work_id,theme,provenance,created_at,text,reviewed_on,id,comments,metaphor,dictionary,updated_at,context
3319,"","Searching ""mind"" and ""line"" in HDIS (Prose)",2005-05-11 00:00:00 UTC,"Whether some great, supreme, o'er-ruling Power
Stretch'd forth its arm at Nature's natal hour,
Composed this mighty Whole with plastic skill,
Wielding the jarring elements at will?
Or whether sprung from Chaos' mingling storm,
The mass of matter started into form?
Or Chance o'er earth's green lap spontaneous fling
The fruits of autumn and the flowers of spring?
Whether material substance unrefined,
Owns the strong impulse of instinctive mind,
Which to one centre points diverging lines,
Confounds, refracts, invig'rates, and combines?
Whether the joys of earth, the hopes of heaven,
By man to God, or God to man, were given?
If virtue leads to bliss, or vice to woe?
Who rules above? or who reside below?""
Vain questions all--shall man presume to know?
On all these points, and points obscure as these,
Think they who will,--and think whate'er they please!",,8586,"","""Whether material substance unrefined, / Owns the strong impulse of instinctive mind, / Which to one centre points diverging lines, / Confounds, refracts, invig'rates, and combines?""","",2009-09-14 19:33:39 UTC,""
5767,"",Reading,2011-03-24 20:41:15 UTC,"Having arrived in London late on Friday, the 15th of March, I hastened next morning to wait on Dr. Johnson, at his house; but found he was removed from Johnson's-court, No. 7, to Bolt-court, No. 8, still keeping to his favourite Fleet-street. My reflection at the time upon this change as marked in my Journal, is as follows: ""I felt a foolish regret that he had left a court which bore his name 2; but it was not foolish to be affected with some tenderness of regard for a place in which I had seen him a great deal, from whence I had often issued a better and a happier man than when I went in, and which had often appeared to my imagination while I trod its pavements, in the solemn darkness of the night, to be sacred to wisdom and piety."" Being informed that he was at Mr. Thrale's, in the Borough, I hastened thither, and found Mrs. Thrale and him at breakfast. I was kindly welcomed. In a moment he was in a full glow of conversation, and I felt myself elevated as if brought into another state of being. Mrs. Thrale and I looked to each other while he talked, and our looks expressed our congenial admiration and affection for him. I shall ever recollect this scene with great pleasure. I exclaimed to her, ""I am now, intellectually, Hermippus redivivus, I am quite restored by him, by transfusion of mind."" ""There are many (she replied) who admire and respect Mr. Johnson; but you and I love him.""
(p. 599)",2011-10-26,18252,"","""I exclaimed to her, 'I am now, intellectually, Hermippus redivivus, I am quite restored by him, by transfusion of mind.'""","",2011-10-26 14:41:17 UTC,"A.D. 1776, Aetat. 67"
5767,"",Reading,2013-03-20 21:36:57 UTC,"I talked to him of misery being ""the doom of man,"" in this life, as displayed in his ""Vanity of Human Wishes."" Yet I observed that things were done upon the supposition of happiness; grand houses were built, fine gardens were made, splendid places of publick amusement were contrived, and crowded with company. Johnson. ""Alas, Sir, these are all only struggles for happiness. When I first entered Ranelagh, it gave an expansion and gay sensation to my mind, such as I never experienced any where else. But, as Xerxes wept when he viewed his immense army, and considered that not one of that great multitude would be alive a hundred years afterwards, so it went to my heart to consider that there was not one in all that brilliant circle, that was not afraid to go home and think; but that the thoughts of each individual there, would be distressing when alone."" This reflection was experimentally just. The feeling of languor, which succeeds the animation of gaiety, is itself a very severe pain; and when the mind is then vacant, a thousand disappointments and vexations rush in and excruciate. Will not many even of my fairest readers allow this to be true?
