work_id,theme,provenance,created_at,text,reviewed_on,id,comments,metaphor,dictionary,updated_at,context
5960,"",Reading,2003-07-21 00:00:00 UTC,"My chief occupation, however, related to the scenes into which I was about to enter. My imaginations were, of course, crude and inadequate; and I found an uncommon gratification in comparing realities, as they successively occurred, with the pictures which my wayward fancy had depicted.
(Part II, chapter 17, p. 566)",,15843,"•Previous paragraphs on the pleasures of the imagination. Racialized omparisons of a monkey, the Congolese, and the Creole-Gaul. See a younger Mervyn doing the same with features of nature (539).",The fancy depicts pictures,"",2009-09-14 19:44:51 UTC,Mervyn on his way to Baltimore
5960,"",Reading,2003-07-21 00:00:00 UTC,"On this occasion all my wariness forsook me. I cannot explain why my perplexity and the trouble of my tho'ts were greater upon this than upon similar occasions. However it be, I was incapable of speaking, and fixed my eyes upon the floor. A sort of electrical sympathy pervaded my companion, and terror and anguish were strongly manifested in the glances which she sometimes stole at me. We seemed fully to understand each other with the aid of words.
(Part II, chapter 17, p. 569-70)",,15844,"Mervyn visits the wife of Amos Watson
•See the previous ""Emotion is communicated to the heart with electrical rapidity"" that characterizes Mervyn and Welbeck's relationship. On page 296. I have already noted that in Godwin's Caleb Williams sympathy is magnetic.","""A sort of electrical sympathy pervaded my companion, and terror and anguish were strongly manifested in the glances which she sometimes stole at me.""","",2011-04-15 16:24:00 UTC,""
5960,"",Reading,2003-07-21 00:00:00 UTC,"I was for some time at a loss to guess at the cause of these appearances. At length is occurred to me, that joy was the source of the sickness that had seized Mrs. Maurice. The abrupt recovery of what had been deemed irretrievable, would naturally produce this effect upon a mind of a certain texture.
(Part II, chapter 18, p. 576)",,15845,•The mind's texture! What does this tell us about the mind? Do any other writers conceive the mind in these terms?,""" The abrupt recovery of what had been deemed irretrievable, would naturally produce this effect upon a mind of a certain texture""","",2009-09-14 19:44:52 UTC,"Part II, chapter 18. Mervyn visits the Maurices"
5960,"",Reading,2003-07-21 00:00:00 UTC,"This intercourse was strangely fascinating. My heart was buoyed up by a kind of intoxication. I now found myself exalted to my genial element, and began to taste the delights of existence. In the intercourse of ingenious and sympathetic minds, I found a pleasure which I had not previously conceived.
(Part II, chapter 20, p. 585)",,15846,"•I have not included descriptions of the sinking heart, so it seems a little strange to include this reference to the heart's buoyancy.
•The heart droops, melts, sinks, floats, overflows, etc. Notice the figuration of liquid.",The heart may be buoyed up by a kind of intoxication,"",2009-09-14 19:44:52 UTC,Mervyn enjoys talking with Mrs. Watson and Miss Maurice
5960,"",Reading,2003-07-21 00:00:00 UTC,"I now set about carrying my plan of life into effect. I began with ardent zeal and unwearied diligence the career of medical study. I bespoke the counsels and instructions of my friend; attended him on his professional visits, and acted, in all practicable cases, as his substitute. I found this application of time more pleasurable than I had imagined. My mind gradually expanded itself, as it were, for the reception of new ideas. My curiosity grew more eager, in proportion as it was supplied with food, and every day added strength to the assurance that I was no insignificant and worthless being; that I was destined to be something in this scene of existence, and might someday lay claim to the gratitude and homage of my fellow-men.
(II,xxi, p. 589)",,15847,"•Mervyn returned from Baltimore. Notice Mervyn's hungry curiosity. I have not included it as a separate entry becuase curiosity is not one of my keywords.
• I'm adding it now.","""My mind gradually expanded itself, as it were, for the reception of new ideas.""","",2011-06-17 17:08:45 UTC,"Part II, Chapter 21"
5960,"",Reading,2003-07-21 00:00:00 UTC,"It is not so when we talk to one another. With your arm about me, and your sweet face close to mine, I can prattle forever. Then my heart overflows at my lips. After hours thus spent, it seems as if there were a thousand things still to be said. Then I can tell you what the book has told me. I can repeat scores of verses by heart, though I heard them only once read, but it is because you have read them to me.
