id,updated_at,text,provenance,metaphor,dictionary,comments,theme,work_id,reviewed_on,created_at,context
14005,2009-09-14 19:39:42 UTC,"The process of Nature in perception by the senses, may therefore be conceived as a kind of drama, wherein some things are performed behind the scenes, others are represented to the mind in different scenes, one succeeding the another. The impression made by the object upon the organ, either by immediate contact, or by some intervening medium, as well as the impression made upon the nerves and brain, is performed behind the scenes, and the mind sees nothing of it. But every impression, by the laws of drama, is followed by a sensation, which is the first scene exhibited to the mind; and this scene is quickly succeeded by another, which is the perception of the object.
",Reading,"Perception is ""a kind of drama, wherein some things are performed behind the scenes, others are represented to the mind in different scenes, one succeeding the another""",Theater,•REVISIT. See also ¶ that follows,"",5206,,2005-03-29 00:00:00 UTC,""
16722,2009-09-14 19:47:47 UTC,"Monimia still! here once again!
O fatal name! O dubious strain!
Say, heaven-born virtue, power divine,
Are all these various movements thine?
Was it thy triumphs, sole inspired
My soul, to holy transports fired?
Or say, do springs less sacred move?
Ah! much, I fear, 'tis human love.
Alas! the noble strife is o'er,
The blissful visions charm no more;
Far off the glorious rapture flown,
Monimia rages here alone.
In vain, love's fugitive, I try
From the commanding power to fly;
Though grace was dawning on my soul,
Possessed by heaven sincere and whole,
Yet still in fancy's painted cells
The soul-inflaming image dwells.
Why didst thou, cruel love, again
Thus drag me back to earth and pain?
Well hoped I, love, thou would'st retire
Before the blest Jessean lyre.
Devotion's harp would charm to rest
The evil spirit in my breast;
But the deaf adder fell disdains,
Unlist'ning to the chanter's strains.","Searching ""soul"" and ""cell"" in HDIS (Poetry); found again ""fancy""","""Yet still in fancy's painted cells / The soul-inflaming image dwells.""",Rooms,•I've included twice: Cell and Dwelling,"",6323,,2005-08-17 00:00:00 UTC,""
18818,2011-06-25 03:59:08 UTC,"""Even Nature pines by vilest chains oppress'd;
""Th'astonish'd kingdoms crouch to Fashion's nod.
""O ye pure inmates of the gentle breast,
""Truth, Freedom, Love, O where is your abode?
""O yet once more shall Peace from Heaven return,
""And young Simplicity with mortals dwell!
""Nor Innocence th'august pavilion scorn,
""Nor meek Contentment fly the humble cell!
(p. 22)",Reading,"""O ye pure inmates of the gentle breast, / Truth, Freedom, Love, O where is your abode?""",Inhabitants,"","",6982,,2011-06-25 03:59:08 UTC,""
19237,2011-09-29 16:54:55 UTC,"Many will think, that there is but little merit in this declaration; it being as much for my own credit, as for the interest of mankind, that I guard against a practice, which is acknowledged to be always unprofitable, and generally pernicious. A verbal disputant! what claim can he have to the title of Philosopher! what has he to do with the laws of nature, with the observation of facts, with life and manners! Let him not intrude upon the company of men of science; but repose with his brethren Aquinas and Suarez, in the corner of some Gothic cloister, dark as his understanding, and cold as his heart. Men are now become too judicious to be amused with words, and too firm-minded to be confuted with quibbles.--Many of my contemporaries would readily join in this apostrophe, who yet are themselves the dupes of some of the most egregious dealers in logomachy that ever perverted the faculty of speech. In fact, from some instances that have occurred to my own observation, I have reason to believe, that verbal controversy hath not always, even in this age, been accounted a contemptible thing: and the reader, when he comes to be better acquainted with my sentiments, will perhaps think the foregoing declaration more disinterested, than at first fight it may appear.
(pp. 2-3)",Searching in Google Books,"""Let him not intrude upon the company of men of science; but repose with his brethren Aquinas and Suarez, in the corner of some Gothic cloister, dark as his understanding, and cold as his heart.""",Rooms,"","",5345,,2011-09-29 16:54:55 UTC,Introduction
21178,2013-06-27 18:02:36 UTC,"Thus imagination is no unskilful architect; it collects and chuses the materials; and though they may at first lie in a rude and undigested chaos, it in a great measure, by its own force, by means of its associating power, after repeated attempts and transpositions, designs a regular and well-proportioned edifice.
