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,""
5930,"","Searching ""throne"" and ""heart"" in HDIS (Poetry)",2004-08-07 00:00:00 UTC,"E'en now, e'en now, on yonder Western shores
Weeps pale Despair, and writhing Anguish roars:
E'en now in Afric's groves with hideous yell
Fierce Slavery stalks, and slips the dogs of hell;
From vale to vale the gathering cries rebound,
And sable nations tremble at the sound!
--Ye bands of Senators! whose suffrage sways
Britannia's realms, whom either Ind obeys;
Who right the injured, and reward the brave,
Stretch your strong arm, for ye have power to save!
Throned in the vaulted heart, his dread resort,
Inexorable Conscience holds his court;
With still small voice the plots of Guilt alarms,
Bares his mask'd brow, his lifted hand disarms;
But, wrapp'd in night with terrors all his own,
He speaks in thunder, when the deed is done.
Hear him, ye Senates! hear this truth sublime,
""He, who allows oppression, shares the crime.""",,15760,"","""Throned in the vaulted heart, his dread resort, / Inexorable Conscience holds his court""","",2009-09-14 19:44:34 UTC,""
5930,Microcosm,Searching in HDIS (Poetry),2005-07-18 00:00:00 UTC,"Oft tho' thy genius, Darwin! amply fraught
With native wealth, explore new worlds of mind;
Whence the bright ores of drossless wisdom brought,
Stampt by the Muse's hand, enrich mankind;",,15795,"","""Oft tho' thy genius, Darwin! amply fraught / With native wealth, explore new worlds of mind; / Whence the bright ores of drossless wisdom brought, / Stampt by the Muse's hand, enrich mankind""","",2009-09-14 19:44:41 UTC,""
5930,"",Searching in HDIS (Poetry),2006-01-19 00:00:00 UTC,"""When Air's pure essence joins the vital flood,
And with phosphoric Acid dyes the blood,
Your Virgin trains the transient Heat dispart,
And lead the soft combustion round the heart;
Life's holy lamp with fires successive feed,
From the crown'd forehead to the prostrate weed,
From Earth's proud realms to all that swim or sweep
The yielding ether or tumultuous deep.
You swell the bulb beneath the heaving lawn,
Brood the live seed, unfold the bursting spawn;
Nurse with soft lap, and warm with fragrant breath
The embryon panting in the arms of Death;
Youth's vivid eye with living light adorn,
And fire the rising blush of Beauty's golden morn.",,15809,"","""When Air's pure essence joins the vital flood, / And with phosphoric Acid dyes the blood, / Your Virgin trains the transient Heat dispart, / And lead the soft combustion round the heart; / Life's holy lamp with fires successive feed""","",2009-09-14 19:44:44 UTC,""
6855,"",Reading,2011-05-19 20:07:58 UTC,"While I am writing this there are accidentally before me some proposals for a declaration of rights by the Marquis de la Fayette (I ask his pardon for using his former address, and do it only for distinction's sake) to the National Assembly, on the 11th of July, 1789, three days before the taking of the Bastille, and I cannot but remark with astonishment how opposite the sources are from which that gentleman and Mr. Burke draw their principles. Instead of referring to musty records and mouldy parchments to prove that the rights of the living are lost, ""renounced and abdicated for ever,"" by those who are now no more, as Mr. Burke has done, M. de la Fayette applies to the living world, and emphatically says: ""Call to mind the sentiments which nature has engraved on the heart of every citizen, and which take a new force when they are solemnly recognised by all:--For a nation to love liberty, it is sufficient that she knows it; and to be free, it is sufficient that she wills it."" How dry, barren, and obscure is the source from which Mr. Burke labours! and how ineffectual, though gay with flowers, are all his declamation and his arguments compared with these clear, concise, and soul-animating sentiments! Few and short as they are, they lead on to a vast field of generous and manly thinking, and do not finish, like Mr. Burke's periods, with music in the ear, and nothing in the heart.
(p. 207)",,18432,"","""Call to mind the sentiments which nature has engraved on the heart of every citizen, and which take a new force when they are solemnly recognised by all.""",Writing,2011-05-19 20:08:06 UTC,Part One
6855,"",Reading,2011-05-19 20:08:58 UTC,"As wise men are astonished at foolish things, and other people at wise ones, I know not on which ground to account for Mr. Burke's astonishment; but certain it is, that he does not understand the French Revolution. It has apparently burst forth like a creation from a chaos, but it is no more than the consequence of a mental revolution priorily existing in France. The mind of the nation had changed beforehand, and the new order of things has naturally followed the new order of thoughts. I will here, as concisely as I can, trace out the growth of the French Revolution, and mark the circumstances that have contributed to produce it.
