The Only Use of
bedlam
in
Middlemarch
- Dorothea knew many passages of Pascal's Pensees and of Jeremy Taylor by heart; and to her the destinies of mankind, seen by the light of Christianity, made the solicitudes of feminine fashion appear an occupation for Bedlam.†
Chpt 1
Definitions:
-
(1)
(bedlam) a noisy and disorderly situation
-
(2)
(meaning too rare to warrant focus) meaning too rare to warrant focus:
At one time, bedlam was also used as a disapproving term for any psychiatric hospital. As a proper noun, Bedlam was the name of the first psychiatric hospital in London (early 15th century).