work_id,theme,provenance,created_at,text,reviewed_on,id,comments,metaphor,dictionary,updated_at,context
4671,Inner and Outer; Lockean Philosophy,"Searching ""predominant passion"" in HDIS",2004-06-07 00:00:00 UTC,"As to the first, the Difficulty of finding a qualify'd Tutor; we must not expect so much Perfection, I doubt, as Mr. Locke lays down as necessary. What, therefore, I humbly conceive is best to be done, will be to avoid chusing a Man of bigotted and narrow Principles, who yet shall not be tainted with sceptical or heterodox Notions; who shall not be a mere Scholar or Pedant; who has travell'd, and yet preserv'd his moral Character untainted; and whose Behaviour and Carriage is easy, unaffected, unformal, and genteel, as well acquiredly as naturally so, if possible; who shall not be dogmatical, positive, overbearing, on one hand; nor too yielding, suppliant, fawning, on the other; who shall study the Child's natural Bent, in order to direct his Studies to the Point, in which he is most likely to excel. In order to preserve the Respect due to his own Character from every one, he must not be a Busybody in the Family, a Whisperer, a Tale-bearer; but be a Person of a benevolent Turn of Mind, ready to compose Differences: who shall avoid, of all things, that Foppishness of Dress and Appearance, which distinguishes the Petits-maîtres, and French Ushers, (that I have seen at some Boarding-schools) for Coxcombs, rather than Guides of Education: For, as I have heard you, my best Tutor, often observe, the Peculiarities of Habit, where a Person aims at something fantastick, or out of Character, are an undoubted Sign of a wrong Head: For such an one is so kind, as always to hang out on his Sign, what sort of Furniture he has in his Shop, to save you the Trouble of asking Questions about him; so that one may know what he is, as much as one can know a Widow by her Weeds.
Such a Person as I have thus negatively describ'd, may be found without very much Difficulty perhaps, because some of these Requisites are personal, and others are such as are obvious, at first Sight, to a common Penetration; or, where not so, may be found out by Inquiry into his general Character and Behaviour: And to the Care of such an one, dear Sir, let me for the present suppose your Billy is committed: And so we acquit ourselves of the first Difficulty, as well as we can, that of the Tutor; who, to make himself more perfect, may form himself, as to what he wants, by Mr. Locke's excellent Rules on that Head.
(Volume IV, Letter 54)",,12275,"•I've included thrice: once in Architecture, Body, and Furniture
•REVISIT and search all. I stumbled across this while searching for ""predominant passion.""","""For, as I have heard you, my best Tutor, often observe, the Peculiarities of Habit, where a Person aims at something fantastick, or out of Character, are an undoubted Sign of a wrong Head: For such an one is so kind, as always to hang out on his Sign, what sort of Furniture he has in his Shop, to save you the Trouble of asking Questions about him; so that one may know what he is, as much as one can know a Widow by her Weeds.""","",2011-04-26 18:13:51 UTC,"Vol. IV, Letter 54. Pamela to Mr. B. (on the Education of Billy)"
4718,"","Searching ""stamp"" and ""mind"" in HDIS (Prose)",2005-03-10 00:00:00 UTC,"I shall detain my Reader no longer than to give him one Caution more of an opposite kind: For as in most of our particular Characters we mean not to lash Individuals, but all of that like sort; so in our general Descriptions, we mean not Universals, but would be understood with many Exceptions: For instance, in our Description of high People, we cannot be intended to include such, as whilst they are an Honour to their high Rank, by a well-guided Condescension, make their Superiority as easy as possible, to those whom Fortune hath chiefly placed below them. Of this number I could name a Peer no less elevated by Nature than by Fortune, who whilst he wears the noblest Ensigns of Honour on his Person, bears the truest Stamp of Dignity on his Mind, adorned with Greatness, enriched with Knowledge, and embelished with Genius. I have seen this Man relieve with Generosity, while he hath conversed with Freedom, and be to the same Person a Patron and a Companion. I could name a Commoner raised higher above the Multitude by superiour Talents, than is in the power of his Prince to exalt him; whose Behaviour to those he hath obliged is more amiable than the Obligation itself, and who is so great a Master of Affability, that if he could divest himself of an inherent Greatness in his Manner, would often make the lowest of his Acquaintance forget who was the Master of that Palace, in which they are so courteously entertained. These are Pictures which must be, I believe, known: I declare they are taken from the Life, nor are intended to exceed it. By those high People therefore whom I have described, I mean a Set of Wretches, who while they are a Disgrace to their Ancestors, whose Honours and Fortunes they inherit, (or perhaps a greater to their Mother, for such Degeneracy is scarce credible) have the Insolence to treat those with disregard, who have been equal to the Founders of their own Splendor. It is, I fancy, impossible to conceive a Spectacle more worthy of our Indignation, than that of a Fellow who is not only a Blot in the Escutcheon of a great Family, but a Scandal to the human Species, maintaining a supercilious Behaviour to Men who are an Honour to their Nature, and a Disgrace to their Fortune.
