work_id,theme,provenance,created_at,text,reviewed_on,id,comments,metaphor,dictionary,updated_at,context
5737,"",Contributed by Joann Kleinneiur (email).,2005-05-04 00:00:00 UTC,"I much condole with you on your late loss, I know how to feel for your misfortune! [ref. to death of Edgeworth's daughter Honora (1774-1790)] ... pains and diseases of the mind are only cured by Forgetfulness;--Reason but skins the wound, which is perpetually liable to fester again.
(p. 201)",,8582,•Darwin to Richard Lovell Edgeworth,"""[P]ains and diseases of the mind are only cured by Forgetfulness;--Reason but skins the wound, which is perpetually liable to fester again""","",2009-12-14 16:24:47 UTC,""
5707,"",HDIS,2003-12-30 00:00:00 UTC,"He, entering at the study door,
Its ample area 'gan explore;
And something in the wind
Conjectured, sniffing round and round,
Better than all the books he found,
Food chiefly for the mind.
(ll. 37-42, p. 31)",,15231,"•First printed in Gentleman's Magazine, lix, 1789, 163-4","Books are ""Food chiefly for the mind""","",2009-09-14 19:43:06 UTC,""
5717,"","Searching ""heart"" and ""steel"" in HDIS (Poetry)",2005-06-09 00:00:00 UTC,"""These"" said the Muse, ""are subjects for thy song!
""Let themes like these thy manly strain prolong.
--""Does pining Merit in Oppression live?
""Give that protection which the Muse can give.
--""Does Patriot Virtue strive, but strive in vain,
""Its Country's dear-bought Freedom to maintain?
""Dare to support that long-deserted cause,
""And give, tho' Crowns oppose thee, give applause!
--""Is there a Man, who, from his earliest youth,
""Ne'er felt a sense of Honour or of Truth;
""Whose heart ne'er struggled with a wish for Fame,
""Whose cheek ne'er bore the blush of honest Shame;
""Vice his sole good, Himself his only end,
""The lurking Foe, the hypocritic Friend?
""If such an one there be, his bosom bare,--
""Show his black heart, and guide the Vultures there.
--""Should the vile Priest, for Lucre's filthy gain,
""Give up his Flock to join the courtly Train;
""Should he forsake the path his Saviour trod,
""And proudly turn his Back upon his God;
""Tho' Mitres crown him, break his golden Rest,
""And 'wake a troubled Conscience in his breast.
--""Does Beauty, swerving from its Maker's plan
""To be the Solace and the Joy of Man,
""Spurning at Fame and Honour's mild decree,
""Drink, with delight, the dregs of Infamy?
--""Does Man, so made to cherish, first betray,
""Then leave the Victim to the World a Prey?
""Let not thy Verse its angry scourge forbear,
""Nor veil the shameless Wanton's last despair.
--""Should frolic Youth, by mast'ring Passions led,
""In Folly's fair but treach'rous mazes tread,
""With cunning skill, and well-imagin'd care,
""Full in his view expose the lurking snare;
""And strive, by just degrees and friendly art,
""To 'wake the Virtue slumb'ring in his Heart.
--""Is there a Man, who, wealthy to no end,
""Ne'er knew the common wish to be a Friend,
""Whose callous Heart's to all Compassion steel'd?--
""Scourge him!--nor fear the wit of Chesterfield.
--""Do hireling Statesmen, in Corruption bold,
""Sell their poor Country as themselves are sold?
""With noble courage let thy Patriot Song
""Inflame a Nation to revenge its wrong.
--""Is there a Monarch, by mad Folly led,
""And under something worse than Folly bred;--
""Who would his People's sacred Rights betray,
""And longs to rule them with tyrannic Sway?--
""Exalt thy Strain, nor be the silly Thing
""That fears to speak of Justice to a King;--
""Deep in his Bosom plant the conscious Groan,--
""Nor spare a Vice,--tho' seated on a Throne.""--",,15246,•I've included twive: Callous and Steel,"""'Is there a Man, who, wealthy to no end, / 'Ne'er knew the common wish to be a Friend, / 'Whose callous Heart's to all Compassion steel'd?""",Metal,2009-09-14 19:43:08 UTC,""
5744,"",Searching in Past Masters ,2005-05-03 00:00:00 UTC,"But now all is to be changed. All the pleasing illusions, which made power gentle, and obedience liberal, which harmonized the different shades of life, and which, by a bland assimilation, incorporated into politics the sentiments which beautify and soften private society, are to be dissolved by this new conquering empire of light and reason. All the decent drapery of life is to be rudely torn off. All the superadded ideas, furnished from the wardrobe of a moral imagination, which the heart owns, and the understanding ratifies, as necessary to cover the defects of our naked shivering nature, and to raise it to dignity in our own estimation, are to be exploded as a ridiculous, absurd, and antiquated fashion.
