work_id,theme,provenance,created_at,text,reviewed_on,id,comments,metaphor,dictionary,updated_at,context
5088,"",HDIS (Prose),2009-09-14 19:38:59 UTC,"Your greatness of mind in this action, which I admire, with that generous contempt of money which you shew me in the whole transaction, is really noble;-- and what renders it more so, is the principle of it;--the workings of a parent's love upon the truth and conviction of this very hypothesis, namely, That was your son called Judas,--the sordid and treacherous idea, so inseparable from the name, would have accompanied him thro' life like his shadow, and, in the end, made a miser and a rascal of him, in spight, Sir, of your example.
I never knew a man able to answer this argument. --But, indeed, to speak of my father as he was;--he was certainly irresistible, both in his orations and disputations;--he was born an orator;-- θεοδίδακτος. --Persuasion hung upon his lips, and the elements of Logick and Rhetorick were so blended up in him,-- and, withall, he had so shrewd guess at the weaknesses and passions of his respondent, --that Nature might have stood up and said,--""This man is eloquent."" In short, whether he was on the weak or the strong side of the question, 'twas hazardous in either case to attack him: --And yet, 'tis strange, he had never read Cicero nor Quintilian de Oratore, nor Isocrates, nor Aristotle, nor Longinus amongst the antients;--nor Vossius, nor Skioppius, nor Ramus, nor Farnaby amongst the moderns;--and what is more astonishing, he had never in his whole life the least light or spark of subtilty struck into his mind, by one single lecture upon Crackenthorp or Burgersdicius, or any Dutch logician or commentator;--he knew not so much as in what the difference of an argument ad ignorantiam, and an argument ad hominem consisted; so that I well remember, when he went up along with me to enter my name at Jesus College in ****,--it was a matter of just wonder with my worthy tutor, and two or three fellows of that learned society,--that a man who knew not so much as the names of his tools, should be able to work after that fashion with 'em.
To work with them in the best manner he could, was what my father was, however, perpetually forced upon;-- for he had a thousand little sceptical notions of the comick kind to defend,-- most of which notions, I verily believe, at first enter'd upon the footing of mere whims, and of a vive la Bagatelle ; and as such he would make merry with them for half an hour or so, and having sharpen'd his wit upon 'em, dismiss them till another day.
I mention this, not only as matter of hypothesis or conjecture upon the progress and establishment of my father's many odd opinions,--but as a warning to the learned reader against the indiscreet reception of such guests, who, after a free and undisturbed enterance, for some years, into our brains,--at length claim a kind of settlement there,--working sometimes like yeast;--but more generally after the manner of the gentle passion, beginning in jest,--but ending in downright earnest.
Whether this was the case of the singularity of my father's notions,--or that his judgment, at length, became the dupe of his wit;--or how far, in many of his notions, he might, tho' odd, be absolutely right;--the reader, as he comes at them, shall decide. All that I maintain here, is, that in this one, of the influence of Christian names, however it gain'd footing, he was serious;-- he was all uniformity;--he was systematical, and, like all systematick reasoners, he would move both heaven and earth, and twist and torture every thing in nature to support his hypothesis. In a word, I repeat it over again;--he was serious;--and, in consequence of it, he would lose all kind of patience whenever he saw people, especially of condition, who should have known better,--as careless and as indifferent about the name they imposed upon their child,--or more so, than in the choice of Ponto or Cupid for their puppy dog.
(pp. 118-123; Norton, 37-9)",2011-09-23,13690,Reviewed 2003-10-23,"""[A]nd what is more astonishing, he had never in his whole life the least light or spark of subtilty struck into his mind, by one single lecture upon Crackenthorp or Burgersdicius, or any Dutch logician or commentator.""","",2011-09-23 18:28:30 UTC,"Vol. 1, Chap. 19"
5088,Wit and Judgment,Searching in HDIS (Prose),2004-11-17 00:00:00 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. 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)",2011-09-23,13708,"","""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.""","",2011-09-23 19:00:13 UTC,"Vol III, Chapter 20: The Author's Preface"
5088,Train of Ideas,Searching in HDIS (Prose),2005-09-12 00:00:00 UTC,"Now, whether we observe it or no, continued my father, in every sound man's head, there is a regular succession of ideas of one sort or other, which follow each other in train just like--A train of artillery? said my uncle Toby.--A train of a fiddle stick!--quoth my father,-- which follow and succeed one another in our minds at certain distances, just like the images in the inside of a lanthorn turned round by the heat of a candle.--I declare, quoth my uncle Toby, mine are like a smoak-jack. --Then, brother Toby, I have nothing more to say to you upon the subject, said my father.
