id,dictionary,theme,reviewed_on,metaphor,created_at,provenance,comments,work_id,text,context,updated_at
15076,Inhabitants,Wandering,,"""[W]hen the mind is absent, and the thoughts are wandering to something else than what is passing in the place in which we are, we are often miserable""",2005-08-18 00:00:00 UTC,"Searching ""mind"" in Liberty Fund OLL","",5640,"Whilst our minds are taken up with the objects or business before us, we are commonly happy, whatever the object or business be; when the mind is absent, and the thoughts are wandering to something else than what is passing in the place in which we are, we are often miserable.
(p. 22)","Book I. Preliminary Considerations, Chapter 6. Human Happiness",2013-06-04 16:43:39 UTC
20219,"","",,"""But her mind, far from them all, was hovering on the edge of the shore, where Edgar was walking.""",2013-05-29 15:58:18 UTC,"Searching ""mind"" in C-H Lion","",7335,"Among these, the first to press forward were the two Westwyns, each enraptured to again see Camilla; and the most successful in obtaining notice was lord Valhurst, with whom Camilla still thought it prudent, however irksome, to discourse, rather than receive again the assiduities of Henry: but her mind, far from them all, was hovering on the edge of the shore, where Edgar was walking.
(V.ix.1, p. 3; pp. 695-6 in OUP edition)","Volume V, Book IX, Chapter I. A Water Party.",2013-05-29 15:58:18 UTC
21702,Rooms,"",,"""How many fine-spun threads of reasoning would my wandering thoughts have broken; and how difficult should I have found it to arrange arguments and inferences in the cells of my brain!""",2013-07-12 15:00:17 UTC,Reading; text from Google Books,"",7542,"I am glad you think that a friend's having been persecuted, imprisoned, maimed, and almost murdered, under the ancient government of France, is a good excuse for loving the revolution. What, indeed, but friendship, could have led my attention from the annals of imagination to the records of politics; from the poetry to the prose of human life? In vain might Aristocrates have explained to me the rights of kings, and Democrates have descanted on the rights of the people. How many fine-spun threads of reasoning would my wandering thoughts have broken; and how difficult should I have found it to arrange arguments and inferences in the cells of my brain! But, however dull the faculties of my head, I can assure you, that when a proposition is addressed to my heart, I have some quickness of perception. I can then decide, in one moment, points upon which philosophers and legislators have differed in all ages: nor could I be more convinced of the truth of any demonstration in Euclid, than I am, that, that system of politics must be the best, by which those I love are made happy.
(Letter XXIII, p. 195; p. 140 in Broadview ed.)",Letter XXIII,2013-07-12 15:00:17 UTC
22076,"","",,"""But I am sure that mechanic excellence invigorated and emboldened his mind to carry Painting into the regions of Poetry, and to emulate that Art in its most adventurous flights.""",2013-07-25 16:13:41 UTC,Reading,"",7575,"To distinguish between correctness of drawing, and that part which respects the imagination, we may say the one approaches to the mechanical (which in its way too may make just pretensions to genius) and the other to the poetical. To encourage a solid and vigorous course of study, it may not be amiss to suggest that perhaps a confidence in the mechanic produces boldness in the poetic. He that is sure of the goodness of his ship and tackle puts out fearlesly from the shore; and he who knows, that his hand can execute whatever his fancy can suggest, sports with more freedom in embodying the visionary forms of his own creation. I will not say Michael Angelo was eminently poetical, only because he was greatly mechanical; but I am sure that mechanic excellence invigorated and emboldened his mind to carry Painting into the regions of Poetry, and to emulate that Art in its most adventurous flights.
(pp. 14-15)","",2013-07-25 16:13:41 UTC
22878,"","",,"""At the same time that our young performer continues to play with great exactness this accustomed tune, she can bend her mind, and that intensely, on some other object, according with the fourth article of the preceding propositions.""",2013-09-28 19:48:38 UTC,ECCO-TCP,"",7694,"4. At the same time that our young performer continues to play with great exactness this accustomed tune, she can bend her mind, and that intensely, on some other object, according with the fourth article of the preceding propositions.
(p. 191)","",2013-09-28 19:48:38 UTC
23834,"","",,"""It is curious to observe the first dawn of genius breaking on the mind. Sometimes a man of genius, in his first effusions, is so far from revealing his future powers, that, on the contrary, no reasonable hope can be formed of his success.""",2014-04-29 20:51:11 UTC,ECCO-TCP,"",7879,"It is curious to observe the first dawn of genius breaking on the mind. Sometimes a man of genius, in his first effusions, is so far from revealing his future powers, that, on the contrary, no reasonable hope can be formed of his success. In the violent struggle of his mind, he may give a wrong direction to his talents; as Swift, in two pindaric odes, which have been unfortunately preserved in his works. Sometimes a man of genius displays no talents, even among those who are able to decide on them; his genius, like Aeneas, is veiled by a cloud, and remains unperceived by his associates. This was the case of Goldsmith; who was so far from displaying a fine genius, that even his literary companions, before the publication of his beautiful poems, regarded him as a compiler for the Booksellers, not as a writer for men of taste. Sometimes, when a writer displays an early genuis, it is not expressed with all its force. Several have began versifiers, and concluded poets; and perhaps this is no unjust idea of Pope.
