text,updated_at,metaphor,created_at,context,theme,reviewed_on,dictionary,comments,provenance,id,work_id
"YE are the spirits who preside
In earth and air and ocean wide;
In hissing flood and crackling fire;
In horror dread and tumult dire;
In stilly calm and stormy wind,
And rule the answering changes in the human mind.
High on the tempest-beaten hill,
Your misty shapes ye shift at will;
The wild fantastic clouds yet form;
Your voice is in the midnight storm,
Whilst in the dark and lonely hour,
Oft starts the boldest heart, and owns your secret power.
From you, when growling storms are past,
And lighting ceases on the waste,
And when the scene of blood is o'er,
And groans of death are heard no more,
Still holds the mind each parted form,
Like the after-echoing of th' o'erpassed storm.
When closing glooms o'erspread the day,
And what we love has passed away,
Ye kindly bid each pleasing scene
Within the bosom to remain,
Like moons who do their watches run
With the reflected brightness of the parted sun.
(ll. 1- 24, p. 440)",2009-09-14 19:43:11 UTC,"The mind holds ""each parted form,"" ""like the after-echoing"" of a storm",2003-07-29 00:00:00 UTC,Excerpted in Lonsdale,"",,"","•Baillie constructs an interesting relationship between the muses and the weather (mental or otherwise). There are blurred lines here: Do the muses cuases internal storms, is weather inspirational, are the muses the weather?
•I should read the whole poem. REVISIT.",Reading,15266,5728
"In vain, to thy white standard gathering round,
Wit, Worth, and Parts and Eloquence are found:
In vain, to push to birth thy great design,
Contending chiefs, and hostile virtues join;
All, from conflicting ranks, of power possesst
To rouse, to melt, or to inform the breast.
Where seasoned tools of Avarice prevail,
A Nation's eloquence, combined, must fail:
Each flimsy sophistry by turns they try;
The plausive argument, the daring lie,
The artful gloss, that moral sense confounds,
The' acknowledged thirst of gain that honour wounds:
Bane of ingenuous minds!--the' unfeeling sneer,
Which sudden turns to stone the falling tear:
They search assiduous, with inverted skill,
For forms of wrong, and precedents of ill;
With impious mockery wrest the sacred page,
And glean up crimes from each remoter age:
Wrung Nature's tortures, shuddering, while you tell,
From scoffing fiends bursts forth the laugh of hell;
In Britain's senate, Misery's pangs give birth
To jests unseemly, and to horrid mirth--
Forbear!--thy virtues but provoke our doom,
And swell the' account of vengeance yet to come;
For, not unmarked in Heaven's impartial plan,
Shall man, proud worm, contemn his fellow-man!
And injured Afric, by herself redresst,
Darts her own serpents at her tyrant's breast.
Each vice, to minds depraved by bondage known,
With sure contagion fastens on his own;
In sickly languors melts his nerveless frame,
And blows to rage impetuous Passion's flame:
Fermenting swift, the fiery venom gains
The milky innocence of infant veins;
There swells the stubborn will, damps learning's fire,
The whirlwind wakes of uncontrouled desire,
Sears the young heart to images of woe,
And blasts the buds of Virtue as they blow.
(ll. 19-56, pp. 123-4)",2009-09-14 19:43:21 UTC,"""The whirlwind wakes of uncontrouled desire""",2004-01-02 00:00:00 UTC,"","",,"","",HDIS,15328,5750
"[...] Yet disappointed as we are, in our researches, the mind gains strength by the exercise, sufficient, perhaps, to comprehend the answers which, in another step of existence, it may receive to the anxious questions it asked, when the understanding with feeble wing was fluttering round the visible effects to dive into the hidden cause.
The passions also, the winds of life, would be useless, if not injurious, did the substance which composes our thinking being, after we have thought in vain, only become the support of vegetable life, and invigorate a cabbage, or blush in a rose. The appetites would answer every earthly purpose, and produce more moderate and permanent happiness. But the powers of the soul are of little use here, and, probably, disturb our animal enjoyments, even while conscious dignity makes us glory in possessing them, prove that life is merely an education, a state of infancy, to which the only hopes worth cherishing should not be sacrificed.
