work_id,theme,provenance,created_at,text,reviewed_on,id,comments,metaphor,dictionary,updated_at,context
4029,"",Searching HDIS,2004-10-13 00:00:00 UTC,"LAT.
How quietly he rests! Oh that I could by watching him, hanging thus over him, and feeling all his Care, protract his Sleep!
Oh sleep! thou sweetest Gift of Heav'n to Man,
Still in thy downy Arms embrace my Friend,
Nor loose him from his inexistent Trance
To sense of Yesterday, and pain of Being;
In thee Oppressors sooth their angry Brow,
In thee th' oppress'd forget tyrannick Pow'r,
In thee--
The Wretch condemn'd is equal to his Judge,
And the sad Lover to his cruel Fair;
Nay, all the shining Glories Men pursue,
When thou art wanted, are but empty Noise;
Who then wou'd court the Pomp of guilty Power,
When the Mind sickens at the weary Shew,
And flies to temporary Death for Ease;
When half our Life's Cessation of our Being--
He wakes--
How do I pity that returning Life,
Which I cou'd hazard thousand Lives to save!
(V.v)",,10434,•I've included twice: Death and Disease,"""Who then wou'd court the Pomp of guilty Power, / When the Mind sickens at the weary Shew, / And flies to temporary Death for Ease.""","",2011-05-31 03:37:59 UTC,"Act V, scene v"
5088,Wit and Judgment,Searching in HDIS (Prose),2004-11-17 00:00:00 UTC,"Now, Agalastes (speaking dispraisingly) sayeth, That there may be some wit in it, for aught he knows,--but no judgment at all. And Triptolemus and Phutatorius agreeing thereto, ask, How is it possible there should? for that wit and judgment in this world never go together; inasmuch as they are two operations differing from each other as wide as east is from west.--So, says Locke,--so are farting and hickuping, say I. But in answer to this, Didius the great church lawyer, in his code de fartandi et illustrandi fallaciis, doth maintain and make fully appear, That an illustration is no argument,--nor do I maintain the wiping of a looking-glass clean, to be a syllogism;--but you all, may it please your worships, see the better for it,--so that the main good these things do, is only to clarify the understanding, previous to the application of the argument itself, in order to free it from any little motes, or specks of opacular matter, which if left swimming therein, might hinder a conception and spoil all.
(pp. 87-8; Norton, 140-1)",2011-09-23,13701,"","Wit and judgment ""in this world never go together; inasmuch as they are two operations differing from each other as wide as east is from west.--So, says Locke,--so are farting and hickuping, say I.""","",2011-09-23 18:53:16 UTC,"Vol III, Chapter 20: The Author's Preface"
5328,"",Reading and HDIS (Poetry),2003-11-23 00:00:00 UTC,"Yes! let the rich deride, the proud disdain,
These simple blessings of the lowly train;
To me more dear, congenial to my heart,
One native charm than all the gloss of art;
Spontaneous joys, where nature has its play,
The soul adopts and owns their firstborn sway;
Lightly they frolic o'er the vacant mind,
Unenvied, unmolested, unconfined:
But the long pomp, the midnight masquerade,
With all the freaks of wanton wealth arrayed,
In these, ere triflers half their wish obtain,
The toiling pleasure sickens into pain;
And, even while fashion's brightest arts decoy,
The heart distrusting asks, if this be joy.
(ll. 251-64, pp. 686-7)",2010-06-10,14302,"•The phrase ""vacant mind"" appears earlier in the poem: ""the loud laugh that spoke the vacant mind"" (l. 122). Lonsdale glosses vacant here as ""Untroubled by thought, carefree (as in 'vacant hilarity', Vicar of Wakefield"" (p. 681).","""Spontaneous joys, where nature has its play, / The soul adopts and owns their firstborn sway; / Lightly they frolic o'er the vacant mind, / Unenvied, unmolested, unconfined.""",Inhabitants,2010-06-10 18:44:22 UTC,""
6761,"","Reading Jonathan Lamb's Sterne's Fiction and the Double Principle (Cambridge, 1989), 25.",2010-10-09 17:34:46 UTC,"This stroke upon my tender brain
Remains, I doubt, impress'd for ever;
For to this day, when with much pain,
I try to think strait on, and clever,
I sidle out again, and strike
Into the beautiful oblique.