(pp. 80-1; Norton, 139)",2008-10-07,13746,"","Ideas ""follow and succeed one another in our minds at certain distances, just like the images in the inside of a lanthorn turned round by the heat of a candle.""",Optics,2011-09-23 19:49:07 UTC,"Vol. 3, Chapter 18"
5088,Train of Ideas,Searching in HDIS (Prose),2005-09-12 00:00:00 UTC,"Now, whether we observe it or no, continued my father, in every sound man's head, there is a regular succession of ideas of one sort or other, which follow each other in train just like--A train of artillery? said my uncle Toby. --A train [Page 81] of a fiddle stick!--quoth my father,-- which follow and succeed one another in our minds at certain distances, just like the images in the inside of a lanthorn turned round by the heat of a candle. -- I declare, quoth my uncle Toby, mine are like a smoak-jack. --Then, brother Toby, I have nothing more to say to you upon the subject, said my father.
(pp. 80-1)",2008-10-07,13747,•Cross-reference: in Martinus Scriblerus the mind is analogized to a meat-roasting jack.,"""I declare, quoth my uncle Toby, mine [ideas] are like a smoak-jack.""","",2011-09-23 19:33:28 UTC,"Vol. 3, Chapter 18"
5088,Mind's Eye,Searching in HDIS (Prose),2005-09-12 00:00:00 UTC,"--What a conjuncture was here lost! --My father in one of his best explanatory moods,--in eager pursuit of a metaphysic point into the very regions where clouds and thick darkness would soon have encompassed it about;--my uncle Toby in one of the finest dispositions for it in the world;--his head like a smoak-jack;--the funnel unswept, and the ideas whirling round and round about in it, all obfuscated and darkened over with fuliginous matter!--By the tomb stone of Lucian--if it is in being,--if not, why then, by his ashes! by the ashes of my dear Rabelais, and dearer Cervantes, --my father and my uncle Toby's discourse upon TIME and ETERNITY,--was a discourse devoutly to be wished for! and the petulancy of my father's humour in putting a stop to it, as he did, was a robbery of the Ontologic treasury, of such a jewel, as no coalition of great occasions and great men, are ever likely to restore to it again.
(III.xix, pp. 81-2; p. 139 in Norton ed.)",2008-10-07,13749,•A robbery of the Ontologic treasury!!! META-METAPHORICAL: REVISIT AND USE IN BOOK.,"""What a conjuncture was here lost! ... my uncle Toby in one of the finest dispositions for it in the world;--his head like a smoak-jack;--the funnel unswept, and the ideas whirling round and round about in it, all obfuscated and darkened over with fuliginous matter!""","",2014-10-26 16:21:07 UTC,"Vol. 3, Chapter 19"
5088,"",Searching in HDIS (Prose),2005-09-12 00:00:00 UTC,"Tho' my father persisted in not going on with the discourse,--yet he could not get my uncle Toby's smoak-jack [Page 83] out of his head,--piqued as he was at first with it;--there was something in the comparison at the bottom, which hit his fancy; for which purpose resting his elbow upon the table, and reclining the right side of his head upon the palm of his hand,--but looking first stedfastly in the fire,--he began to commune with himself and philosophize about it: but his spirits being wore out with the fatigues of investigating new tracts, and the constant exertion of his faculties upon that variety of subjects which had taken their turn in the discourse,--the idea of the smoak-jack soon turned all his ideas upside down,--so that he fell asleep almost before he knew what he was about.
As for my uncle Toby, his smoak-jack had not made a dozen revolutions, before [Page 84] he fell asleep also.--Peace be with them both.--Dr. Slop is engaged with the midwife, and my mother above stairs.--Trim is busy in turning an old pair of jack-boots into a couple of mortars to be employed in the siege of Messina next summer,--and is this instant boring the touch holes with the point of a hot poker. --All my heroes are off my hands;--'tis the first time I have had a moment to spare,--and I'll make use of it, and write my preface.
(pp. 82-4)",2008-10-07,13750,•In the first paragraph the metaphor is everywhere and nowhere. The smoak-jack of Walter's mind peers reflectively into the fire and falls asleep. INTEREST.,"""As for my uncle Toby, his smoak-jack had not made a dozen revolutions, before he fell asleep also. ""","",2011-09-23 19:40:08 UTC,"Vol. 3, Chapter 20"
5088,"",Contributed by Emily Anderson. Found again reading.,2007-03-20 00:00:00 UTC,"My uncle Toby would give my father all possible fair play in this attempt; and with infinite patience would sit smoaking his pipe for whole hours together, whilst my father was practising upon his head, and trying every accessible avenue to drive Prignitz and Scroderus's solutions into it.
