text,updated_at,metaphor,created_at,context,theme,reviewed_on,dictionary,comments,provenance,id,work_id
"It is however easy to account for this enchantment. To follow the chain of perplexed ratiocination, to view with critical skill the airy architecture of systems, to unravel the web of sophistry, or weigh the merits of opposite hypotheses, requires perspicacity, and presupposes learning. Works of this kind, therefore, are not so well adapted to the generality of readers as familiar and colloquial composition; for few can reason, but all can feel, and many who cannot enter into an argument, may yet listen to a tale. The writer of Romance has even an advantage over those who endeavour to amuse by the play of fancy; who from the fortuitous collision of dissimilar ideas produce the scintillations of wit; or by the vivid glow of poetical imagery delight the imagination with colours of ideal radiance. The attraction of the magnet is only exerted upon similar particles; and to taste the beauties of Homer it is requisite to partake his fire: but every one can relish the author who represents common life, because every one can refer to the originals from whence his ideas were taken. He relates events to which all are liable, and applies to passions which all have felt. The gloom of solitude, the languor of inaction, the corrosions of disappointment, and the toil of thought, induce men to step aside from the rugged road of life, and wander in the fairy land of fiction; where every bank is sprinkled with flowers, and every gale loaded with perfume; where every event introduces a hero, and every cottage is inhabited by a Grace. Invited by these flattering scenes, the student quits the investigation of truth, in which he perhaps meets with no less fallacy, to exhilarate his mind with new ideas, more agreeable, and more easily attained: the busy relax their attention by desultory reading, and smooth the agitation of a ruffled mind with images of peace, tranquility, and pleasure: the idle and the gay relieve the listlessness of leisure, and diversify the round of life by a rapid series of events pregnant with rapture and astonishment; and the pensive solitary fills up the vacuities of his heart by interesting himself in the fortunes of imaginary beings, and forming connections with ideal excellence. ",2009-09-14 19:41:19 UTC,"""The attraction of the magnet is only exerted upon similar particles; and to taste the beauties of Homer it is requisite to partake his fire: but every one can relish the author who represents common life, because every one can refer to the originals from whence his ideas were taken""",2005-09-03 00:00:00 UTC,"","",,Metal,"",Searching internet for something else: http://www.english.upenn.edu/~mgamer/Etexts/barbauldessays.html,14584,5457
"Humans are figured as ""breathing clods"" of earth shaped by the Potter/Creator: ""My Potter stamp on me thy clay, Thy only stamp of love!"" ",2009-09-14 19:41:59 UTC,"""My Potter stamp on me thy clay, Thy only stamp of love!"" ",2005-06-27 00:00:00 UTC,"","",,Impression,•I've included twice: Clay and Stamping,Reading J. P. van Noppen's Transforming Words (121). ,14810,5538
"In time past how mindful were you of that word, ""Thou shalt not hate thy brother in thy heart: thou shalt in any wise reprove thy brother, and not suffer sin upon him!"" You did reprove, directly or indirectly, all those that sinned in your sight. And happy consequences quickly followed. How good was a word spoken in season! It was often as an arrow from the hand of a giant. Many a heart was pierced. Many of the stout hearted, who scorned to heat a sermon,
""Fell down before his cross subdued,
And felt his arrows sipt in blood.
[Page 91] But which of you now has that compassion for the ignorant, and for them that are out of the way? They may wander on for you, and plunge into the lake of fire, without let or hinderance. Gold hath steeled your hearts. You have something else to do. ""Unhelped, unpitied let the wretches fall.""
(pp. 90-1)",2009-09-14 19:42:03 UTC,"""Gold hath steeled your hearts""",2009-09-14 19:42:03 UTC,"","",,Metal,"","",14829,5550
"Truth indeed is always truth, and reason is always reason; they have an intrinsick and unalterable value, and constitute that intellectual gold which defies destruction: but gold may be so concealed in baser matter that only a chymist can recover it; sense may be so hidden in unrefined and plebeian words that none but philosophers can distinguish it; and both may be so buried in impurities as not to pay the cost of their extraction.",2011-04-30 16:54:05 UTC,"""Truth indeed is always truth, and reason is always reason; they have an intrinsick and unalterable value, and constitute that intellectual gold which defies destruction: but gold may be so concealed in baser matter that only a chymist can recover it; sense may be so hidden in unrefined and plebeian words that none but philosophers can distinguish it; and both may be so buried in impurities as not to pay the cost of their extraction.""",2011-04-30 16:54:05 UTC,"","",,Metal,"",Reading,18360,6836
"From the remains of the works of the antients the modern Arts were revived, and it is by their means, that they must be restored a second time. However it may mortify our vanity, we must be forced to allow them our masters; and we may venture to prophecy, that when they shall cease to be studied, Arts will no longer flourish, and we shall again relapse into barbarism.
The fire of the artist's own genius operating upon these materials which have been thus diligently collected, will enable him to make new combinations, perhaps, superior to what had ever before been in the possession of the Art.
As in the mixture of the variety of metals, which are said to have been melted and run together at the burning of Corinth, a new and till then unknown metal was produced equal in value to any of those that had contributed to its composition.
And though a curious refiner may come with his crucibles, analyse and seperate its various component parts, yet Corinthian brass would still hold its rank amongst the most beautiful and valuable of metals: We have hitherto considered the advantages of imitation as it tends to form the taste, and as a practice by which a spark of that genius may be caught which illumines these noble works, that ought always to be present to our thoughts.