(p. 114)",2008-12-03,15304,"","""All the decent drapery of life is to be rudely torn off. All the superadded ideas, furnished from the wardrobe of a moral imagination, which the heart owns, and the understanding ratifies, as necessary to cover the defects of our naked shivering nature.""","",2013-04-22 03:41:30 UTC,""
5744,"",Reading,2013-04-22 03:45:20 UTC,"It is plain that the mind of this political Preacher was at the time big with some extraordinary design; and it is very probable, that the thoughts of his audience, who understood him better than I do, did all along run before him in his reflection, and in the whole train of consequences to which it led.
(p. 79, p. 47 in Pocock ed.)",,20108,"","""It is plain that the mind of this political Preacher was at the time big with some extraordinary design; and it is very probable, that the thoughts of his audience, who understood him better than I do, did all along run before him in his reflection, and in the whole train of consequences to which it led.""","",2013-04-22 03:45:20 UTC,""
5744,"",Reading,2013-04-22 04:00:40 UTC,"You see, Sir, that in this enlightened age I am bold enough to confess, that we are generally men of untaught feelings; that instead of casting away all our old prejudices, we cherish them to a very considerable degree, and to take more shame to ourselves, we cherish them because they are prejudices; and the longer they have lasted, and the more generally they have prevailed, the more we cherish them. We are afraid to put men to live and trade each on his own private stock of reason; because we suspect that this stock in each man is small, and that the individuals would do better to avail themselves of the general bank and capital of nations, and of ages. Many of our men of speculation, instead of exploding general prejudices, employ their sagacity to discover the latent wisdom which prevails in them. If they find what they seek, and they seldom fail, they think it more wise to continue the prejudice, with the reason involved, than to cast away the coat of prejudice, and to leave nothing but the naked reason; because prejudice, with its reason, has a motive to give action to that reason, and an affection which will give it permanence. Prejudice is of ready application in the emergency; it previously engages the mind in a steady course of wisdom and virtue, and does not leave the man hesitating in the moment of decision, sceptical, puzzled and unresolved. Prejudice renders a man's virtue his habit; and not a series of unconnected acts. Through just prejudice, his duty becomes a part of his nature.
(pp. 129-30, pp. 76-7 in Pocock ed.)",,20116,"","""If they find what they seek, and they seldom fail, they think it more wise to continue the prejudice, with the reason involved, than to cast away the coat of prejudice, and to leave nothing but the naked reason; because prejudice, with its reason, has a motive to give action to that reason, and an affection which will give it permanence.""","",2013-04-22 04:00:40 UTC,""
5744,"",Reading,2013-04-22 04:10:36 UTC,"The men of England, the men, I mean, of light and leading in England, whose wisdom (if they have any) is open and direct, would be ashamed, as of a silly deceitful trick, to profess any religion in name, which by their proceedings they appeared to contemn. If by their conduct (the only language that rarely lies) they seemed to regard the great ruling principle of the moral and the natural world, as a mere invention to keep the vulgar in obedience, they apprehend that by such a conduct they would defeat the politic purpose they have in view. They would find it difficult to make others to believe in a system to which they manifestly gave no credit themselves. The Christian statesmen of this land would indeed first provide for the multitude; because it is the multitude; and is therefore, as such, the first object in the ecclesiastical institution, and in all institutions. They have been taught, that the circumstance of the gospel's being preached to the poor, was one of the great tests of its true mission. They think, therefore, that those do not believe it, who do not take care it should be preached to the poor. But as they know that charity is not confined to any one description, but ought to apply itself to all men who have wants, they are not deprived of a due and anxious sensation of pity to the distresses of the miserable great. They are not repelled through a fastidious delicacy, at the stench of their arrogance and presumption, from a medicinal attention to their mental blotches and running sores. They are sensible, that religious instruction is of more consequence to them than to any others; from the greatness of the temptation to which they are exposed; from the important consequences that attend their faults; from the contagion of their ill example; from the necessity of bowing down the stubborn neck of their pride and ambition to the yoke of moderation and virtue; from a consideration of the fat stupidity and gross ignorance concerning what imports men most to know, which prevails at courts, and at the head of armies, and in senates, as much as at the loom and in the field.
