work_id,theme,provenance,created_at,text,reviewed_on,id,comments,metaphor,dictionary,updated_at,context
6816,"",Reading,2011-03-23 03:55:55 UTC,"These instances, and a great many more which might be adduced, while they shew how the complexions of the same persons vary in different climates, it is hoped may tend also to remove the prejudice that some conceive against the natives of Africa on account of their colour. Surely the minds of the Spaniards did not change with their complexions! Are there not causes enough to which the apparent inferiority of an African may be ascribed, without limiting the goodness of God, and supposing he forbore to stamp understanding on certainly his own image, because ""carved in ebony."" Might it not naturally be ascribed to their situation? When they come among Europeans, they are ignorant of their language, religion, manners, and customs. Are any pains taken to teach them these? Are they treated as men? Does not slavery itself depress the mind, and extinguish all its fire and every noble sentiment? But, above all, what advantages do not a refined people possess over those who are rude and uncultivated. Let the polished and haughty European recollect that his ancestors were once, like the Africans, uncivilized, and even barbarous. Did Nature make them inferior to their sons? and should they too have been made slaves? Every rational mind answers, No. Let such reflections as these melt the pride of their superiority into sympathy for the wants and miseries of their sable brethren, and compel them to acknowledge, that understanding is not confined to feature or colour. If, when they look round the world, they feel exultation, let it be tempered with benevolence to others, and gratitude to God, ""who hath made of one blood all nations of men for to dwell on all the face of the earth; and whose wisdom is not our wisdom, neither are our ways his ways.""
(pp. 42-4)",,18248,"","""Does not slavery itself depress the mind, and extinguish all its fire and every noble sentiment?""",Fetters,2013-03-09 16:31:58 UTC,Chapter 1
7541,"",Reading,2013-07-11 21:31:02 UTC,"Now by my grandame's beard--I will not thank you for your present--although my ears have been stunned with your goodness and kindness----the best young man!----and, good Lord! how shall we make him amends? &c. &c.----Phaw! simpleton, quoth I, do you not plainly ken, that he himself has a satisfaction in giving pleasure to his friends which more than repays him?--so I strove to turn off the notion of obligation--though I must confess, my heart at the same time felt a something, sure it was not envy--no, I detest it--I fear it was pride--for I feel within myself this moment, that could I turn the tables in repaying principal with treble interest----I should feel gratified--though perhaps not satisfied.--I have a long account to balance with you--about your comments upon the transcript;--you are a pretty fellow to dare put in your claim--to better sense--deeper thinking--and stronger reasoning than my wife self----to tell you the truth (tho' at my own expence) I read your letter the first time with some little chagrin;--your reasoning, tho' it hurt my pride--yet almost convinced my understanding.--I read it carefully a second time--pondered--weighed--and submitted--whenever a spark of vanity seems to be glowing at my heart--I will read your letter--and what then?--Why then humbled by a proper sense of my inferiority--I shall still have cause for pride----triumph----and comfort----when I reflect that my valued Confort--is the true friend of his sincerely affectionate
(I.xxxviii, pp. 104-5; pp. 77-8 in Carretta)",,21678,"","""I read it carefully a second time--pondered--weighed--and submitted--whenever a spark of vanity seems to be glowing at my heart--I will read your letter--and what then?""","",2013-07-11 21:31:02 UTC,"Vol. I, letter xxxviii"
7541,"",Reading; text from DocSouth,2013-07-11 21:36:09 UTC,"[...] Never so struck in my life;--it was on Friday night, between ten and eleven, just preparing for my concluding pipe--the Duke of M----'s man knocks.--""Have you heard the bad news?""--No--""the Duchess of Queensbury died last night.""--I felt fifty different sensations--unbelief was uppermost--when he crushed my incredibility, by saying he had been to know how his Grace did--who was also very poorly in health.--Now the preceding day, Thursday (the day on which she expired) I had received a very penitential letter from S----, dated from St. Helena;--this letter I inclosed in a long tedious epistle of my own--and sent to Petersham, believing the family to be all there.