(pp. 25-6)",2013-07-25 14:05:58 UTC,"""The fire of the artist's own genius operating upon these materials which have been thus diligently collected, will enable him to make new combinations, perhaps, superior to what had ever before been in the possession of the Art. / / As in the mixture of the variety of metals, which are said to have been melted and run together at the burning of Corinth, a new and till then unknown metal was produced equal in value to any of those that had contributed to its composition.""",2013-07-25 14:05:58 UTC,"","",,Metal,INTEREST. USE IN ENTRY? ,Reading,22051,7566
"In order to encourage you to imitation, to the utmost extent, let me add, that very finished Artists in the inferior branches of the art, will contribute to furnish the mind and give hints, of which a skilful painter, who is sensible of what he wants, and is in no danger of being infected by the contact of vicious models, will know how to avail himself. He will pick up from dunghills what by a nice chymistry, passing through his own mind, shall be converted into pure gold; and, under the rudeness of Gothic essays, he will find original, rational, and even sublime inventions.
(p. 28, p. 237 in 1778 edition)
",2013-07-25 14:09:36 UTC,"""He will pick up from dunghills what by a nice chymistry, passing through his own mind, shall be converted into pure gold; and, under the rudeness of Gothic essays, he will find original, rational, and even sublime inventions.""",2013-07-25 14:09:36 UTC,"","",,Metal,"Deleted earlier entry, reconciling title/date: Record created on 2011-02-20 20:41:28 UTC
Record last updated on 2011-05-14 21:03:20 UTC",Reading at Project Gutenberg and Google Books,22052,7566
"Besides, might not Providence intend to humble human pride, by presenting to our eyes so mortifying a view of the weakness and infirmity of even his best work? Perhaps man, who is already but a little lower than the angels, might, like the revolted spirits, totally have shaken off obedience and submission to his Creator, had not God wisely tempered human excellence with a certain consciousness of its own imperfection. But though this inevitable alloy of weakness may frequently be found in the best characters, yet how can that be the source of triumph and exaltation to any, which, if properly weighed, must be the deepest motive of humiliation to all? A good-natured man will be so far from rejoicing, that he will be secretly troubled, whenever he reads that the greatest Roman moralist was tainted with avarice, and the greatest British philosopher with venality.
(pp. 190-191)",2013-10-16 17:19:57 UTC,"""But though this inevitable alloy of weakness may frequently be found in the best characters, yet how can that be the source of triumph and exaltation to any, which, if properly weighed, must be the deepest motive of humiliation to all?""",2013-10-16 17:19:57 UTC,"","",,Metal,"",ECCO-TCP,23026,7739
"To conclude; Genius is a rare and precious gem, of which few know the worth; it is fitter for the cabinet of the connoisseur, than for the commerce of mankind. Good sense is a bank-bill, convenient for change, negotiable at all times, and current in all places. It knows the value of small things, and considers that an aggregate of them makes up the sum of human affairs. It elevates common concerns into matters of importance, by performing them in the best manner, and at the most suitable season. Good sense carries with it the idea of equality, while Genius is always suspected of a design to impose the burden of superiority; and respect is paid to it with that reluctance which always attends other imposts, the lower orders of mankind generally repining most at demands, by which they are least liable to be affected.
(pp. 212-213)",2013-10-16 17:24:06 UTC,"""To conclude; Genius is a rare and precious gem, of which few know the worth; it is fitter for the cabinet of the connoisseur, than for the commerce of mankind.""",2013-10-16 17:24:06 UTC,"","",,"","",ECCO-TCP,23031,7739
"A block of marble is hewn from the quarry, and brought to PHIDIAS a rude and shapeless mass. He works upon it, reduces it into shape, gives it form and proportion, and a beautiful statue is produced. Is PHIDIAS himself who performed the work, a fragment from a rock? and is the idea of beauty after which he worked no more than a marble image within him?
But the difference is much greater between the ideas of sense, the materials upon which the mind first begins its work, and the truths produced by its operations, than between the rough marble, and the statue formed by the skill of PHIDIAS.
Let matter then be allowed to furnish the first materials; the enlightened mind, which by its operations upon these discovers truth, and pursues it through all its distant connections, must have powers as far superiour to that which gave the first impression, as PHIDIAS is superiour to the marble.
(pp. 55-6)",2014-06-22 03:46:02 UTC,"""But the difference is much greater between the ideas of sense, the materials upon which the mind first begins its work, and the truths produced by its operations, than between the rough marble, and the statue formed by the skill of PHIDIAS.""",2014-06-22 03:46:02 UTC,"","",,"","",Reading (in the British Library),24100,7946
"A block of marble is hewn from the quarry, and brought to PHIDIAS a rude and shapeless mass. He works upon it, reduces it into shape, gives it form and proportion, and a beautiful statue is produced. Is PHIDIAS himself who performed the work, a fragment from a rock? and is the idea of beauty after which he worked no more than a marble image within him?
But the difference is much greater between the ideas of sense, the materials upon which the mind first begins its work, and the truths produced by its operations, than between the rough marble, and the statue formed by the skill of PHIDIAS.
Let matter then be allowed to furnish the first materials; the enlightened mind, which by its operations upon these discovers truth, and pursues it through all its distant connections, must have powers as far superiour to that which gave the first impression, as PHIDIAS is superiour to the marble.
(pp. 55-6)",2014-06-22 03:47:54 UTC,"""Let matter then be allowed to furnish the first materials; the enlightened mind, which by its operations upon these discovers truth, and pursues it through all its distant connections, must have powers as far superiour to that which gave the first impression, as PHIDIAS is superiour to the marble.""",2014-06-22 03:47:54 UTC,"","",,"","",Reading (in the British Library),24101,7946