(pp. 150-2, pp. 89 in Pocock ed.)",,20122,"","""They are not repelled through a fastidious delicacy, at the stench of their arrogance and presumption, from a medicinal attention to their mental blotches and running sores.""","",2013-04-22 04:10:36 UTC,""
5744,"",Reading,2013-04-22 04:18:38 UTC,"But the institutions savour of superstition in their very principle; and they nourish it by a permanent and standing influence. This I do not mean to dispute; but this ought not to hinder you from deriving from superstition itself any resources which may thence be furnished for the public advantage. You derive benefits from many dispositions and many passions of the human mind, which are of as doubtful a colour in the moral eye, as superstition itself. It was your business to correct and mitigate every thing which was noxious in this passion, as in all the passions. But is superstition the greatest of all possible vices? In its possible excess I think it becomes a very great evil. It is, however, a moral subject; and of course admits of all degrees and all modifications. Superstition is the religion of feeble minds; and they must be tolerated in an intermixture of it, in some trifling or some enthusiastic shape or other, else you will deprive weak minds of a resource found necessary to the strongest. The body of all true religion consists, to be sure, in obedience to the will of the sovereign of the world; in a confidence in his declarations; and an imitation of his perfections. The rest is our own. It may be prejudicial to the great end; it may be auxiliary. Wise men, who as such, are not admirers (not admirers at least of the Munera Terrae) are not violently attached to these things, nor do they violently hate them. Wisdom is not the most severe corrector of folly. They are the rival follies, which mutually wage so unrelenting a war; and which make so cruel a use of their advantages, as they can happen to engage the immoderate vulgar on the one side or the other in their quarrels. Prudence would be neuter; but if, in the contention between fond attachment and fierce antipathy concerning things in their nature not made to produce such heats, a prudent man were obliged to make a choice of what errors and excesses of enthusiasm he would condemn or bear, perhaps he would think, that which builds, to be more tolerable than that which demolishes--that which adorns a country, than that which deforms it--that which endows, than that which plunders--that which disposes to mistaken beneficence, than that which stimulates to real injustice--that which leads a man to refuse to himself lawful pleasures, than that which snatches from others the scanty subsistence of their self-denial. Such, I think, is very nearly the state of the question between the ancient founders of monkish superstition, and the superstition of the pretended philosophers of the hour.
(pp. 234-5, pp. 139-40 in Pocock ed.)",,20128,"","""You derive benefits from many dispositions and many passions of the human mind, which are of as doubtful a colour in the moral eye, as superstition itself.""","",2013-04-22 04:18:38 UTC,""
7837,"",ECCO-TCP,2014-03-12 15:27:03 UTC,"LAWS are made to keep unruly men in order, and prevent their doing wrong; and punishment is sure to follow when these laws are transgressed or broken through; but necessity has always been a powerful pleader in extenuation of guilt. Not only in the eye of the law, but in the eye of reason, the will is ever taken for the deed, and they who cannot as they will, must will as they may; that is, must do as they can. It is under this consideratio that the law will allow one man to kill another, if he cannot otherwise escape with his own life; but that the killer may never use this necessity as a pretence, it is expected that the person, so urged, shall flee from his enemy as far as he can; but when he can fly no further, and is pressed by a sword, or other deadly weapon, against a wall, he may then, to save his own life, kill his pursuer if he can, and the act will not be called murder.
(pp. 93-4)",,23632,"","""Not only in the eye of the law, but in the eye of reason, 'the will' is ever 'taken for the deed', and 'they who cannot as they will, must will as they may'; that is, must do as they can.""","",2014-03-12 15:27:03 UTC,""
7837,"",ECCO-TCP,2014-03-12 15:27:58 UTC,"There are a number of requisites necessary to constitute the happiness of a married state, and so much is it the interest of either man or woman, to conceal, from the objects of their choice, their tempers and situation in life, if they will not bear examination, that it is wonderful there are not more unhappy marriages than there are. It is truly a leap in the dark, and a mere matter of chance, whether they leap safely or not. The passions of youth are too ungovernable to give way to enquiry; and attachments once formed, are often too strong to be broke through. It would be wise therefore, if young folks, (should their inclinations lead them to seek a partner for life) would advise with their parents, or nearest relations, in a concern so essential to their happiness. Love is an idle term; it is merely the fever of the mind, and, if encouraged, is apt to rage; but, if discouraged, may be overcome: distress will soon cool it, for, when Poverty comes in at the door, Love will fly out at the window. In short, as there can be no true happiness without a competence, this is the first consideration; and, as an enquiry of this kind, is generally beyond the reach of young minds, who so proper to consult as our parents, or best friends, who can have no view in the advice they give, but the welfare of those they advise? Persons conversant in life, and acquainted with the world, are certainly best able to judge in matters of this kind; and if we are wise, we shall abide by their determinations. If the character, temper, and situation of the object is found, upon a strict enquiry, to be such as to make an alliance with for life, prudent, pursue your inclination; but if they turn out the reverse, shun the connexion as you would a pestilence, and, not like a silly moth, flutter round the flame of a candle, till you burn your wings. In short, Look before you Leap, for snakes among sweet flowers do creep.
(pp. 114-5)",,23633,"","""Love is an idle term; it is merely the fever of the mind, and, if encouraged, is apt to rage; but, if discouraged, may be overcome.""","",2014-03-12 15:27:58 UTC,""