Therefore, I have no one notion,
That is not form'd, like the designing
Of the peristaltick motion;
Vermicular; twisting and twining;
Going to work
Just like a bottle-skrew upon a cork.
(pp. 117-8)",2011-09-07,17998,"Lamb compares to line of beauty and the 3-D serpentine line that must be imagined by viewer of 2-D drawing.
INTEREST. CRAZY METAPHOR.","""Therefore, I have no one notion, / That is not form'd, like the designing / Of the peristaltick motion; / Vermicular; twisting and twining; / Going to work / Just like a bottle-skrew upon a cork.""","",2011-09-07 19:36:28 UTC,Tale II
4024,"",Reading,2013-09-11 21:15:44 UTC,"I confess to have been somewhat liberal in the business of titles, having observed the humour of multiplying them, to bear great vogue among certain writers, whom I exceedingly reverence. And indeed it seems not unreasonable that books, the children of the brain, should have the honour to be christened with variety of names, as well as other infants of quality. Our famous Dryden has ventured to proceed a point farther, endeavouring to introduce also a multiplicity of godfathers, which is an improvement of much more advantage, upon a very obvious account. It is a pity this admirable invention has not been better cultivated, so as to grow by this time into general imitation, when such an authority serves it for a precedent. Nor have my endeavours been wanting to second so useful an example, but it seems there is an unhappy expense usually annexed to the calling of a godfather, which was clearly out of my head, as it is very reasonable to believe. Where the pinch lay, I cannot certainly affirm; but having employed a world of thoughts and pains to split my treatise into forty sections, and having entreated forty Lords of my acquaintance that they would do me the honour to stand, they all made it matter of conscience, and sent me their excuses.
(pp. 33-4 in OUP ed.)",,22709,"","""And indeed it seems not unreasonable that books, the children of the brain, should have the honour to be christened with variety of names, as well as other infants of quality.""","",2013-09-11 21:15:44 UTC,""
4024,"",Reading,2013-09-11 21:33:48 UTC,"Having, therefore, so narrowly passed through this intricate difficulty, the reader will, I am sure, agree with me in the conclusion that, if the moderns mean by madness only a disturbance or transposition of the brain, by force of certain vapours issuing up from the lower faculties, then has this madness been the parent of all those mighty revolutions that have happened in empire, in philosophy, and in religion. For the brain in its natural position and state of serenity disposeth its owner to pass his life in the common forms, without any thought of subduing multitudes to his own power, his reasons, or his visions, and the more he shapes his understanding by the pattern of human learning, the less he is inclined to form parties after his particular notions, because that instructs him in his private infirmities, as well as in the stubborn ignorance of the people. But when a man’s fancy gets astride on his reason, when imagination is at cuffs with the senses, and common understanding as well as common sense is kicked out of doors, the first proselyte he makes is himself; and when that is once compassed, the difficulty is not so great in bringing over others, a strong delusion always operating from without as vigorously as from within. For cant and vision are to the ear and the eye the same that tickling is to the touch. Those entertainments and pleasures we most value in life are such as dupe and play the wag with the senses. For if we take an examination of what is generally understood by happiness, as it has respect either to the understanding or the senses we shall find all its properties and adjuncts will herd under this short definition, that it is a perpetual possession of being well deceived. And first, with relation to the mind or understanding, it is manifest what mighty advantages fiction has over truth, and the reason is just at our elbow: because imagination can build nobler scenes and produce more wonderful revolutions than fortune or Nature will be at the expense to furnish. Nor is mankind so much to blame in his choice thus determining him, if we consider that the debate merely lies between things past and things conceived, and so the question is only this: whether things that have place in the imagination may not as properly be said to exist as those that are seated in the memory? which may be justly held in the affirmative, and very much to the advantage of the former, since this is acknowledged to be the womb of things, and the other allowed to be no more than the grave. Again, if we take this definition of happiness and examine it with reference to the senses, it will be acknowledged wonderfully adapt. How sad and insipid do all objects accost us that are not conveyed in the vehicle of delusion! How shrunk is everything as it appears in the glass of Nature, so that if it were not for the assistance of artificial mediums, false lights, refracted angles, varnish, and tinsel, there would be a mighty level in the felicity and enjoyments of mortal men. If this were seriously considered by the world, as I have a certain reason to suspect it hardly will, men would no longer reckon among their high points of wisdom the art of exposing weak sides and publishing infirmities--an employment, in my opinion, neither better nor worse than that of unmasking, which, I think, has never been allowed fair usage, either in the world or the play-house.