(II, 173; Penguin, 631)",,19980,Are the rushing vexations personified?,"""The feeling of languor, which succeeds the animation of gaiety, is itself a very severe pain; and when the mind is then vacant, a thousand disappointments and vexations rush in and excruciate. Will not many even of my fairest readers allow this to be true?""","",2013-03-20 21:36:57 UTC,Aetat 68
5767,"",Reading,2014-06-22 17:15:42 UTC,"I shall, therefore, consider only such studies as we are at liberty to pursue or to neglect; and of these I know not how you will make a better choice, than by studying the civil law, as your father advises, and the ancient languages, as you had determined for yourself; at least resolve, while you remain in any settled residence, to spend a certain number of hours every day amongst your books. The dissipation of thought, of which you complain, is nothing more than the vacillation of a mind suspended between different motives, and changing its direction as any motive gains or loses strength. If you can but kindle in your mind any strong desire, if you can but keep predominant any wish for some particular excellence or attainment, the gusts of imagination will break away, without any effect upon your conduct, and commonly without any traces left upon the memory.
(I, pp. 258-9)",,24116,"","""If you can but kindle in your mind any strong desire, if you can but keep predominant any wish for some particular excellence or attainment, the gusts of imagination will break away, without any effect upon your conduct, and commonly without any traces left upon the memory.""","",2014-06-22 17:15:42 UTC,"Letter from Samuel Johnson to James Boswell (London 8, December 1763)"
5767,"","Reading William C. Dowling, Language and Logos in Boswell's 'Life of Johnson' (Princeton: Princeton UP, 1981), 50. See also Felicity Nussbaum, ""Boswell's Treatment of Johnson's Temper: 'A Warm West-Indian Climate,'"" Studies in English Literature (Summer 1974): 421-433, 432-3.
",2016-03-14 01:58:16 UTC,"He then rose again into passion, and attacked the young proselyte in the severest terms of reproach, so that both the ladies seemed to be much shocked.
We remained together till it was pretty late. Notwithstanding occasional explosions of violence, we were all delighted upon the whole with Johnson. I compared him at this time to a warm West-Indian climate, where you have a bright sun, quick vegetation, luxuriant foliage, luscious fruits; but where the same heat sometimes produces thunder, lightening, and earthquakes in a terrible degree.
(II, p. 232)",,24877,"","""I compared him at this time to a warm West-Indian climate, where you have a bright sun, quick vegetation, luxuriant foliage, luscious fruits; but where the same heat sometimes produces thunder, lightening, and earthquakes in a terrible degree.","",2016-03-14 02:21:28 UTC,""
5767,"",Reading,2016-03-15 14:59:37 UTC,"I will venture to say, that in no writings whatever can be found more bark and steel for the mind, if I may use the expression; more that can brace and invigorate every manly and noble sentiment. No. 32 on patience, even under extreme misery, is wonderfully lofty, and as much above the rant of stoicism, as the Sun of Revelation is brighter than the twilight of Pagan philosophy. I never read the following sentence without feeling my frame thrill: ""I think there is some reason for questioning whether the body and mind are not so proportioned, that the one can bear all which can be inflicted on the other; whether virtue cannot stand its ground as long as life, and whether a soul well principled will not be sooner separated than subdued.""
(I, p. 117; p. 120 in Penguin)",,24881,"","""I will venture to say, that in no writings whatever can be found more bark and steel for the mind, if I may use the expression; more that can brace and invigorate every manly and noble sentiment.""",Metal,2016-03-15 14:59:37 UTC,AETAT. 1750
5767,"",Reading,2016-03-15 15:03:03 UTC,"Every page of the Rambler shews a mind teeming with classical allusion and poetical imagery: illustrations from other writers are, upon all occasions so ready, and mingle so easily in his periods, that the whole appears of one uniform vivid texture.
(I, p. 118; p. 121 in Penguin)",,24882,Body metaphor? Motion metaphor? One of the limit examples. REVISIT?,"""Every page of the Rambler shews a mind teeming with classical allusion and poetical imagery.""","",2016-03-15 15:03:03 UTC,""
5767,"",Reading in ECCO-TCP,2018-04-26 23:11:25 UTC,"I cannot allow any fragment whatever that floats in my memory concerning the great subject of this work to be lost. Though a small particular may appear trifling to some, it will be relished by others; while every little spark adds something to the general blaze: and to please the true, candid, warm admirers of Johnson, and in any degree increase the splendour of his reputation, I bid defiance to the shafts of ridicule, or even of malignity. Showers of them have been discharged at my ""Journal of a Tour to the Hebrides;"" yet it still sails unhurt along the stream of time, and, as an attendant upon Johnson, ""Pursues the triumph, and partakes the gale.""
(II, 167)",,25190,"","""I cannot allow any fragment whatever that floats in my memory concerning the great subject of this work to be lost.""","",2018-04-26 23:11:25 UTC,""