Ben Jonson, The Poetaster.
Lucid interval. We limit this at present to the brief and transient season when a mind, ordinarily clouded and obscured by insanity, recovers for a while its clearness. It had no such limitation formerly, but was of very wide use, as the four passages quoted below, in each of which its application is different, will show.[18]
East of Edom lay the land of Uz, where Job dwelt, so renowned for his patience, when the devil heaped afflictions upon him, allowing him no lucid intervals.—Fuller, A Pisgah Sight of Palestine, b. iv. c. 2.
Some beams of wit on other souls may fall,
Strike through, and make a lucid interval:
But Shadwell’s genuine night admits no ray,
His rising fogs prevail upon the day.
Dryden, Mac-Flecknoe.
Such is the nature of man, that it requires lucid intervals; and the vigour of the mind would flag and decay, should it always jog on at the rate of a common enjoyment, without being sometimes quickened and exalted with the vicissitude of some more refined pleasures.—South, Sermons, 1744, vol. viii. p. 403.
Thus he [Lord Lyttelton] continued, giving his dying benediction to all around him. On Monday morning a lucid interval gave some small hopes; but these vanished in the evening.—Narrative of the Physician, inserted in Johnson’s Life of Lord Lyttelton.