"Let off steam" (1826)

[George Thompson]

Here is another image from the realm of steam-boilers, also an
antedating to OED:

1826:   By this time her voice and gestures indicated that she was
getting on the “high pressure” . . . .
New-York National Advocate, May 28, 1825, p. 2, col. 3  {= getting
angry or agitated)

GAT

George A. Thompson
Author of A Documentary History of "The African Theatre", Northwestern
Univ. Pr., 1998.

----- Original Message -----
From: Bapopik at AOL.COM
Date: Thursday, January 31, 2002 11:46 am
Subject: "Let off steam" (1826)

> RECOLLECTIONS OF THE LAST TEN YEARS,
> PASSED IN OCCASIONAL RESIDENCES AND JOURNEYINGS
> IN THE VALLEY OF THE MISSISSIPPI,
> FROM PITTSBURG AND THE MISSOURI TO THE GULF OF MEXICO,
> AND FROM FLORIDA TO THE SPANISH FRONTIER;
> IN A SERIES OF LETTERS TO
> THE REV. JAMES FLINT, OF SALEM, MASSACHUSETTS
> by Timothy Flint
> Boston: Cummings, Hilliard, and Company
> 1826
> Johnson Reprint Corporation, NY
> 1968
>
>   Another great book.  I'm not finished with it.  These writings
> date from 1824.
>
***
> Pg. 78:  Much of his language is figurative and drawn from the
> power of a steam-boat.  To get ardent and zealous, is to "raise
> the steam."  To get angry, and give vent and scope to these
> feelings, is to "let off the steam."  To encounter any disaster,
> or meet with a great catastrophe, is to "burst the boiler."
> (OED has 1831 for "let off steam."  Harold Evans, I was told, is
> researching steamboats and early technology--ed.)