work_id,theme,provenance,created_at,text,reviewed_on,id,comments,metaphor,dictionary,updated_at,context
7776,"",Searching in ECCO-TCP,2013-11-15 21:13:52 UTC,"That this is the sense in which our Poet meant this scene to be accepted, is fully evident from his representing both Richard and Richmond to have been asleep during the apparition, and therefore capable of receiving those notices in the mind's eye only, as Hamlet says; which intirely removes the seeming absurdity of such an exhibition.
(pp. 320-1)",,23210,"","""That this is the sense in which our Poet meant this scene to be accepted, is fully evident from his representing both Richard and Richmond to have been asleep during the apparition, and therefore capable of receiving those notices in the mind's eye only, as Hamlet says; which intirely removes the seeming absurdity of such an exhibition.""","",2013-11-15 21:13:52 UTC,""
7776,"",Searching in ECCO-TCP,2013-11-15 21:14:41 UTC,"Such is the nature of man, that the slightest alarm, arising from within, discomfits him more than the greatest dangers presenting themselves from without. Body may be overcome by body, but the mind only can conquer itself. Notions of religion are natural to all men, in some sort or other. The good are inspired by devotion, the bad terrified by superstition. The admonitions of conscience are taken for supernatural emotions, and this awes us more than any difficulty in the common course of things. Man has been severally defined a risible, a rational, a religious, and a bashful animal. May I take the liberty of adding the farther criterion of his being a conscientious one? And this distinction, I shall venture to say, is less equivocal than any of the others.
(p. 322)",,23211,"","""Body may be overcome by body, but the mind only can conquer itself.""",Empire,2013-11-15 21:14:41 UTC,""
7776,"",Searching in ECCO-TCP,2013-11-15 21:15:38 UTC,"The present Scene presents us with a second object of compassion, which though it interests us after a different manner from the former, as neither being so innocent, nor suffering so unjustly; yet, shall I hazard the expression? affects us almost as much. We do not, indeed, feel our minds impressed with such a tender sensibility towards the latter, as the first; but, for the honour and dignity of human nature, let me say, that our commiseration, in the second case, arises from principles of a nobler kind; from our forgiveness of the penitent, and our compassion for his misfortunes, softened still more by our sorrow for his guilt: so that, upon the whole, the generosity of our sentiment, in one instance, nearly equals the sympathy of it, in the other.
(p. 340)",,23212,"","""We do not, indeed, feel our minds impressed with such a tender sensibility towards the latter, as the first.""",Impressions,2013-11-15 21:15:38 UTC,""
7776,"",Searching in ECCO-TCP,2013-11-15 21:18:01 UTC,"Upon Kent's still continuing his entreaty, he still refuses to comply, but reasons with him thus:
Thou think'st 'tis much that this contentious storm
Invades us to the skin--So 'tis to thee--
But where the greater malady is fixt,
The lesser is scarce felt--Thou'dst shun a bear;
But if thy flight lay toward the roaring sea,
Thou'dst meet the bear i' th' mouth. When the mind's free,
The body's delicate--The tempest in my mind
Doth from my senses take all feeling else,
Save what beats there
This is the true nature of the human mind; the greater evil always swallowing up the lesser, as the rod of Moses did the other serpents. And in great calamities I do not know but it might, perhaps, be an advantage to have some other ills of an inferior nature to combat with, at the same time; for, as Lear says, just after, as his reason for refusing to take shelter,
This tempest will not give me leave to ponder,
On things would hurt me more.
(p. 363)",,23213,"","""This is the true nature of the human mind; the greater evil always swallowing up the lesser, as the rod of Moses did the other serpents.""",Animals,2013-11-15 21:18:01 UTC,""
7776,"",Searching ECCO-TCP,2013-11-15 21:18:55 UTC,"Momus well wished a window in every man's breast. Physiognomists pretend they can take a peep through the features of the face; but this is too abstruse a science to answer the general purposes of life; besides that education may render such knowledge doubtful, as in the case of Socrates. The diseases or unsoundness of the body are generally visible in the countenance and complexion of the invalid; how infinitely more useful would it be, if the vices of the mind were as obvious there! It is not necessary in the first case, because the patient can tell his disorder; but, in the other instance, the infected person is dumb.
