"We discovered several little Roads or Canals running from the Ear into the Brain, and took particular care to trace them out through their several Passages."
— Addison, Joseph (1672-1719)
Author
Work Title
Date
Tuesday, January 15, 1712
Metaphor
"We discovered several little Roads or Canals running from the Ear into the Brain, and took particular care to trace them out through their several Passages."
Metaphor in Context
There was a large Cavity on each side of the Head, which I must not omit. That on the right Side was filled with Fictions, Flatteries, and Falshoods, Vows, Promises, and Protestations; that on the left with Oaths and Imprecations. There issued out a Duct from each of these Cells, which ran into the Root of the Tongue, where both joined together, and passed forward in one common Duct to the Tip of it. We discovered several little Roads or Canals running from the Ear into the Brain, and took particular care to trace them out through their several Passages. One of them extended itself to a Bundle of Sonnets and little musical Instruments. Others ended in several Bladders which were filled either with Wind or Froth. But the latter Canal entered into a great Cavity of the Skull, from whence there went another Canal into the Tongue. This great Cavity was filled with a kind of Spongy Substance, which the French Anatomists call Galimatias, and the English, Nonsense.
Categories
Provenance
Reading
Citation
See Donald Bond's edition: The Spectator, 5 vols. (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1965), ii, 570-3.
Date of Entry
06/17/2013