(II.iii.1, pp. 7-9)",2012-06-27,12452,"","""Of this number I could name a Peer no less elevated by Nature than by Fortune, who whilst he wears the noblest Ensigns of Honour on his Person, bears the truest Stamp of Dignity on his Mind, adorned with Greatness, enriched with Knowledge, and embelished with Genius.""","",2012-06-27 19:20:11 UTC,"Vol. 2, Book 3, Chap. 1"
4775,"",Reading,2003-07-23 00:00:00 UTC,"On Viewing Herself in a Glass
Was Nature angry when she formed my clay?
Or, urged by haste to finish, could not stay?
Or dressed with all her store some perfect she,
So lavish there, she'd none to spare for me?
I oft converse with those she's deemed to grace
With air and shape, fine mien, and charming face:
When self-surveyed, the glass hears this reply:
'Dear! what a strange, unpolished thing am I!'
Not that I think it hard, or once upbraid;
Conscious I am that transient charms will fade.
Not but, ye fair, your beauty gives delight:
'Tis pleasing, wond'rous pleasing to the sight.
Since here defective, Heaven be so kind
With never-fading charms to dress my mind!
(p. 216)",2008-12-03,12688,"•Is this a body metaphor or a clothing metaphor. It is implied that the mind is a body, dressed with charms.","""Since here defective, Heaven be so kind / With never-fading charms to dress my mind""","",2009-09-14 19:37:16 UTC,I've included the complete poem
4787,"",Reading,2003-05-29 00:00:00 UTC,"Yet let me still, ah! let me grasp a friend:
And when each joy, when each loved object flies,
Be you the last that leaves my closing eyes.
But how will this dismantled soul appear,
When stripped of all it lately held so dear,
Forced from its prison of expiring clay,
Afraid and shivering at the doubtful way?
Yet did these eyes a dying parent see,
Loosed from all cares except a thought for me,
Without a tear resign her shortening breath,
And dauntless meet the lingering stroke of death.
(ll. 42-52, p. 216)",2008-12-03,12718,•See previous entry for prison metaphorics,"""But how will this dismantled soul appear,/ When stripped of all it lately held so dear,/ Forced from its prison of expiring clay, / Afraid and shivering at the doubtful way?""","",2009-09-14 19:37:18 UTC,""
5366,"",HDIS (Poetry),2004-01-06 00:00:00 UTC,"...But more lovely still
Is nature's charm, where to the full consent
Of complicated members, to the bloom
Of colour, and the vital change of growth,
Life's holy flame and piercing sense are given,
And active motion speaks the temper'd soul:
So moves the bird of Juno; so the steed
With rival ardour beats the dusty plain,
And faithful dogs with eager airs of joy
Salute their fellows. Thus doth beauty dwell
There most conspicuous, even in outward shape,
Where dawns the high expression of a mind:
By steps conducting our inraptur'd search
To that eternal origin, whose power,
Through all the unbounded symmetry of things,
Like rays effulging from the parent sun,
This endless mixture of her charms diffus'd.
Mind, mind alone, (bear witness, earth and heaven!)
The living fountains in itself contains
Of beauteous and sublime: here hand in hand,
Sit paramount the Graces; here inthron'd,
Coelestial Venus, with divinest airs,
Invites the soul to never-fading joy.
