work_id,theme,provenance,created_at,text,reviewed_on,id,comments,metaphor,dictionary,updated_at,context
7541,"",Reading,2013-07-11 21:31:02 UTC,"Now by my grandame's beard--I will not thank you for your present--although my ears have been stunned with your goodness and kindness----the best young man!----and, good Lord! how shall we make him amends? &c. &c.----Phaw! simpleton, quoth I, do you not plainly ken, that he himself has a satisfaction in giving pleasure to his friends which more than repays him?--so I strove to turn off the notion of obligation--though I must confess, my heart at the same time felt a something, sure it was not envy--no, I detest it--I fear it was pride--for I feel within myself this moment, that could I turn the tables in repaying principal with treble interest----I should feel gratified--though perhaps not satisfied.--I have a long account to balance with you--about your comments upon the transcript;--you are a pretty fellow to dare put in your claim--to better sense--deeper thinking--and stronger reasoning than my wife self----to tell you the truth (tho' at my own expence) I read your letter the first time with some little chagrin;--your reasoning, tho' it hurt my pride--yet almost convinced my understanding.--I read it carefully a second time--pondered--weighed--and submitted--whenever a spark of vanity seems to be glowing at my heart--I will read your letter--and what then?--Why then humbled by a proper sense of my inferiority--I shall still have cause for pride----triumph----and comfort----when I reflect that my valued Confort--is the true friend of his sincerely affectionate
(I.xxxviii, pp. 104-5; pp. 77-8 in Carretta)",,21678,"","""I read it carefully a second time--pondered--weighed--and submitted--whenever a spark of vanity seems to be glowing at my heart--I will read your letter--and what then?""","",2013-07-11 21:31:02 UTC,"Vol. I, letter xxxviii"
7541,"",Reading; text from DocSouth,2013-07-11 21:36:09 UTC,"[...] Never so struck in my life;--it was on Friday night, between ten and eleven, just preparing for my concluding pipe--the Duke of M----'s man knocks.--""Have you heard the bad news?""--No--""the Duchess of Queensbury died last night.""--I felt fifty different sensations--unbelief was uppermost--when he crushed my incredibility, by saying he had been to know how his Grace did--who was also very poorly in health.--Now the preceding day, Thursday (the day on which she expired) I had received a very penitential letter from S----, dated from St. Helena;--this letter I inclosed in a long tedious epistle of my own--and sent to Petersham, believing the family to be all there.--The day after you left town her Grace died--that day week she was at my door--the day after I had the honor of a long audience in her dressing-room.--Alas! this hour blessed with health--crowned with honors--loaded with riches, and encircled with friends--the next reduced to a lump of poor clay--a tenement for worms.--Earth re-possesses part of what she gave--and the freed spirit mounts on wings of fire;--her disorder was a stoppage--she fell ill the evening of the Friday that I last saw her continued in her full senses to the last.--The good she had done reached the skies long before her lamented death--and are the only heralds that are worth the pursuit of wisdom:--as to her bad deeds, I have never heard of them--had it been for the best, God would have lent her a little longer to a foolish world, which hardly deserved so good a woman;--for my own part--I have lost a friend--and perhaps 'tis better so.--""Whatever is,"" &c. &c.--I wish S---- knew this heavy news, for many reasons.--I am inclined to believe her Grace's death is the only thing that will most conduce to his reform.--I fear neither his gratitude nor sensibility will be much hurt upon hearing the news--it will act upon his fears, and make him do right upon a base principle.--Hang him! he teazes me whenever I think of him.--I supped last night with St.----; he called in just now, and says he has a right to be remembered to you.--You and he are two odd monkeys--the more I abuse and rate you, the better friend you think me.--As you have found out that your spirits govern your head--you will of course contrive every method of keeping your instrument in tune;--sure I am that bathing--riding--walking--in succession--the two latter not violent, will brace your nerves--purify your blood--invigorate its circulation--add to the rest continency--yes, again I repeat it, continency;--before you reply, think--re-think--and think again--look into your Bible--look in Young--peep into your own breast--if your heart warrants--what your head counsels--act then boldly.--Oh! apropos--pray thank my noble friend Mrs. H--for her friendly present of C-- J--; it did Mrs. Sancho service, and does poor Billy great good--who has (through his teeth) been plagued with a cough--which I hope will not turn to the whooping sort;--the girls greet you as their respected school-master.--As to your spirited kind offer of a F----, why when you please--you know what I intend doing with it.
(I.xliii, pp. 119-22; pp. 84-6 in Carretta)",,21681,"","""Earth re-possesses part of what she gave--and the freed spirit mounts on wings of fire;--her disorder was a stoppage--she fell ill the evening of the Friday that I last saw her continued in her full senses to the last.""",Animals,2013-07-11 21:36:09 UTC,"Vol. I, letter xliii"