Whether they were above my uncle Toby's reason,--or contrary to it,-- or that his brain was like wet tinder, and no spark could possibly take hold,--or that it was so full of saps, mines, blinds, curtins, and such military disqualifications to his seeing clearly into Prignitz and Scroderus's doctrines,--I say not,-- let school-men--scullions, anatomists, and engineers, fight for it amongst themselves.--
(III.xxxix, pp. 188-9; Norton, 171-2)",2008-10-07,16960,"","""Whether they were above my uncle Toby's reason,--or contrary to it,-- or that his brain was like wet tinder, and no spark could possibly take hold,--or that it was so full of saps, mines, blinds, curtins, and such military disqualifications to his seeing clearly into Prignitz and Scroderus's doctrines,--I say not,-- let school-men--scullions, anatomists, and engineers, fight for it amongst themselves.""","",2016-02-23 05:13:37 UTC,"Vol. III, Chap. xxxix"
5301,"","Reading; found again searching in LION. And again: reading Paul Kelleher's Making Love: Sentiment and Sexuality in Eighteenth-Century British Literature (Lanham, MD: Bucknell UP, 2015), 3.
",2013-10-26 19:30:58 UTC,"The young fellow, said the landlord, is beloved by all the town, and there is scarce a corner in Montriul where the want of him will not be felt: he has but one misfortune in the world, continued he, ""He is always in love.""--I am heartily glad of it, said I,--'twill save me the trouble every night of putting my breeches under my head. In saying this, I was making not so much La Fleur's eloge, as my own, having been in love with one princess or another almost all my life, and I hope I shall go on so, till I die, being firmly persuaded, that if ever I do a mean action, it must be in some interval betwixt one passion and another: whilst this interregnum lasts, I always perceive my heart locked up--I can scarce find in it, to give Misery a sixpence; and therefore I always get out of it as fast as I can, and the moment I am rekindled, I am all generosity and good will again; and would do any thing in the world either for, or with any one, if they will but satisfy me there is no sin in it.
(I, pp. 104-5)",,23051,"","""In saying this, I was making not so much La Fleur's eloge, as my own, having been in love with one princess or another almost all my life, and I hope I shall go on so, till I die, being firmly persuaded, that if ever I do a mean action, it must be in some interval betwixt one passion and another: whilst this interregnum lasts, I always perceive my heart locked up--I can scarce find in it, to give Misery a sixpence; and therefore I always get out of it as fast as I can, and the moment I am rekindled, I am all generosity and good will again; and would do any thing in the world either for, or with any one, if they will but satisfy me there is no sin in it.""","",2015-12-02 18:12:51 UTC,""
5301,"",Searching in LION,2013-10-26 19:31:57 UTC,"Every man almost spoke pure iambics the next day, and talk'd of nothing but Perseus his pathetic address--""O Cupid! prince of God and men""--in every street of Abdera, in every house--""O Cupid! Cupid!""--in every mouth, like the natural notes of some sweet melody which drops from it whether it will or no--nothing but ""Cupid! Cupid! prince of God and men""--The fire caught--and the whole city, like the heart of one man, open'd itself to Love.
(I, pp. 107-8)",,23052,Reverse comparison...,"""The fire caught--and the whole city, like the heart of one man, open'd itself to Love.""","",2013-10-26 19:31:57 UTC,""
5088,"",Reading. Text from ECCO-TCP.,2016-02-18 15:22:40 UTC,"Trim ran down and brought up his Master's supper,--to no purpose:--Trim's plan of operation ran so in my uncle Toby's head, he could not taste it.--Trim, quoth my uncle Toby, get me to-bed;--'twas all one.--Corporal Trim's description had fired his imagination,--my uncle Toby could not shut his eyes.--The more he consider'd it, the more bewitching the scene appeared to him;--so that, two full hours before day-light, he had come to a final determination, and had concerted the whole plan of his and Corporal Trim's decampment.
(II.v, pp. 41-2)
",,24820,"","""Corporal Trim's description had fired his imagination,--my uncle Toby could not shut his eyes.""","",2016-02-18 15:22:40 UTC,"Vol. II, Chap. v"