"Conscience draws the Picture of the Crime in Apparition just before him, and the Reflection, not the injur'd Soul, is the Spectre that haunts him: Nor can he need a worse Tormenter in this Life; whether there is a worse hereafter, or no, I do not pretend to determine. This is certainly 'a Worm that never dies'; 'tis always gnawing the Vitals, not of the Body, but of the very Soul—But I say, here was no Apparition all this while of any kind, no Spectre, no Ghost, no not to detect a Murtherer."
— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)
Author
Place of Publication
London
Publisher
Printed: and sold by J. Roberts
Date
1727
Metaphor
"Conscience draws the Picture of the Crime in Apparition just before him, and the Reflection, not the injur'd Soul, is the Spectre that haunts him: Nor can he need a worse Tormenter in this Life; whether there is a worse hereafter, or no, I do not pretend to determine. This is certainly 'a Worm that never dies'; 'tis always gnawing the Vitals, not of the Body, but of the very Soul—But I say, here was no Apparition all this while of any kind, no Spectre, no Ghost, no not to detect a Murtherer."
Metaphor in Context
But to bring all this back to our Business: here's no other Apparation in all this, than what are form'd in the Imagination; the Ghosts, the Souls of the most injur'd Person, whether injuriously murther'd, or injuriously robb'd and plunder'd, sleeps in Peace, knows nothing of the Murtherer or Thief, except only that it gives that Part all up to the Eternal Judge: the Murtherer has the Horror of the Fact always upon him, Conscience draws the Picture of the Crime in Apparition just before him, and the Reflection, not the injur'd Soul, is the Spectre that haunts him: Nor can he need a worse Tormenter in this Life; whether there is a worse hereafter, or no, I do not pretend to determine. This is certainly a Worm that never dies; 'tis always gnawing the Vitals, not of the Body, but of the very Soul—But I say, here was no Apparition all this while of any kind, no Spectre, no Ghost, no not to detect a Murtherer.
(p. 110)
(p. 110)
Categories
Provenance
Reading in ECCO-TCP
Citation
2 entries in ESTC (1727, 1728). For a publication history, see Rodney Baine's 1962 essay, "Daniel Defoe and 'The History and Reality of Apparitions.'" First edition, published by J. Roberts, appeared anonymously on March 18, 1727. Second issues were sold the same year by A. Millar. The 1735 edition, reissued in 1738 and 1740.
Text from An Essay on the History and Reality of Apparitions: Being an Account of What They are, and What They are Not; Whence They Come, and Whence They Come Not. (London: Printed: and sold by J. Roberts, 1727). <Link to ECCO-TCP>
Text from An Essay on the History and Reality of Apparitions: Being an Account of What They are, and What They are Not; Whence They Come, and Whence They Come Not. (London: Printed: and sold by J. Roberts, 1727). <Link to ECCO-TCP>
Date of Entry
08/16/2013