Look then abroad through nature, to the range
Of planets, suns, and adamantine spheres
Wheeling unshaken through the void immense;
And speak, o man! does this capacious scene
With half that kindling majesty dilate
Thy strong conception, as when Brutus rose
Refulgent from the stroke of Cæsar's fate,
Amid the croud of patriots; and his arm
Aloft extending, like eternal Jove
When guilt brings down the thunder, call'd aloud
On Tully's name, and shook his crimson steel,
And bade the father of his country, hail!
For lo! the tyrant prostrate on the dust,
And Rome again is free! Is aught so fair
In all the dewy landscapes of the spring,
In the bright eye of Hesper or the morn,
In nature's fairest forms, is aught so fair
As virtuous friendship? as the candid blush
Of him who strives with fortune to be just?
The graceful tear that streams for others woes?
Or the mild majesty of private life,
Where peace with ever-blooming olive crowns
The gate; where honour's liberal hands effuse
Unenvied treasures, and the snowy wings
Of innocence and love protect the scene?
Once more search, undismay'd, the dark profound
Where nature works in secret; view the beds
Of mineral treasure, and the eternal vault
That bounds the hoary ocean; trace the forms
Of atoms moving with incessant change
Their elemental round; behold the seeds
Of being, and the energy of life
Kindling the mass with ever-active flame:
Then to the secrets of the working mind
Attentive turn; from dim oblivion call
Her fleet, ideal band; and bid them, go!
Break through time's barrier, and o'ertake the hour
That saw the heavens created: then declare
If aught were found in those external scenes
To move thy wonder now. For what are all
The forms which brute, unconscious matter wears,
Greatness of bulk, or symmetry of parts?
Not reaching to the heart, soon feeble grows
The superficial impulse; dull their charms,
And satiate soon, and pall the languid eye.
Not so the moral species, nor the powers
Of genius and design; the ambitious mind
There sees herself: by these congenial forms
Touch'd and awaken'd, with intenser act
She bends each nerve, and meditates well-pleas'd
Her features in the mirror. For of all
The inhabitants of earth, to man alone
Creative wisdom gave to lift his eye
To truth's eternal measures; thence to frame
The sacred laws of action and of will,
Discerning justice from unequal deeds,
And temperance from folly. But beyond
This energy of truth, whose dictates bind
Assenting reason, the benignant sire,
To deck the honour'd paths of just and good,
Has added bright imagination's rays:
Where virtue, rising from the awful depth
Of truth's mysterious bosom, doth forsake
The unadorn'd condition of her birth;
And dress'd by fancy in ten thousand hues,
Assumes a various feature, to attract,
With charms responsive to each gazer's eye,
The hearts of men. Amid his rural walk,
The ingenuous youth, whom solitude inspires
With purest wishes, from the pensive shade
Beholds her moving, like a virgin-muse
That wakes her lyre to some indulgent theme
Of harmony and wonder: while among
The herd of servile minds, her strenuous form
Indignant flashes on the patriot's eye,
And through the rolls of memory appeals
To ancient honour, or in act serene,
Yet watchful, raises the majestic sword
Of public power, from dark ambition's reach
To guard the sacred volume of the laws.
(Bk. I, ll. 464-566, pp. 35-40)",2011-06-13,14419,"•There is a kind of metaphor in a metaphor at work here. Fancy usually paints... Is painting here described as a kind of dressing in hue?
• Filed under Dress. But also Population: Fancy is a tailor? A valet?","""Where virtue, rising from the awful depth / Of truth's mysterious bosom, doth forsake / The unadorn'd condition of her birth; / And dress'd by fancy in ten thousand hues, / Assumes a various feature, to attract, / With charms responsive to each gazer's eye, / The hearts of men.""","",2011-06-13 15:24:51 UTC,Book I
5366,"",Searching in HDIS,2004-01-07 00:00:00 UTC,"What, when to raise the meditated scene,
The flame of passion, through the struggling soul
Deep-kindled, shows across that sudden blaze
The object of its rapture, vast of size,
With fiercer colours and a night of shade?
