id,comments,provenance,dictionary,created_at,reviewed_on,work_id,theme,context,updated_at,metaphor,text
17534,"",Reading,"",2009-12-02 18:20:07 UTC,,6611,"","",2009-12-02 18:20:07 UTC,"""But it is not that enthusiastic flame which in Greece and Rome consumed every sordid passion: no, self is the focus; and the disparting rays rise not above our foggy atmosphere.""","But on what principle Mr Burke could defend American independence, I cannot conceive; for the whole tenor of his plausible arguments settles slavery on an everlasting foundation. Allowing his servile reverence for antiquity, and prudent attention to self-interest, to have the force which he insists on, the slave trade ought never to be abolished; and, because our ignorant forefathers, not understanding the native dignity of man, sanctioned a traffic that outrages every suggestion of reason and religion, we are to submit to the inhuman custom, and term an atrocious insult to humanity the love of our country, and a proper submission to the laws by which our property is secured. – Security of property! Behold, in a few words, the definition of English liberty. And to this selfish principle every nobler one is sacrificed. – The Briton takes place of the man, and the image of God is lost in the citizen! But it is not that enthusiastic flame which in Greece and Rome consumed every sordid passion: no, self is the focus; and the disparting rays rise not above our foggy atmosphere. But softly – it is only the property of the rich that is secure; the man who lives by the sweat of his brow has no asylum from oppression; the strong man may enter – when was the castle of the poor sacred? and the base informer steal him from the family that depend on his industry for subsistence."
18366,INTEREST: The air pump reading is Yota's,"Cited in a talk by Yota Batsaki (Clark Library, May 7, 2011)","",2011-05-08 07:23:49 UTC,,6838,"","",2011-05-08 07:23:49 UTC,"""'Remember,' concluded he, 'that the solitary mortal is certainly luxurious, probably superstitious, and possibly mad: the mind stagnates for want of employment, grows morbid, and is extinguished like a candle in foul air.'""","With advising others to be charitable, however, Dr. Johnson did not content himself. He gave away all he had, and all he ever had gotten, except the two thousand pounds he left behind; and the very small portion of his income which he spent on himself, with all our calculation, we never could make more than seventy, or at most four-score pounds a year, and he pretended to allow himself a hundred. He had numberless dependents out of doors as well as in, who, as he expressed it, ""did not like to see him latterly unless he brought 'em money."" For those people he used frequently to raise contributions on his richer friends; ""and this,"" says he, ""is one of the thousand reasons which ought to restrain a man from drony solitude and useless retirement. Solitude,"" added he one day, ""is dangerous to reason, without being favourable to virtue: pleasures of some sort are necessary to the intellectual as to the corporeal health; and those who resist gaiety will be likely for the most part to fall a sacrifice to appetite; for the solicitations of sense are always at hand, and a dram to a vacant and solitary person is a speedy and seducing relief. Remember,"" concluded he, ""that the solitary mortal is certainly luxurious, probably superstitious, and possibly mad: the mind stagnates for want of employment, grows morbid, and is extinguished like a candle in foul air."" It was on this principle that Johnson encouraged parents to carry their daughters early and much into company: ""for what harm can be done before so many witnesses? Solitude is the surest nurse of all prurient passions, and a girl in the hurry of preparation, or tumult of gaiety, has neither inclination nor leisure to let tender expressions soften or sink into her heart. The ball, the show, are not the dangerous places: no, it is the private friend, the kind consoler, the companion of the easy, vacant hour, whose compliance with her opinions can flatter her vanity, and whose conversation can just soothe, without ever stretching her mind, that is the lover to be feared. He who buzzes in her ear at court or at the opera must be contented to buzz in vain."" These notions Dr. Johnson carried so very far, that I have heard him say, ""If you shut up any man with any woman, so as to make them derive their whole pleasure from each other, they would inevitably fall in love, as it is called, with each other; but at six months' end, if you would throw them both into public life, where they might change partners at pleasure, each would soon forget that fondness which mutual dependence and the paucity of general amusement alone had caused, and each would separately feel delighted by their release.""
(pp. 105-8)"
18685,pp. 29-31 in PGDP,Reading,"",2011-06-16 16:44:40 UTC,,6939,"","Volume I, Letter 2",2011-06-16 16:44:40 UTC,"""May you be enabled, by reading them frequently, to transfuse into your own breast that holy flame which inspired the writer!""","Next follow the Psalms, with which you cannot be too conversant. If you have any taste, either for poetry or devotion, they will be your delight, and will afford you a continual feast. The Bible translation is far better than that used in the Common Prayer Book: and will often give you the sense, when the other is obscure. In this, as well as in all other parts of the scripture, you must be careful always to consult the margin, which gives you the corrections made since the last translation, and is generally preferable to the words of the text. I would wish you to select some of the Psalms that please you best, and get them by heart; or, at least, make yourself mistress of the sentiments contained in them: Dr. Delany's Life of David will show you the occasions on which several of them were composed, which add much to their beauty and propriety; and, by comparing them with the events of David's life, you will greatly enhance your pleasure in them. Never did the spirit of true piety breathe more strongly than in these divine songs; which, being added to a rich vein of poetry, makes them more captivating to my heart and imagination than any thing I ever read. You will consider how great disadvantages any poems must sustain from being rendered literally into prose, and then imagine how beautiful these must be in the original. May you be enabled, by reading them frequently, to transfuse into your own breast that holy flame which inspired the writer!--to delight in the Lord, and in his laws, like the Psalmist--to rejoice in him always, and to think ""one day in his courts better than a thousand!"" But may you escape the heart-piercing sorrow of such repentance as that of David, by avoiding sin, which humbled this unhappy king to the dust, and which cost him such bitter anguish, as it is impossible to read of without being moved. Not all the pleasures of the most prosperous sinner could counterbalance the hundredth part of those sensations described in his Penitential Psalms; and which must be the portion of every man, who has fallen from a religious state into such crimes, when once he recovers a sense of religion and virtue, and is brought to a real hatred of sin: however available such repentance may be to the safety and happiness of the soul after death, it is a state of such exquisite suffering here, that one cannot be enough surprised at the folly of those, who indulge in sin, with the hope of living to make their peace with God by repentance. Happy are they who preserve their innocence unsullied by any great or wilful crimes, and who have only the common failings of humanity to repent of: these are sufficiently mortifying to a heart deeply smitten with the love of virtue, and with the desire of perfection. There are many very striking prophecies of the Messiah in these divine songs; particularly in Psalm xxii: such may be found scattered up and down almost throughout the Old Testament. To bear testimony to him is the great and ultimate end, for which the spirit of prophecy was bestowed on the sacred writers:--but this will appear more plainly to you, when you enter on the study of prophecy, which you are now much too young to undertake.