(pp. 32-3)","",2014-04-29 20:51:11 UTC
23835,"","",,"""In the violent struggle of his mind, he may give a wrong direction to his talents; as Swift, in two pindaric odes, which have been unfortunately preserved in his works.""",2014-04-29 20:51:49 UTC,ECCO-TCP,"",7879,"It is curious to observe the first dawn of genius breaking on the mind. Sometimes a man of genius, in his first effusions, is so far from revealing his future powers, that, on the contrary, no reasonable hope can be formed of his success. In the violent struggle of his mind, he may give a wrong direction to his talents; as Swift, in two pindaric odes, which have been unfortunately preserved in his works. Sometimes a man of genius displays no talents, even among those who are able to decide on them; his genius, like Aeneas, is veiled by a cloud, and remains unperceived by his associates. This was the case of Goldsmith; who was so far from displaying a fine genius, that even his literary companions, before the publication of his beautiful poems, regarded him as a compiler for the Booksellers, not as a writer for men of taste. Sometimes, when a writer displays an early genuis, it is not expressed with all its force. Several have began versifiers, and concluded poets; and perhaps this is no unjust idea of Pope.
(pp. 32-3)","",2014-04-29 20:51:49 UTC
23839,"","",,"""Milton had perhaps wandered in the fields of fancy, and consoled his blindness with listening to the voice of his nation, that was to have resounded with his name.""",2014-04-29 20:55:02 UTC,ECCO-TCP,"",7879,"Let me reflect a moment on the scene that occupies my imagination. Men of genius! the reflection is addressed to you. Milton had perhaps wandered in the fields of fancy, and consoled his blindness with listening to the voice of his nation, that was to have resounded with his name. To Virgil, and Tasso, and Ariosto, not his masters but his rivals, their country had not been ungrateful. One had basked in the sunshine of a court; the other had seen the laurel wreath prepared for him at Rome; and the last lived to hear his name repeated in the streets, and saluted as the poet of his nation. Milton had enriched his national poetry with two epics--what were his rewards? Milton considered himself as fortunate in having one female who did not entirely abandon him; and one obscure fanatic, who was pleased with his poems because they were religious. What laurels! What felicities!
(pp. 59-60)","",2014-04-29 20:55:02 UTC
23840,Metal,"",,"""To solace mental fatigue by the amusements of fancy, is no loss of time. Students know how often the eye is busied in wandering over the page, while the mind lies in torpid inactivity; they therefore compute their time, not by the hours consumed in study, but by the real acquisitions they obtain; they do not number the voyages they make, but the gold and the diamonds they bring home.""",2014-04-29 20:56:06 UTC,ECCO-TCP,"",7879,"To solace mental fatigue by the amusements of fancy, is no loss of time. Students know how often the eye is busied in wandering over the page, while the mind lies in torpid inactivity; they therefore compute their time, not by the hours consumed in study, but by the real acquisitions they obtain; they do not number the voyages they make, but the gold and the diamonds they bring home. A man of letters best feels the truth of the maxim of Hesiod when applied to time, that
'Half is better than the whole.'
(p. 61)","",2014-04-29 20:56:06 UTC
24172,"","",,"""In a robust and unwavering judgment of this sort, there is a kind of witchcraft; when it decides justly, it produces a responsive vibration in every ingenuous mind.""",2014-07-12 17:47:22 UTC,Searching in ECCO-TCP,"",7587,"What I wanted in this respect, Mary possessed, in a degree superior to any other person I ever knew. The strength of her mind lay in intuition. She was often right, by this means only, in matters of mere speculation. Her religion, her philosophy, (in both of which the errors were comparatively few, and the strain dignified and generous) were, as I have already said, the pure result of feeling and taste. She adopted one opinion, and rejected another, spontaneously, by a sort of tact, and the force of a cultivated imagination; and yet, though perhaps, in the strict sense of the term, she reasoned little, it is surprising what a degree of soundness is to be found in her determinations. But, if this quality was of use to her in topics that seem the proper province of reasoning, it was much more so in matters directly appealing to the intellectual taste. In a robust and unwavering judgment of this sort, there is a kind of witchcraft; when it decides justly, it produces a responsive vibration in every ingenuous mind. In this sense, my oscillation and scepticism were fixed by her boldness. When a true opinion emanated in this way from another mind, the conviction produced in my own assumed a similar character instantaneous and firm. This species of intellect probably differs from the other, chiefly in the relation of eariler and later. What the one perceives instantaneously (circumstances having produced in it, either a premature attention to objects of this sort, or a greater boldness of decision) the other receives only by degrees. What it wants, seems to be nothing more than a minute attention to first impressions, and a just appreciation of them; habits that are never so effectually generated, as by the daily recurrence of a striking example.
(pp. 196-199)","",2014-07-12 17:47:22 UTC