updated_at,id,text,theme,metaphor,work_id,reviewed_on,provenance,created_at,comments,context,dictionary
2009-09-14 19:42:20 UTC,14933,"So much are we accustomed to the bustle of active life, that profound silence alone startles the Imagination, and, as many accurate observers of nature have remarked, is apt to produce fear. Silence , as well as darkness, implies some degree of danger; by intimating that we are at a distance from the protection and other [end page 91] comforts of society.--Besides, when the senses have nothing to employ them, the mind is left (if I may so speak) a prey to its own thoughts; the Imagination becomes unmanageable; the nerves lose their wonted vigour; and now, the smallest sound is alarming, and the most common object appears to the eye distorted and disproportioned; nay we may fancy that we see, and that we hear, what exists only in our own Imagination. When the human frame is thus prepared for the reception of extravagant ideas, the senses are as easily imposed on, as when one raves in a fever: and then, if we be inclined to superstition, and in circumstances that favour it; who can tell what may follow!
(II.ii, pp. 91-2)","","""Besides, when the senses have nothing to employ them, the mind is left (if I may so speak) a prey to its own thoughts; the Imagination becomes unmanageable; the nerves lose their wonted vigour""",5587,,Reading,2005-07-26 00:00:00 UTC,"•Beattie, often tuned into metaphorical usage, marks his figure with a parenthetical ""if I may so speak""--compare with ""as it were."" ",Chapter II. Of the Association of Ideas. Section II.,""
2009-09-14 19:42:21 UTC,14943,"It may seem, in these days, an unnecessary advice; and yet I should not do justice to my subject, if I did not recommend moderate application to the studious in general, and to those of them chiefly whose fancy has become ungovernable from a depression of mind. I will not, however, enter upon a detail of the miseries that take their rise from excessive study. Tissot has written an elegant book on this subject; but let it not be recommended to every one's perusal; for the cases recorded by that author are so many, and so dreadful, as would go near to frighten the valetudinary student out of his wits. I shall only remark, that too much study will in time shatter the strongest nerves, and make the soul a prey to melancholy. The want of air and exercise, with interrupted digestion, unhinges the bodily frame: and the mind, long and violently exerted in one direction, like a bow long bent, loses its elasticity, and, unable to recover itself, remains stupidly fixed in the same distorted posture. One set of ideas are then continually before it; which, being always of the disagreeable kind, [end page 203] bring along with them and unvaried interchange of horror and sorrow. When it is thus far advanced, the disorder is alarming. Study must be altogether relinquished; or at least all those studies; that are either severe, or in any way related, in their objects, or method of procedure, to those that occasioned the malady: and new employments must be contrived to force the mind out of its old gloomy tract, into path more chearful and less difficult.
(V, p. 203-4)","","""I shall only remark, that too much study will in time shatter the strongest nerves, and make the soul a prey to melancholy. """,5587,,Reading,2005-07-26 00:00:00 UTC,"",Chapter V. The subject of Imagination resumed. Some directions for the Regulation of it.,""
2011-06-25 03:48:02 UTC,18813,"Or, greatly daring in his Country's cause,
Whose heaven-taught soul the aweful plan design'd,
Whence Power stood trembling at the voice of Laws,
Whence soar'd on Freedom's wing th'ethereal mind.
(p. 3)","","""Or, greatly daring in his Country's cause, / Whose heaven-taught soul the aweful plan design'd, / Whence Power stood trembling at the voice of Laws, / Whence soar'd on Freedom's wing th'ethereal mind.""",6982,,Reading,2011-06-25 03:48:02 UTC,"","",Beasts
2014-03-11 03:21:40 UTC,21402,"LI
Thus Heaven enlarged his soul in riper years.
For Nature gave him strength, and fire, to soar,
On Fancy's wing, above this vale of tears;
Where dark cold-hearted sceptics, creeping, pore
Through microscope of metaphysic lore:
And much they grope for truth, but never hit.