(pp. 59-64)"
22936,"",Searching in ECCO-TCP,"",2013-10-12 22:18:20 UTC,,4943,"","",2013-10-12 22:18:20 UTC,"""However, I must beg Leave to inform those Ladies and Gentlemen, whose Tenderness and Compassion may excite 'em to make this little Brat of my Brain the Companion of an idle Hour, that I have paid all due Regard to Decency wherever I have introduc'd the Passion of Love; and have only suffer'd it to take its Course in its proper and necessary Time, without fulsomely inflaming the Minds of my young Readers, or shamefully offending those of riper Years; a Fault I have often condemn'd, when I was myself but a Girl, in some Female Poets.""","However, I must beg Leave to inform those Ladies and Gentlemen, whose Tenderness and Compassion may excite 'em to make this little Brat of my Brain the Companion of an idle Hour, that I have paid all due Regard to Decency wherever I have introduc'd the Passion of Love; and have only suffer'd it to take its Course in its proper and necessary Time, without fulsomely inflaming the Minds of my young Readers, or shamefully offending those of riper Years; a Fault I have often condemn'd, when I was myself but a Girl, in some Female Poets. I shall not descant on their Imprudence, only wish that their Works had been less confined to that Theme, which too often led 'em into Errors, Reason and Modesty equally forbid.
(p. 12)"
22947,"",ECCO-TCP,Animals,2013-10-12 22:30:46 UTC,,4943,"","",2013-10-12 22:30:46 UTC,"""THE SHOCK OF RECEIVING MY OWN LETTER did not excite a sudden Gust of unwarrantable Passion, but prey'd upon my Heart with the slow and eating Fire of Distraction and Despair, 'till it ended in a Fever, which now remains upon my Spirits; and which, I fear, I shall find a difficult Task to overcome.""","THE SHOCK OF RECEIVING MY OWN LETTER did not excite a sudden Gust of unwarrantable Passion, but prey'd upon my Heart with the slow and eating Fire of Distraction and Despair, 'till it ended in a Fever, which now remains upon my Spirits; and which, I fear, I shall find a difficult Task to overcome.
(p. 121)"
23016,"",ECCO-TCP,"",2013-10-16 17:06:20 UTC,,7738,"",Thoughts on the Cultivation of the Heart and Temper in the Education of Daughters,2013-10-16 17:06:20 UTC,"""How cruel is it to extinguish by neglect or unkindness, the precious sensibility of an open temper, to chill the amiable glow of an ingenous soul, and to quench the bright flame of a noble and generous spirit!""","How cruel is it to extinguish by neglect or unkindness, the precious sensibility of an open temper, to chill the amiable glow of an ingenous soul, and to quench the bright flame of a noble and generous spirit! These are of higher worth than all the documents of learning, of dearer price than all the advantages, which can be derived from the most refined and artificial mode of education.
(pp. 138-9)"
23019,"",ECCO-TCP,"",2013-10-16 17:10:04 UTC,,7738,"",Thoughts on the Cultivation of the Heart and Temper in the Education of Daughters,2013-10-16 17:10:04 UTC,"""If I may be allowed to change the allusion so soon, I would say, that the passions also resemble fires, which are friendly and beneficial when under proper direction, but if suffered to blaze without restraint, they carry devastation along with them, and, if totally extinguished, leave the benighted mind in a state of cold and comfortless inanity.""","To win the passions, therefore, over to the cause of virtue, answers a much nobler end than their extinction would possibly do, even if that could be effected. But it is their nature never to observe a neutrality; they are either rebels or auxiliaries, and an enemy subdued is an ally obtained.
If I may be allowed to change the allusion so soon, I would say, that the passions also resemble fires, which are friendly and beneficial when under proper direction, but if suffered to blaze without restraint, they carry devastation along with them, and, if totally extinguished, leave the benighted mind in a state of cold and comfortless inanity.
(pp. 155-6)"
23029,"",ECCO-TCP,"",2013-10-16 17:22:46 UTC,,7739,"","",2013-10-16 17:22:46 UTC,"""People do not always know what taste they have, till it is awakened by some corresponding object; nay, genius itself is a fire, which in many minds would never blaze, if not kindled by some external cause.""","It seems very extraordinary, that it should be the most difficult thing in the world to be natural; and that it should be harder to hit off the manners of real life, and to delineate such characters as we converse with every day, than to imagine such as do not exist. But caricature is much easier than an exact outline, and the colouring of fancy less difficult than that of truth.
People do not always know what taste they have, till it is awakened by some corresponding object; nay, genius itself is a fire, which in many minds would never blaze, if not kindled by some external cause.
(p. 206)"