(p. 410)",,23214,"","""Momus well wished a window in every man's breast. Physiognomists pretend they can take a peep through the features of the face; but this is too abstruse a science to answer the general purposes of life; besides that education may render such knowledge doubtful, as in the case of Socrates.""",Rooms,2013-11-15 21:18:55 UTC,""
7776,"",Searching in ECCO-TCP,2013-11-15 21:19:59 UTC,"The remainder of this speech is worth quoting, both on account of the fine poetical imagery it contains, and in order to shew the strong terror which guilt had impressed on his mind, by his invoking even inanimate matter not to inform against him.
Now o'er one half the world
Nature seems dead, and wicked dreams abuse
The curtained sleep; now Witchcraft celebrates
Pale Hecate's offerings; and withered Murder,
Alarum'd by his centinel, the wolf †,
Whose howl's his watch, thus with his stealthy pace,
Like Tarquin's theft ‡, gliding tow'rd his design ‖,
Moves like a ghost--Thou sound and firm-set earth,
Hear not my steps, which way they walk, for fear
Thy very stones prate of my where-about,
And take the present horror from the time ¶,
Which now suits with it.
(p. 412)",,23215,"","""The remainder of this speech is worth quoting, both on account of the fine poetical imagery it contains, and in order to shew the strong terror which guilt had impressed on his mind, by his invoking even inanimate matter not to inform against him.""",Impressions,2013-11-15 21:19:59 UTC,""
7776,"",Searching in ECCO-TCP,2013-11-15 21:20:49 UTC,"Macbeth.
Methought I heard a voice cry, sleep no more!
Macbeth doth murder sleep--The innocent sleep--
Sleep that knits up the ravelled sleeve * of care,
The birth † of each day's life, sore labour's bath,
Balm of hurt minds, great Nature's second course,
Chief nourisher in life's feast.
In the first part of my remark on the second Scene above, I have observed upon the impressions that a disturbed mind is apt to stamp on our dreams and sight. This passage adds our sense of hearing, also, to the testimony of our conscience.
Toward the latter end of this Scene, there is another hint given to the same admonitory purpose.
(pp. 413-4)",,23216,"","""In the first part of my remark on the second Scene above, I have observed upon the impressions that a disturbed mind is apt to stamp on our dreams and sight.""","",2013-11-15 21:20:49 UTC,""
7776,"",Searching in ECCO-TCP,2013-11-15 21:22:39 UTC,"Coriolanus has here carried his sternness, and the strained principles of stoical pride, whose throne is only in the mind, as far as they could go; and now great Nature, whose more sovereign seat of empire is in the heart, takes her turn to triumph; for upon the joint prayers, tears, and intreaties of his family, he becomes a man, at last, crying out--
Not of a woman's tenderness to be,
Requires nor child, nor woman's face to see--
I've sat too long.
Endeavours to go, but is withheld.
(p. 444)",,23217,"","""Coriolanus has here carried his sternness, and the strained principles of stoical pride, whose throne is only in the mind, as far as they could go; and now great Nature, whose more sovereign seat of empire is in the heart, takes her turn to triumph; for upon the joint prayers, tears, and intreaties of his family, he becomes a man, at last.""",Empire,2013-11-15 21:22:39 UTC,""
7776,"",Searching in ECCO-TCP,2013-11-15 22:00:57 UTC,"Some moral writer says,
That if men of sense, taste, or virtue, have not an opportunity of conversing with their equals, they had much better live alone.
They will certainly be able to preserve these rare qualities much better in solitude, than in unequal society--There is a contagion in minds and manners, as well as in bodies, when corrupt.
(p. 449)",,23218,"","""There is a contagion in minds and manners, as well as in bodies, when corrupt.""","",2013-11-15 22:00:57 UTC,""
7776,"",Searching in ECCO-TCP,2013-11-15 22:02:06 UTC,"I may possibly be reprehended, by some severe moralists, for noting the equipoise of such an argument as this. In this instance, indeed, I confess that I act contrary to the usual tenor of document, which always takes part on the wise side of a question. But, as I have said before †, I do not think that ethic philosophy can ever be a gainer, by overstraining the sinews of the human mind. We ought neither to be votaries to the Cynic nor the Stoic sects. We should not, with Diogenes, follow Nature in the mere animal sense of the expression, nor with Zeno fly beyond it, in the metaphysical one. True
virtue has no extremes. Its sphere extends not beyond the Temperate Zones. It sleeps in the Frozen, and but raves in the Torrid ones.
(p. 521)",,23219,"","""But, as I have said before, I do not think that ethic philosophy can ever be a gainer, by overstraining the sinews of the human mind.""","",2013-11-15 22:02:06 UTC,""