What? like a storm from their capacious bed
The sounding seas o'erwhelming, when the might
Of these eruptions, working from the depth
Of man's strong apprehension, shakes his frame
Even to the base; from every naked sense
Of pain or pleasure dissipating all
Opinion's feeble coverings, and the veil
Spun from the cobweb fashion of the times
To hide the feeling heart? Then nature speaks
Her genuine language, and the words of men,
Big with the very motion of their souls,
Declare with what accumulated force,
The impetuous nerve of passion urges on
The native weight and energy of things.
(Bk. II, ll. 136-154, pp. 52-3)",2011-06-13,14424,Reviewed on 2008-12-03,"""What? like a storm from their capacious bed / The sounding seas o'erwhelming, when the might / Of these eruptions, working from the depth / Of man's strong apprehension, shakes his frame / Even to the base; from every naked sense / Of pain or pleasure dissipating all / Opinion's feeble coverings, and the veil / Spun from the cobweb fashion of the times.""","",2011-06-13 16:26:46 UTC,Book II
4785,"","Reading. Found again in A. D. McKillop's Samuel Richardson: Printer and Novelist (1936; reprint, Shoe String Press, 1960), 131. ",2012-07-31 20:33:33 UTC,"Yet what a contradiction!--Weakness of heart, says she, with such a strength of will!--O Belford! she is a lion-hearted lady, in every case where her honour, her punctilio rather, calls for spirit. But I have had reason more than once in her case, to conclude, that the passions of the gentlest, slower to be moved than those of the quick, are the most flaming, the most irresistible, when raised.--Yet her charming body is not equally organized. The unequal partners pull two ways; and the divinity within her tears her silken frame. But had the same soul informed a masculine body, never would there have been a truer hero.
(IV, L27)",,19907,"","""Yet her charming body is not equally organized. The unequal partners pull two ways; and the divinity within her tears her silken frame.""",Inhabitants,2012-07-31 20:33:33 UTC,"Vol. 4, Letter 27"
7400,"",Reading,2013-06-05 21:08:51 UTC,"Who venerate themselves, the world despise.
For what, gay friend, is this escutcheon'd world,
Which hangs out DEATH in one eternal night?
A night that glooms us in the noon-tide ray,
And wraps our thought, at banquets, in the shroud.
Life's little stage is a small eminence,
Inch-high the grave above; that home of man,
Where dwells the multitude: we gaze around;
We read their monuments; we sigh; and while
We sigh, we sink, and are what we deplored:
Lamenting, or lamented, all our lot!
(ll. 355-362, p. 60 in CUP edition)",,20406,"","""A night that glooms us in the noon-tide ray, / And wraps our thought, at banquets, in the shroud.""","",2013-06-05 21:08:51 UTC,Night the Second
7402,"",Reading,2013-06-06 15:13:33 UTC,"But grant to Life (and just it is to grant
To lucky Life) some perquisites of joy;
A time there is, when, like a thrice-told tale,
Long-rifled Life of sweet can yield no more,
But from our comment on the comedy,
Pleasing reflections on parts well-sustain'd,
Or purposed emendations where we fail'd,
Or hopes of plaudits from our candid Judge,
When, on their exit, souls are bid unrobe,
Toss Fortune back her tinsel, and her plume,
And drop this mask of flesh behind the scene.
(ll. 35-45, p. 92 in CUP edition)",,20433,"","""A time there is, when, like a thrice-told tale, / Long-rifled Life of sweet can yield no more, / But from our comment on the comedy, / Pleasing reflections on parts well-sustain'd, / Or purposed emendations where we fail'd, / Or hopes of plaudits from our candid Judge, / When, on their exit, souls are bid unrobe, / Toss Fortune back her tinsel, and her plume, / And drop this mask of flesh behind the scene.""","",2013-06-06 15:13:33 UTC,Night the Fourth
5366,"",Reading,2016-07-12 19:59:18 UTC,"But from what name, what favorable sign,
What heavenly auspice, rather shall i date
My perilous excursion, than from truth,
That nearest inmate of the human soul;
Estrang'd from whom, the countenance divine
Of man disfigur'd and dishonor'd sinks
Among inferior things? For to the brutes
Perception and the transient boons of sense
Hath fate imparted: but to man alone
Of sublunary beings was it given
Each fleeting impulse on the sensual powers
At leisure to review; with equal eye
To scan the passion of the stricken nerve
Or the vague object striking: to conduct
From sense, the portal turbulent and loud,
Into the mind's wide palace one by one
The frequent, pressing, fluctuating forms,
And question and compare them. Thus he learns
Their birth and fortunes; how allied they haunt
The avenues of sense; what laws direct
Their union; and what various discords rise,
Or fix'd or casual: which when his clear thought
Retains and when his faithful words express,
That living image of the external scene,
As in a polish'd mirror held to view,
Is truth: where'er it varies from the shape
And hue of its exemplar, in that part
Dim error lurks. Moreover, from without
When oft the same society of forms
In the same order have approach'd his mind,
He deigns no more their steps with curious heed
To trace; no more their features or their garb
He now examines; but of them and their
Condition, as with some diviner's tongue,
Affirms what heaven in every distant place,
Through every future season, will decree.