(pp. 106-7)",2012-01-23 16:52:37 UTC,"""The passions also, the winds of life, would be useless, if not injurious, did the substance which composes our thinking being, after we have thought in vain, only become the support of vegetable life, and invigorate a cabbage, or blush in a rose.""",2009-09-14 19:43:33 UTC,Chapter V,"",2003-10-23,"",•Cross-reference:Is Wollstonecraft thinking of Pope's allegory of the ship in the Essay on Man?,Reading,15400,5775
"[...] Like the lightning's flash are many recollections; one idea assimilating and explaining another, with astonishing rapidity. I do not now allude to taht quick perception of truth, which is so intuitive that it baffles research, and makes us at a loss to determine whether it is reminiscence or ratiocination, lost sight of in its celerity, that opens the dark cloud. Over those instantaneous associations we have little power; for when the mind is once enlarged by excursive flights, or profound reflection, the raw materials will, in some degree, arrange themselves. The understanding, it is true, may keep us from going out of drawing when we group our thoughts, or transcribe from the imagination and warm sketches of fancy; but the animal spirits, the individual character, give the colouring. Over this subtile electric fluid, how little power do we possess, and over it how little power can reason obtain. These fine intractable spirits appear to be the essence of genius, and beaming its eagle eye, produce in the most eminent degree the happy energy of associating thoughts that surprise, delight, and instruct. These are the glowing minds that concentrate pictures for their fellow creatures; forcing them to view with interest the objects reflected from the impassioned imagination, which they passed over in nature.
(p. 113-114)",2012-01-23 16:58:24 UTC,"""Like the lightning's flash are many recollections; one idea assimilating and explaining another, with astonishing rapidity.""",2009-09-14 19:43:33 UTC,Chapter VI,"",2011-04-15,"","",Reading,15403,5775
"I know that a lively imagination renders a man particularly calculated to shine in conversation and in those desultory productions where method is disregarded; and the instantaneous applause which his eloquence extorts is at once a reward and a spur. Once a wit and always a wit, is an aphorism that has received the sanction of experience; yet I am apt to conclude that the man who with scrupulous anxiety endeavours to support that shining character, can never nourish by reflection any profound, or, if you please, metaphysical passion. Ambition becomes only the tool of vanity, and his reason, the weather-cock of unrestrained feelings, is only employed to varnish over the faults which it ought to have corrected.",2009-12-02 17:54:50 UTC,"""Ambition becomes only the tool of vanity, and his reason, the weather-cock of unrestrained feelings, is only employed to varnish over the faults which it ought to have corrected.""",2009-12-02 17:54:50 UTC,"","",,"",Does weather-cock belong under Weather or Machine? REVISIT?,Reading,17528,6611
"Dr Price, when he reasons on the necessity of men attending some place of public worship, concisely obviates an objection that has been made in the form of an apology, by advising those, who do not approve of our Liturgy, and cannot find any mode of worship out of the church, in which they can conscientiously join, to establish one for themselves. This plain advice you have tortured into a very different meaning, and represented the preacher as actuated by a dissenting phrensy, recommending dissensions, ‘not to diffuse truth, but to spread contradictions.’ A simple question will silence this impertinent declamation.–What is truth? A few fundamental truths meet the first enquiry of reason, and appear as clear to an unwarped mind, as that air and bread are necessary to enable the body to fulfil its vital functions; but the opinions which men discuss with so much heat must be simplified and brought back to first principles; or who can discriminate the vagaries of the imagination, or scrupulosity of weakness, from the verdict of reason Let all these points be demonstrated, and not determined by arbitrary authority and dark traditions, lest a dangerous supineness should take place; for probably, in ceasing to enquire, our reason would remain dormant, and delivered up, without a curb, to every impulse of passion, we might soon lose sight of the clear light which the exercise of our understanding no longer kept alive. To argue from experience, it should seem as if the human mind, averse to thought, could only be opened by necessity; for, when it can take opinions on trust, it gladly lets the spirit lie quiet in its gross tenement. Perhaps the most improving exercise of the mind, confining the argument to the enlargement of the understanding, is the restless enquiries that hover on the boundary, or stretch over the dark abyss of uncertainty. These lively conjectures are the breezes that preserve the still lake from stagnating. We should be aware of confining all moral excellence to one channel, however capacious; or, if we are so narrow-minded, we should not forget how much we owe to chance that our inheritance was not Mahometism; and that the iron hand of destiny, in the shape of deeply rooted authority, has not suspended the sword of destruction over our heads. But to return to the misrepresentation.
(pp. 49-50)",2009-12-02 18:56:34 UTC,"""These lively conjectures are the breezes that preserve the still lake from stagnating""",2009-12-02 18:56:34 UTC,"","",,"","",Reading,17544,6611
"The marquis made a sudden spring upwards, and fell lifeless on the bed. The attendants were called in, but he was gone for ever. His last words struck with the force of lightning upon the mind of Ferdinand; they seemed to say that his mother might yet exist. He took the keys; and ordering some of the servants to follow, hastened to the southern building; he proceeded to the tower, and the trap-door beneath the stair-case was lifted. They all descended into a dark passage, which conducted them through several intricacies to the door of the cell. Ferdinand in trembling horrible expectation, applied the key; the door opened, and he entered--but what was his surprize when he found no person in the cell! He concluded that he had mistaken the place, and quitted it for farther search; but, having followed the windings of the passage, by which he entered, without discovering any other door, he returned to a more exact examination of the cell. He now observed the door which led to the cavern, and he entered upon the avenue, but no person was found there, and no voice answered to his call. Having reached the door of the cavern, which was fastened, he returned lost in grief, and meditating upon the last words of the marquis. He now thought that he had mistaken their import, and that the words ""tis possible,"" were not meant to apply to the life of the marchioness. He concluded that the murder had been committed at a distant period; and he resolved, therefore, to have the ground of the cell dug up, and the remains of his mother sought for.
