"Some charitable dole is wanting to these, our often very unhappy brethren, to fill the gloomy void which reigns in minds which have nothing on earth to hope or fear."
— Burke, Edmund (1729-1797)
Author
Place of Publication
London
Publisher
James Dodsley
Date
1790
Metaphor
"Some charitable dole is wanting to these, our often very unhappy brethren, to fill the gloomy void which reigns in minds which have nothing on earth to hope or fear."
Metaphor in Context
The English people are satisfied, that to the great the consolations of religion are as necessary as its instructions. They too are among the unhappy. They feel personal pain and domestic sorrow. In these they have no privilege, but are subject to pay their full contingent to the contributions levied on mortality. They want this sovereign balm under their gnawing cares and anxieties, which being less conversant about the limited wants of animal life, range without limit, and are diversified by infinite combinations in the wild and unbounded regions of imagination. Some charitable dole is wanting to these, our often very unhappy brethren, to fill the gloomy void which reigns in minds which have nothing on earth to hope or fear; something to relieve in the killing languor and over-laboured lassitude of those who have nothing to do; something to excite an appetite to existence in the palled satiety which attends on all pleasures which may be bought, where nature is not left to her own process, where even desire is anticipated, and therefore fruition defeated by meditated schemes and contrivances of delight; and no interval, no obstacle, is interposed between the wish and the accomplishment.
(p. 152, pp. 91-2 in Pocock ed.)
(p. 152, pp. 91-2 in Pocock ed.)
Categories
Provenance
Reading
Citation
At least 22 entries in the ESTC (1790, 1791, 1792, 1793).
See Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France, and on the proceedings in certain societies in London relative to that event. In a letter intended to have been sent to a gentleman in Paris (London: printed for J. Dodsley, 1790) <Link to ECCO><Link to ECCO-TCP>
Text from ECCO-TCP and Past Masters.
Reading Reflections on the Revolution in France, ed. J. G. A. Pocock (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1987). [Pocock identifies the definitive edition of Burke's Reflections as William B. Todd's (Rinehart Books, 1959)].
See Edmund Burke, Reflections on the Revolution in France, and on the proceedings in certain societies in London relative to that event. In a letter intended to have been sent to a gentleman in Paris (London: printed for J. Dodsley, 1790) <Link to ECCO><Link to ECCO-TCP>
Text from ECCO-TCP and Past Masters.
Reading Reflections on the Revolution in France, ed. J. G. A. Pocock (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1987). [Pocock identifies the definitive edition of Burke's Reflections as William B. Todd's (Rinehart Books, 1959)].
Date of Entry
04/22/2013