--The day after you left town her Grace died--that day week she was at my door--the day after I had the honor of a long audience in her dressing-room.--Alas! this hour blessed with health--crowned with honors--loaded with riches, and encircled with friends--the next reduced to a lump of poor clay--a tenement for worms.--Earth re-possesses part of what she gave--and the freed spirit mounts on wings of fire;--her disorder was a stoppage--she fell ill the evening of the Friday that I last saw her continued in her full senses to the last.--The good she had done reached the skies long before her lamented death--and are the only heralds that are worth the pursuit of wisdom:--as to her bad deeds, I have never heard of them--had it been for the best, God would have lent her a little longer to a foolish world, which hardly deserved so good a woman;--for my own part--I have lost a friend--and perhaps 'tis better so.--""Whatever is,"" &c. &c.--I wish S---- knew this heavy news, for many reasons.--I am inclined to believe her Grace's death is the only thing that will most conduce to his reform.--I fear neither his gratitude nor sensibility will be much hurt upon hearing the news--it will act upon his fears, and make him do right upon a base principle.--Hang him! he teazes me whenever I think of him.--I supped last night with St.----; he called in just now, and says he has a right to be remembered to you.--You and he are two odd monkeys--the more I abuse and rate you, the better friend you think me.--As you have found out that your spirits govern your head--you will of course contrive every method of keeping your instrument in tune;--sure I am that bathing--riding--walking--in succession--the two latter not violent, will brace your nerves--purify your blood--invigorate its circulation--add to the rest continency--yes, again I repeat it, continency;--before you reply, think--re-think--and think again--look into your Bible--look in Young--peep into your own breast--if your heart warrants--what your head counsels--act then boldly.--Oh! apropos--pray thank my noble friend Mrs. H--for her friendly present of C-- J--; it did Mrs. Sancho service, and does poor Billy great good--who has (through his teeth) been plagued with a cough--which I hope will not turn to the whooping sort;--the girls greet you as their respected school-master.--As to your spirited kind offer of a F----, why when you please--you know what I intend doing with it.
(I.xliii, pp. 119-22; pp. 84-6 in Carretta)",,21681,"","""Earth re-possesses part of what she gave--and the freed spirit mounts on wings of fire;--her disorder was a stoppage--she fell ill the evening of the Friday that I last saw her continued in her full senses to the last.""",Animals,2013-07-11 21:36:09 UTC,"Vol. I, letter xliii"
6816,"",ECCO-TCP,2013-08-18 20:47:01 UTC,"My dream now returned upon my mind with all its force; it was fulfilled in every part; for our danger was the same I had dreamt of; and I could not help looking on myself as the principal instrument in effecting our deliverance: for, owing to some of our people getting drunk, the rest of us were obliged to double our exertions; and it was fortunate we did, for in a very little time longer the patch of leather on the boat would have been worn out, and she would have been no longer fit for service. Situated as we were, who could think that men should be so careless of the danger they were in? for, if the wind had but raised the swell as it was when the vessel struck, we must have bid a final farewel to all hopes of deliverance; and though, I warned the people who were drinking, and entreated them to embrace the moment of deliverance, nevertheless they persisted, as if not possessed of the least spark of reason. I could not help thinking, that, if any of these people had been lost, God would charge me with their lives, which, perhaps, was one cause of my labouring so hard for their preservation, and indeed every one of them afterwards seemed so sensible of the service I had rendered them, that while we were on the key I was a kind of chieftian amongst them. I brought some limes, oranges, and lemons ashore; and, finding it to be a good soil where we were, I planted several of them as a token to any one that might be cast away hereafter.
(II, p. 49-50)",,22392,"","""Situated as we were, who could think that men should be so careless of the danger they were in? for, if the wind had but raised the swell as it was when the vessel struck, we must have bid a final farewel to all hopes of deliverance; and though, I warned the people who were drinking, and entreated them to embrace the moment of deliverance, nevertheless they persisted, as if not possessed of the least spark of reason.""","",2013-08-18 20:47:01 UTC,""