For why? their powers, inadequate before,
This art preposterous renders more unfit;
Yet deem they darkness light, and their vain blunders wit.
(Bk I, p. 19, ll. 451-459; cf. p. 27 in 1771 ed.)","","""Thus Heaven enlarged his soul in riper years. / For Nature gave him strength, and fire, to soar, / On Fancy's wing, above this vale of tears.""",7499,,C-H Lion (Poetry); confirmed in ECCO.,2013-07-02 15:29:40 UTC,"",Book I,Animals
2013-07-02 15:41:15 UTC,21411,"LV
Enraptured by the Hermit's strain, the Youth
Proceeds the path of Science to explore.
And now, expanding to the beams of Truth,
New energies, and charms unknown before,
His mind discloses: Fancy now no more
Wantons on fickle pinion through the skies;
But, fix'd in aim, and conscious of her power,
Sublime from cause to cause exults to rise,
Creation's blended stores arranging as she flies.
(Bk II, p. 42, ll. 487-495)","","""Fancy now no more / Wantons on fickle pinion through the skies; / But, fix'd in aim, and conscious of her power, / Sublime from cause to cause exults to rise, / Creation's blended stores arranging as she flies.""",7499,,C-H Lion,2013-07-02 15:41:15 UTC,"",Book II,Animals
2014-03-10 22:02:26 UTC,21418,"All cold the hand, that soothed Woe's weary head!
And quench'd the eye, the pitying tear that shed!
And mute the voice, whose pleasing accents stole,
Infusing balm, into the rankled soul!
O Death, why arm with cruelty thy power,
And spare the idle weed, yet lop the flower!
Why fly thy shafts in lawless error driven!
Is Virtue then no more the care of Heaven!---
But peace, bold thought! be still my bursting heart!
We, not Eliza, felt the fatal dart.
Scaped the dark dungeon does the slave complain,
Nor bless the hand that broke the galling chain?
Say, pines not Virtue for the lingering morn,
On this dark wild condemn'd to roam forlorn?
Where Reason's meteor-rays, with sickly glow,
O'er the dun gloom a dreadful glimmering throw?
Disclosing dubious to th' affrighted eye
O'erwhelming mountains tottering from on high,
Black billowy seas in storm perpetual toss'd,
And weary ways in wildering labyrinths lost.
O happy stroke, that bursts the bonds of clay,
Darts through the rending gloom the blaze of day,
And wings the soul with boundless flight to soar,
Where dangers threat, and fears alarm no more.
(p. 51, ll. 63-85)","","""O happy stroke, that bursts the bonds of clay, / Darts through the rending gloom the blaze of day, / And wings the soul with boundless flight to soar, / Where dangers threat, and fears alarm no more.""",7501,,C-H Lion (Poetry); confirmed in ECCO.,2013-07-02 15:59:15 UTC,"","",""
2013-07-02 16:05:20 UTC,21420,"II. 1.
When first on Childhood's eager gaze
Life's varied landscape, stretch'd immense around,
Starts out of night profound,
Thy voice incites to tempt th' untrodden maze.
Fond he surveys thy mild maternal face,
His bashful eye still kindling as he views,
And, while thy lenient arm supports his pace,
With beating heart the upland path pursues:
The path that leads, where, hung sublime,
And seen afar, youth's gallant trophies, bright
In Fancy's rainbow ray, invite
His wingy nerves to climb.
(pp. 54-5, ll. 42-53)","","""Fond he surveys thy mild maternal face, / His bashful eye still kindling as he views, / And, while thy lenient arm supports his pace, / With beating heart the upland path pursues: / The path that leads, where, hung sublime, / And seen afar, youth's gallant trophies, bright / In Fancy's rainbow ray, invite / His wingy nerves to climb.""",7502,,C-H Lion,2013-07-02 16:05:20 UTC,"","",""