(pp. 82-3 in OUP ed.)",,22719,"","""Nor is mankind so much to blame in his choice thus determining him, if we consider that the debate merely lies between things past and things conceived, and so the question is only this: whether things that have place in the imagination may not as properly be said to exist as those that are seated in the memory? which may be justly held in the affirmative, and very much to the advantage of the former, since this is acknowledged to be the womb of things, and the other allowed to be no more than the grave.""","",2013-09-11 21:33:59 UTC,""
7675,"",LION,2013-09-16 04:18:13 UTC,"ARVIDA.
Do, rage and chafe, thy Wrath's beneath me, Cristiern.
How poor thy Pow'r, how empty is thy Happiness,
When such a Wretch, as I appear to be,
Can ride thy Temper, harrow up thy Form,
And stretch thy Soul upon the Rack of Passion.
(p. 18)",,22758,"","""How poor thy Pow'r, how empty is thy Happiness, / When such a Wretch, as I appear to be, / Can ride thy Temper, harrow up thy Form, / And stretch thy Soul upon the Rack of Passion.""","",2013-09-16 04:18:13 UTC,""
5088,"",Reading,2016-02-23 15:54:22 UTC,"But for sleep--I know I shall make nothing of it before I begin--I am no dab at your fine sayings in the first place--and in the next, I cannot for my soul set a grave face upon a bad matter, and tell the world--'tis the refuge of the unfortunate--the enfranchisement of the prisoner--the downy lap of the hopeless, the weary and the broken-hearted; nor could I set out with a lye in my mouth, by affirming, that of all the soft and delicious functions of our nature, by which the great Author of it, in his bounty, has been pleased to recompence the sufferings wherewith his justice and his good pleasure has wearied us,--that this is the chiefest (I know pleasures worth ten of it) or what a happiness it is to man, when the anxieties and passions of the day are over, and he lays down upon his back, that his soul shall be so seated within him, that which ever way she turns her eyes, the heavens shall look calm and sweet above her--no desire--or fear--or doubt that troubles the air, nor any difficulty pass'd, present, or to come, that the imagination may not pass over without offence, in that sweet secession.
(IV.xv, pp. 115-7; Norton, 210)",,24843,"Succesion? -- What is ""sweet secession""?","""But for sleep--I know I shall make nothing of it before I begin--I am no dab at your fine sayings in the first place--and in the next, I cannot for my soul set a grave face upon a bad matter, and tell the world--'tis the refuge of the unfortunate--the enfranchisement of the prisoner--the downy lap of the hopeless, the weary and the broken-hearted; nor could I set out with a lye in my mouth, by affirming, that of all the soft and delicious functions of our nature, by which the great Author of it, in his bounty, has been pleased to recompence the sufferings wherewith his justice and his good pleasure has wearied us,--that this is the chiefest (I know pleasures worth ten of it) or what a happiness it is to man, when the anxieties and passions of the day are over, and he lays down upon his back, that his soul shall be so seated within him, that which ever way she turns her eyes, the heavens shall look calm and sweet above her--no desire--or fear--or doubt that troubles the air, nor any difficulty pass'd, present, or to come, that the imagination may not pass over without offence, in that sweet secession.""","",2016-02-23 15:54:22 UTC,"Vol. IV, Chap. xv"