(I.iii, p. 65)",C-H Lion,"""Thus imagination is no unskilful architect; it collects and chuses the materials; and though they may at first lie in a rude and undigested chaos, it in a great measure, by its own force, by means of its associating power, after repeated attempts and transpositions, designs a regular and well-proportioned edifice.""","","","",7486,,2013-06-27 18:02:36 UTC,""
21354,2016-03-11 18:17:29 UTC,"Imagination is that faculty whereby the mind not only reflects on its own operations, but which assembles the various ideas conveyed to the understanding by the canal of sensation, and treasured up in the repository of the memory, compounding or disjoining them at pleasure; and which, by its plastic power of inventing new associations of ideas, and of combining them with infinite variety, is enabled to present a creation of its own, and to exhibit scenes and objects which never existed in nature. So indispensibly necessary is this faculty in the composition of Genius, that all the discoveries in science, and all the inventions and improvements in art, if we except such as have arisen from mere accident, derive their origin from its vigorous exertion. At the same time it must be confessed, that all the false and fallacious systems of the former, and all the irregular and illegitimate performances in the latter, which have ever been obtruded upon mankind, may be justly imputed to the unbounded extravagance of the same faculty: such effects are the natural consequences of an exuberant imagination, without any proportionable share of the reasoning talent. It is evidently necessary therefore, in order to render the productions of Genius regular and just, as well as elegant and ingenious, that the discerning and coercive power of judgment should mark and restrain the excursions of a wanton imagination; in other words, that the austerity of reason should blend itself with the gaiety of the graces. Here then we have another ingredient of Genius; an ingredient essential to its constitution, and without which it cannot possibly be exhibited to full advantage, even an accurate and penetrating JUDGMENT.
(pp. 6-8)","Searching in C-H Lion. Found again reading Sean Silver, The Mind is a Collection: Case Studies in Eighteenth-Century Thought (Philadelphia: Penn Press, 2015), 3.","""Imagination is that faculty whereby the mind not only reflects on its own operations, but which assembles the various ideas conveyed to the understanding by the canal of sensation, and treasured up in the repository of the memory, compounding or disjoining them at pleasure; and which, by its plastic power of inventing new associations of ideas, and of combining them with infinite variety, is enabled to present a creation of its own, and to exhibit scenes and objects which never existed in nature.""","","","",7498,,2013-07-01 16:45:42 UTC,""
21360,2013-07-01 16:52:28 UTC,"With regard to the first of these points: though Genius discovers itself in a vast variety of forms, we have already observed, that those forms are distinguished and characterised by one quality common to them all, possessed indeed in very different degrees, and exerted in very different capacities; this quality, it will be understood, is Imagination. The mental powers unfold themselves in exact proportion to our necessities and occasions for exercising them. Imagination therefore being that faculty which lays the foundation of all our knowledge, by collecting and treasuring up in the repository of the memory those materials on which Judgment is afterwards to work, and being peculiarly adapted to the gay, delightful, vacant season of childhood and youth, appears in those early periods in all its puerile brilliance and simplicity, long before the reasoning faculty discovers itself in any considerable degree. Imagination however, in general, exercises itself for some time indiscriminately on the various objects presented to it by the senses, without taking any particular or determinate direction; and sometimes the peculiar bent and conformation of Genius is discernible only in the advanced period of youth. The mind, as soon as it becomes capable of attending to the representation it receives of outward objects by the ministry of the senses, views such a representation with the curiosity of a stranger, who is presented with the prospect of an agreeable and uncommon scene. The novelty of the objects at first only affects it with pleasure and surprise. It afterwards surveys, revolves, and reviews them successively one after another; and, at last, after having been long conversant with them selects one distinguished and favourite object from the rest, which it pursues with its whole bent and vigour. There are some persons, it is true, in whom a certain bias or talent for one particular art or science, rather than another, appears in very early life; and in so great a degree as would incline us to imagine, that such a disposition and talent must have been congenial and innate. While persons are yet children, we discover in their infantile pursuits the opening buds of Genius; we discern the rudiments of the Philosopher, the poet, the Painter, and the Architect.
