible, and no teaching save that of his own experience, became a Christian minister, and thenceforward his life was fit to rank, for its austerity and single-mindedness, with that of the most devoted saints. But happy as he became in his strenuous way, he never got his taste for even the most innocent carnal pleasures back. We must class him, like Bunyan and Tolstoy, amongst those upon whose soul the iron of melancholy left a permanent imprint. His redemption was into another universe than this mere natural world, and life remained for him a sad and patient trial. Years later we can find him making such an entry as this in his diary: "On Wednesday the 12th I preached at a wedding, and had the happiness thereby to be the means of excluding carnal mirth."
(p. 220)
(p. 220)
Categories
Provenance
Searching in Google Books
Citation
Text from William James, The Varieties of Religious Experience: A Study in Human Nature, 11th Impression (New York and Bombay: Longman, Green, and Co., 1905). <Link to Google Books>
Date of Entry
01/03/2012
