text,updated_at,metaphor,created_at,context,theme,reviewed_on,dictionary,comments,provenance,id,work_id
"Indeed there is one thing to be considered, that in Nova Zembla, North Lapland, and in all those cold and dreary tracts of the globe, which lie more directly under the artick and antartick circles,--where the whole province of a man's concernments lies for near nine months together, within the narrow compass of his cave,----where the spirits are compressed almost to nothing,----and where the passions of a man, with every thing which belongs to them, are as frigid as the zone itself;--there the least quantity of judgment imaginable does the business,--and of wit,--there is a total and an absolute saving,--for as not one spark is wanted,--so not one spark is given. Angels and ministers of grace defend us! What a dismal thing would it have been to have governed a kingdom, to have fought a battle, or made a treaty, or run a match, or wrote a book, or got a child, or held a provincial chapter there, with so plentiful a lack of wit and judgment about us! for mercy's sake! let us think no more about it, but travel on as fast as we can southwards into Norway,----crossing overSwedeland, if you please, through the small triangular province of Angermania to the lake of Bothnia; coasting along it through east and west Bothnia, down toCarelia, and so on, through all those states and provinces which border upon the far side of the Gulf of Finland, and the north east of the Baltick, up to Petersbourg, and just stepping into Ingria;--then stretching over directly from thence through the north parts of the Russian empire--leaving Siberia a little upon the left hand till we get into the very heart ofRussian and Asiatick Tartary.
(pp. 92-4; Norton, 142-3)",2011-09-23 19:00:13 UTC,"""Indeed there is one thing to be considered, that in Nova Zembla, North Lapland, and in all those cold and dreary tracts of the globe, which lie more directly under the artick and antartick circles,--where the whole province of a man's concernments lies for near nine months together, within the narrow compass of his cave,----where the spirits are compressed almost to nothing,----and where the passions of a man, with every thing which belongs to them, are as frigid as the zone itself;--there the least quantity of judgment imaginable does the business,--and of wit,--there is a total and an absolute saving,--for as not one spark is wanted,--so not one spark is given.""",2004-11-17 00:00:00 UTC,"Vol III, Chapter 20: The Author's Preface",Wit and Judgment,2011-09-23,"","",Searching in HDIS (Prose),13708,5088
"And yet these passions which, on nature's plan,
Call out the hero while they form the man,
Warp'd from the sacred line that nature gave,
As meanly ruin as they nobly save.
The' etherial soul that Heaven itself inspires
With all its virtues, and with all its fires,
Led by these sirens to some wild extreme,
Sets in a vapour when it ought to beam;
Like a Dutch sun that in the' autumnal sky
Looks through a fog, and rises but to die.
But he whose active, unencumber'd mind
Leaves this low earth and all its mists behind,
Fond in a pure unclouded sky to glow,
Like the bright orb that rises on the Po,
O'er half the globe with steady splendour shines,
And ripens virtues as it ripens mines.
(p. 154)",2014-07-25 18:17:07 UTC,"""The' etherial soul that Heaven itself inspires / With all its virtues, and with all its fires, / Led by these sirens to some wild extreme, / Sets in a vapour when it ought to beam; / Like a Dutch sun that in the' autumnal sky / Looks through a fog, and rises but to die.""",2014-07-25 18:17:07 UTC,"","",,"","",Reading,24300,7984