(p. 238)",,18433,"","""It has apparently burst forth like a creation from a chaos, but it is no more than the consequence of a mental revolution priorily existing in France.""","",2011-05-19 20:08:58 UTC,Part One
6855,"",Reading,2011-05-19 20:10:15 UTC,"The only signs which appeared of the spirit of Liberty during those periods, are to be found in the writings of the French philosophers. Montesquieu, President of the Parliament of Bordeaux, went as far as a writer under a despotic government could well proceed; and being obliged to divide himself between principle and prudence, his mind often appears under a veil, and we ought to give him credit for more than he has expressed.
(p. 238)",,18434,"","""Montesquieu, President of the Parliament of Bordeaux, went as far as a writer under a despotic government could well proceed; and being obliged to divide himself between principle and prudence, his mind often appears under a veil, and we ought to give him credit for more than he has expressed.""","",2011-05-19 20:10:15 UTC,Part One
6855,"",Reading,2011-05-19 20:11:19 UTC,"The opinions of men with respect to government are changing fast in all countries. The revolutions of America and France have thrown a beam of light over the world, which reaches into man. The enormous expense of governments has provoked people to think, by making them feel; and when once the veil begins to rend, it admits not of repair. Ignorance is of a peculiar nature: once dispelled, it is impossible to re-establish it. It is not originally a thing of itself, but is only the absence of knowledge; and though man may be kept ignorant, he cannot be made ignorant. The mind, in discovering truth, acts in the same manner as it acts through the eye in discovering objects; when once any object has been seen, it is impossible to put the mind back to the same condition it was in before it saw it. Those who talk of a counter-revolution in France, show how little they understand of man. There does not exist in the compass of language an arrangement of words to express so much as the means of effecting a counter-revolution. The means must be an obliteration of knowledge; and it has never yet been discovered how to make man unknow his knowledge, or unthink his thoughts.
(p. 244)",,18435,"","""The mind, in discovering truth, acts in the same manner as it acts through the eye in discovering objects; when once any object has been seen, it is impossible to put the mind back to the same condition it was in before it saw it.""","",2011-05-19 20:11:19 UTC,Miscellaneous Chapter
6856,"",Reading,2011-05-19 20:25:59 UTC,"Experience, in all ages, and in all countries, has demonstrated that it is impossible to controul Nature in her distribution of mental powers. She gives them as she pleases. Whatever is the rule by which she, apparently to us, scatters them among mankind, that rule remains a secret to man. It would be as ridiculous to attempt to fix the hereditaryship of human beauty, as of wisdom. Whatever wisdom constituently is, it is like a seedless plant; it may be reared when it appears, but it cannot be voluntarily produced. There is always a sufficiency somewhere in the general mass of society for all purposes; but with respect to the parts of society, it is continually changing its place. It rises in one to-day, in another to-morrow, and has most probably visited in rotation every family of the earth, and again withdrawn.
(p. 277)",,18436,"","""Whatever wisdom constituently is, it is like a seedless plant; it may be reared when it appears, but it cannot be voluntarily produced.""","",2011-05-19 20:25:59 UTC,Chapter 3
6856,"",Reading,2011-05-19 20:27:41 UTC,"Do we need a stronger evidence of the absurdity of hereditary government than is seen in the descendants of those men, in any line of life, who once were famous? Is there scarcely an instance in which there is not a total reverse of the character? It appears as if the tide of mental faculties flowed as far as it could in certain channels, and then forsook its course, and arose in others. How irrational then is the hereditary system, which establishes channels of power, in company with which wisdom refuses to flow! By continuing this absurdity, man is perpetually in contradiction with himself; he accepts, for a king, or a chief magistrate, or a legislator, a person whom he would not elect for a constable.
(p. 277)",,18437,"","""It appears as if the tide of mental faculties flowed as far as it could in certain channels, and then forsook its course, and arose in others. How irrational then is the hereditary system, which establishes channels of power, in company with which wisdom refuses to flow!""","",2011-05-19 20:27:41 UTC,Chapter 3