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"The traces which her brain could now only recollect, were such as did not admit of any object long; I had passed over it in the moment of my entrance, and it now wandered from the idea; she paid no regard to my caresses, but pushed me gently from her, gazing stedfastly in an opposite direction towards the door of the apartment."

— Mackenzie, Henry (1745-1831)

Author

The Man of the World

Place of Publication

London

Publisher

Printed for W. Strahan; and T. Cadell

Date

1773

Metaphor

"The traces which her brain could now only recollect, were such as did not admit of any object long; I had passed over it in the moment of my entrance, and it now wandered from the idea; she paid no regard to my caresses, but pushed me gently from her, gazing stedfastly in an opposite direction towards the door of the apartment."

Metaphor in Context

"When I entered the house, and had got upon the stairs leading to the room in which Harriet lay, I heard a voice enchantingly sweet, but low, and sometimes broken, singing snatches of songs, varying from the sad to the gay, and from the gay to the sad: it was she herself sitting up in her bed, fingering her pillow as if it had been a harpsicord. It is not easy to conceive the horror I felt on seeing her in such a situation! She seemed unconscious of my approach, though her eye was turned towards me as I entered; only that she stopt in the midst of a quick and lively movement she had begun, and looking wistfully upon me, breathed such a note of sorrow, and dwelt on it with a cadence so mournful, that my heart lost all the firmness I had resolved to preserve, and I flung my arms round her neck, which I washed with my bursting tears!--The traces which her brain could now only recollect, were such as did not admit of any object long; I had passed over it in the moment of my entrance, and it now wandered from the idea; she paid no regard to my caresses, but pushed me gently from her, gazing stedfastly in an opposite direction towards the door of the apartment. A servant entered with some medicine he had been sent to procure; she put it by when I offered it to her, and kept looking earnestly upon him; she ceased her singing too, and seemed to articulate some imperfect sounds. For some time I could not make them out into words, but at last she spoke more distinctly, and with a firmer tone.--"
(I, pp. 332-334)