(pp. 28-30)",C-H Lion,"""Imagination therefore being that faculty which lays the foundation of all our knowledge, by collecting and treasuring up in the repository of the memory those materials on which Judgment is afterwards to work, and being peculiarly adapted to the gay, delightful, vacant season of childhood and youth, appears in those early periods in all its puerile brilliance and simplicity, long before the reasoning faculty discovers itself in any considerable degree.""","","","",7498,,2013-07-01 16:52:28 UTC,""
21374,2013-07-01 17:10:33 UTC,"First, in the invention of INCIDENTS. Some incidents are so obvious, that by a natural association of ideas, they instantly occur to the mind of every one possessed of ordinary abilities, and are very easily conceived. Others however are more remote, and lie far beyond the reach of ordinary faculties; coming only within the verge of those few persons, whose minds are capacious enough to contain that prodigious croud of ideas, which an extensive observation and experience supply; whose understandings are penetrating enough to discover the most distant connections of those ideas, and whose imaginations are sufficiently quick, in combining them at pleasure. It is this kind of incidents which original Genius delights to invent; incidents which are in themselves great as well as uncommon. Let it not however be supposed, that the invention even of these is a laborious employment to a Writer of this stamp; for it is the prerogative of a great Genius to think and to write with ease, very rarely, if ever, experiencing a barrenness of Imagination. He has nothing to do but to give scope to the excursions of this faculty, which, by its active and creative power, exploring every recess of thought, will supply an inexhaustible variety of striking incidents. A facility, therefore, of inventing and combining such incidents in composition, may be regarded as one characteristical indication of a Genius truly Original.
(pp. 127-9)",C-H Lion,"""He has nothing to do but to give scope to the excursions of this faculty, which, by its active and creative power, exploring every recess of thought, will supply an inexhaustible variety of striking incidents.""",Rooms,"","",7498,,2013-07-01 17:10:33 UTC,""
21395,2013-07-01 18:34:46 UTC,"We may add, that another effect of learning is, to ENCUMBER and OVERLOAD the mind of an original Poetic Genius. Indeed it has this effect upon the mind of every man who has not properly arranged its scattered materials, and who by thought and reflection has not ""digested into sense the motley meal."" But however properly arranged those materials may be, and however thoroughly digested this intellectual food, an original Genius will sometimes find an inconveniency resulting from it; for as no man can attend to and comprehend many different things at once, his mental faculties will in some cases be necessarily oppressed and overcharged with the immensity of his own conceptions, when weighed down by the additional load of learning. The truth is, a Poet of original Genius has very little occasion for the weak aid of Literature: he is self-taught. He comes into the world as it were completely accomplished. Nature supplies the materials of his compositions; his senses are the under-workmen, while Imagination, like a masterly Architect, superintends and directs the whole. Or, to speak more properly, Imagination both supplies the materials, and executes the work, since it calls into being ""things that are not,"" and creates and peoples worlds of its own. It may be easily conceived therefore, that an original Poetic Genius, possessing such innate treasure (if we may be allowed an unphilosophical expression) has no use for that which is derived from books, since he may be encumbered, but cannot be inriched by it; for though the chief merit of ordinary Writers may consist in arranging and presenting us with the thoughts of others, that of an original Writer will always consist in presenting us with such thoughts as are his own.
(pp. 281-2)",C-H Lion,"""Nature supplies the materials of his compositions; his senses are the under-workmen, while Imagination, like a masterly Architect, superintends and directs the whole. Or, to speak more properly, Imagination both supplies the materials, and executes the work, since it calls into being 'things that are not,' and creates and peoples worlds of its own.""",Inhabitants,"","",7498,,2013-07-01 18:34:46 UTC,""
21400,2014-03-11 03:14:20 UTC,"VIII
Canst thou forego the pure ethereal soul
In each fine sense so exquisitely keen,
On the dull couch of Luxury to loll,
Stung with disease, and stupified with spleen;
Fain to implore the aid of Flattery's screen,
Even from thyself thy loathsome heart to hide,
(The mansion then no more of joy serene),
Where fear, distrust, malevolence, abide,
And impotent desire, and disappointed pride?
(Bk I, p. 3, ll. 64-72; cf. p. 6 in 1771 ed.)",C-H Lion (Poetry); confirmed in ECCO.,"""Fain to implore the aid of Flattery's screen, / Even from thyself thy loathsome heart to hide, / (The mansion then no more of joy serene), / Where fear, distrust, malevolence, abide, / And impotent desire, and disappointed pride?""",Rooms,"","",7499,,2013-07-02 15:27:34 UTC,Book I