This too is truth: where'er his prudent lips
Wait till experience diligent and slow
Has authoriz'd their sentence, this is truth;
A second, higher kind: the parent this
Of science; or the lofty power herself,
Science herself: on whom the wants and cares
Of social life depend; the substitute
Of God's own wisdom in this toilsome world;
The providence of man. Yet oft in vain,
To earn her aid, with fix'd and anxious eye
He looks on nature's and on fortune's course:
Too much in vain. His duller visual ray
The stillness and the persevering acts
Of nature oft elude; and fortune oft
With step fantastic from her wonted walk
Turns into mazes dim. his sight is foil'd;
And the crude sentence of his faltering tongue
Is but opinion's verdict, half believ'd
And prone to change. Here thou, who feel'st thine ear
Congenial to my lyre's profounder tone,
Pause, and be watchful. Hitherto the stores,
Which feed thy mind and exercise her powers,
Partake the relish of their native soil,
Their parent earth. But know, a nobler dower
Her sire at birth decreed her; purer gifts
From his own treasure; forms which never deign'd
In eyes or ears to dwell, within the sense
Of earthly organs; but sublime were plac'd
In his essential reason, leading there
That vast ideal host which all his works
Through endless ages never will reveal.
Thus then indow'd, the feeble creature man,
The slave of hunger and the prey of death,
Even now, even here, in earth's dim prison bound,
The language of intelligence divine
Attains; repeating oft concerning one
And many, pass'd and present, parts and whole,
Those sovran dictates which in farthest heaven,
Where no orb rowls, eternity's fix'd ear
Hears from coeval truth, when chance nor change,
Nature's loud progeny, nor nature's self
Dares intermeddle or approach her throne.
Ere long, o'er this corporeal world he learns
To extend her sway; while calling from the deep,
From earth and air, their multitudes untold
Of figures and of motions round his walk,
For each wide family some single birth
He sets in view, the impartial type of all
Its brethren; suffering it to claim, beyond
Their common heritage, no private gift,
No proper fortune. Then whate'er his eye
In this discerns, his bold unerring tongue
Pronounceth of the kindred, without bound,
Without condition. Such the rise of forms
Sequester'd far from sense and every spot
Peculiar in the realms of space or time:
Such is the throne which man for truth amid
The paths of mutability hath built
Secure, unshaken, still; and whence he views,
In matter's mouldering structures, the pure forms
Of triangle or circle, cube or cone,
Impassive all; whose attributes nor force
Nor fate can alter. There he first conceives
True being, and an intellectual world
The same this hour and ever. Thence he deems
Of his own lot; above the painted shapes
That fleeting move o'er this terrestrial scene
Looks up; beyond the adamantine gates
Of death expatiates; as his birthright claims
Inheritance in all the works of God;
Prepares for endless time his plan of life,
And counts the universe itself his home.
(Book II, ll. 42-149 [1772 text])",,24929,"","""Moreover, from without / When oft the same society of forms / In the same order have approach'd his mind, / He deigns no more their steps with curious heed / To trace; no more their features or their garb / He now examines; but of them and their / Condition, as with some diviner's tongue, / Affirms what heaven in every distant place, / Through every future season, will decree.""","",2016-07-12 19:59:18 UTC,""