(II.xv, pp. 200-2; pp. 191-2)",2013-05-31 22:46:36 UTC,"""His last words struck with the force of lightning upon the mind of Ferdinand; they seemed to say that his mother might yet exist.""",2013-05-31 22:46:36 UTC,"Volume II, Chapter XV","",,"","",Reading,20298,5736
"She hastened to Charlotte, impatient to be informed if she had any knowledge of Mrs. Meynell, and anxious to solve a most painful doubt which arose in her mind, left Frederick Seymour should be capable of deserting his amiable relation because she was unfortunate. A doubt of those in whose integrity we have confided, in whose virtue we are interested, is a situation of mind the most gloomy and comfortless. Suspicion is like a mist, which renders the object it shades so uncertain, that the figure must be finished by imagination; and, when distrust takes the pencil, the strokes are generally so dark, that the disappointed heart sickens at the picture.
(II.xxv, pp. 79-80)",2013-08-16 06:23:16 UTC,"""Suspicion is like a mist, which renders the object it shades so uncertain, that the figure must be finished by imagination; and, when distrust takes the pencil, the strokes are generally so dark, that the disappointed heart sickens at the picture.""",2013-08-16 06:23:16 UTC,"Vol. II, Chap. xxv","",,"","",Searching in ECCO-TCP,22198,7591
"Seymour entered the room, spoke for a few moments to his wife as he passed, then hastened to the other end of the room, on pretence of paying his compliments to Mrs. Seymour, and, after a very short conversation with that lady, placed himself on a seat behind Julia, and talked to her earnestly. She answered but seldom, and seemed to wish to listen to the music; but Charlotte saw that Seymour constantly renewed the conversation. The heart of Charlotte was stung by sensations, which she had never felt before: jealousy had now taken possession of her bosom; its sharp-edged ""iron had entered into her soul!"" The ladies, who were seated next her, had endeavoured to engage her in discourse, and her natural disposition to oblige so far conquered her reluctance to speak, that she answered them with her usual sweetness. But, upon Seymour's placing himself by Julia, Charlotte's eyes wandered after him, her voice changed, and, though her companions still continued to talk, she no longer knew what they said, or what she herself replied. Her mind was in a state of uncontroulable agitation; and, though music has power to sooth a gentle, or even a deep and settled melancholy, the torments of jealousy, the agonies of suspence, raise a tempest in the soul, which no harmony can lull to repose.
(II.xxviii, p. 133)",2013-08-16 06:26:25 UTC,"""Her mind was in a state of uncontroulable agitation; and, though music has power to sooth a gentle, or even a deep and settled melancholy, the torments of jealousy, the agonies of suspence, raise a tempest in the soul, which no harmony can lull to repose.""",2013-08-16 06:26:25 UTC,"Vol. II, Chap. xxviii","",,"","",Searching in ECCO-TCP,22200,7591
"Let those who possess the talents, or the virtues, by which he was distinguished, avoid similar wretchedness, by guarding their minds against the influence of passion; since, if it be once suffered to acquire an undue ascendency over reason, we shall in vain attempt to controul its power: we might as soon arrest the winds in their violence, or stop the torrent in its course. It is too late to rear the mounds of defence when the impetuous flood rages in its strength, and overthrows all opposition. With a frame labouring under disease, we may recall, with regret, the blissful hours of health; but have no power to new string the nerves, or shake off the malady that loads the springs of life. Alas! the distempered heart, when it has suffered the disorders of passion to gain strength, can find no balsam in nature to heal their malignancy; no remedy but death. In vain we may lament the loss of our tranquillity; for peace, like the wandering dove, has forsaken its habitation in the bosom, and will return no more.
(II.xxxiv, pp. 238-9)",2013-08-16 06:32:38 UTC,"""Let those who possess the talents, or the virtues, by which he was distinguished, avoid similar wretchedness, by guarding their minds against the influence of passion; since, if it be once suffered to acquire an undue ascendency over reason, we shall in vain attempt to controul its power: we might as soon arrest the winds in their violence, or stop the torrent in its course. It is too late to rear the mounds of defence when the impetuous flood rages in its strength, and overthrows all opposition.""",2013-08-16 06:32:38 UTC,"Vol. II, Chap. xxxiv","",,"","",Searching in ECCO-TCP,22203,7591