(Part II, chapter 21, p. 593)",,15848,"",The heart may overflow at the lips,"",2009-09-14 19:44:52 UTC,Eliza's letter to Mervyn
5960,"",Reading,2003-07-21 00:00:00 UTC,"Meanwhile I placed myself before her, and fixed my eyes steadfastly upon her features. There is no book in which I read with more pleasure, than the face of a woman. That is generally more full of meaning, and of better meaning too, than the hard and inflexible lineaments of man, and this woman's face has no parallel.
She read it with visible emotion. Having gone through it, she did not lift her eye from the paper, but continued silent, as if buried in thought. After some time, for I would not interrupt the pause, she addressed me thus:
This girl seems to be very anxious to be with you.
(Part II, chapter 22, p. 595)",,15849,"•Welbeck is twice described as being ""buried in reverie"" (532, 534).",One may be buried in thought,"",2009-09-14 19:44:52 UTC,Achsa Fielding reads Eliza's letter to Mervyn
5960,"",Reading,2003-07-21 00:00:00 UTC,"Not absolutely, or forever, I believe. I love her company. Her absence for a long time is irksome. I cannot express the delight with which I see and hear her. To mark her features, beaming with vivacity; playful in her pleasures; to hold her in my arms, and listen to her prattle; always musically voluble; always sweetly tender, or artlessly intelligent--and this you will say is the dearest privilege of marriage: and so it is; and dearly should I prize it; and yet, I fear my heart would droop as often as that other image should occur to my fancy. For then, you know, it would occur as something never to be possessed by me.
(Part II, chapter 22, p. 599)",,15850,"","""I fear my heart would droop as often as that other image should occur to my fancy""","",2009-09-14 19:44:53 UTC,"Part II, chapter 22. Achsa Fielding asks Mervyn if marriage with ""Bess"" would mean a forfeiture of his happiness."
5960,"",Reading,2003-07-21 00:00:00 UTC,"Never was a lighter heart, a gaiety more overflowing, and more buoyant than mine. All cold from a boisterous night, at a chilly season, all weariness from a rugged and miry road, were charmed away. I might have ridden, but I could not brook delay, even the delay of enquiring for and equipping an horse. I might thus have saved myself fatigue, and have lost no time, but my mind was in too great a tumult for deliberation and forecast. I saw nothing but the image of my girl, whom my tidings would render happy.
(Part II, chapter 22, p. 601)",,15851,•Typical of Mervyn to act without thought in this way.
•Tumult is too ambiguous to give me a sense of categorization. See the OED.,"The mind may be in ""too great a tumult for deliberation and forecast""","",2009-09-14 19:44:53 UTC,"Part II, chapter 22. Achsa Fielding agrees to take in Eliza Hadwin"
5960,"",Reading,2003-07-21 00:00:00 UTC,"Let me see: they tell me this is Monday night. Only three days yet to come! If thus restless to day; if my heart thus bounds till its mansion scarcely hold it, what must be my state tomorrow! What next day! What as the hour hastens on; as the sun descends; as my hand touches her in sign of wedded unity, of love without interval; of concord without end.
I must quell these tumults. They will disable me else. They will wear out all my strength. They will drain away life itself. But who could have thought! So soon! Not three months since I first set eyes upon her. Not three weeks since our plighted love, and only three days to terminate suspense and give me all.
I must compel myself to be quiet: to sleep. I must find some refuge from anticipations so excruciating. All extremes are agonies. A joy like this is too big for this narrow tenement. I must thrust it forth; I must bar and bolt it out for a time, or these frail walls will burst asunder. The pen is a pacifyer. It checks the mind's career; it circumscribes her wanderings. It traces out, and compels us to adhere to one path. It ever was my friend. Often has it blunted my vexations; hushed my stormy passions; turned my peevishness to soothing; my fierce revenge to heart-dissolving pity.
(Part II, chapter 23, p. 605)",,15852,"•Great stuff about the pen and mental control. (See Clarissa.)
•The ""all"" of the wedding night had me supposing that Brown would have us think that more than Mervyn's joy must thrust forth. Hints of masturbation?
•Note the heart's mansion and the mind's career.","""[I]f my heart thus bounds till its mansion scarcely hold it, what must be my state tomorrow!""","",2009-09-14 19:44:53 UTC,Chapter 23: the beginning of the end. Mervyn to marry.