work_id,theme,provenance,created_at,text,reviewed_on,id,comments,metaphor,dictionary,updated_at,context
4873,"",Reading,2011-03-05 22:25:50 UTC,"Thus, in whatever light we take this subject, the merit, ascribed to the social virtues, appears still uniform, and arises chiefly from that regard, which the natural sentiment of benevolence engages us to pay to the interests of mankind and society. If we consider the principles of the human make, such as they appear to daily experience and observation, we must, a priori, conclude it impossible for such a creature as man to be totally indifferent to the well or ill-being of his fellow-creatures, and not readily, of himself, to pronounce, where nothing gives him any particular biass, that what promotes their happiness is good, what tends to their misery is evil, without any farther regard or consideration. Here then are the faint rudiments, at least, or out-lines, of a general distinction between actions; and in proportion as the humanity of the person is supposed to encrease, his connexion with those who are injured or benefited, and his lively conception of their misery or happiness; his consequent censure or approbation acquires proportionable vigour. There is no necessity, that a generous action, barely mentioned in an old history or remote gazette, should communicate any strong feelings of applause and admiration. Virtue, placed at such a distance, is like a fixed star, which, though to the eye of reason, it may appear as luminous as the sun in his meridian, is so infinitely removed, as to affect the senses, neither with light nor heat. Bring this virtue nearer, by our acquaintance or connexion with the persons, or even by an eloquent recital of the case; our hearts are immediately caught, our sympathy enlivened, and our cool approbation converted into the warmest sentiments of friendship and regard. These seem necessary and infallible consequences of the general principles of human nature, as discovered in common life and practice.",,18191,"","""Virtue, placed at such a distance, is like a fixed star, which, though to the eye of reason, it may appear as luminous as the sun in his meridian, is so infinitely removed, as to affect the senses, neither with light nor heat.""","",2011-03-05 22:25:50 UTC,Section V. Part II.
7486,"",Reading in C-H Lion,2013-06-27 18:13:05 UTC,"In a man of genius, imagination can scarce take a single step, but judgment should attend it. The most luxuriant fancy stands most in need of being checked by judgment. As a rich soil produces not only the largest quantity of grain, but also the greatest profusion of such weeds as tend to choak it; so a fertile imagination, along with just and useful ideas, produces many trifling, false, and improper thoughts, which, if they be not immediately examined by reason, and speedily rejected, will over-run and obstruct the truth or the beauty which the others might have produced. Judgment cannot collect ideas, but it revises those which fancy has collected, and either adopts or rejects them, as it finds cause. Though a bright and comprehensive fancy be the principal ingredient in genius, yet nothing is so dangerous as to affect to display it constantly, or to indulge it without any control from reflection; nothing is productive of greater faults. This leads philosophers to construct whimsical hypotheses, instead of inventing just theories. This leads poets to describe improbable events and unnatural characters, and to search for unseasonable wit and ill-timed splendour, when judgment would have directed them to imitate nature with exactness, and to study simplicity of expression. This leads painters capriciously to create imaginary decorations, instead of inventing natural and consistent embeilishments. Imagination must set all the ideas and all the analogies of things, which it collects, before the discerning eye of reason, and submit them absolutely to its sovereign decision. It is justly observed by Quintilian, that every fiction of the human fancy is approved in the moment of its production. The exertion of the mind which is requisite in forming it, is agreeable; and the face of novelty which infant conceptions wear, fails not to recommend them promiscuously, till reason has had time to survey and examine them. Were reason never to scrutinize them, all our ideas would be retained indiscriminately, and the productions of fancy would be perfectly monstrous. While a man is engaged in composition or investigation, he often seems to himself to be fired with his subject, and to teem with ideas; but on revising the work, finds that his judgment is offended, and his time lost. An idea that sparkled in the eye of fancy, is often condemned by judgment as false and unsubstantial. A more rigid exercise of this latter faculty, would have preserved Tasso from introducing sentiments which have show without justness, and figures which surprise and dazzle, but are unsuitable to the purpose to which they ought to have been subservient; and would have enabled him to escape the censure of having overspread his work with tinsel, and thus sullied the lustre of the pure gold which it contains.
(I.iv, pp. 75-8)",,21185,"","""While a man is engaged in composition or investigation, he often seems to himself to be fired with his subject, and to teem with ideas; but on revising the work, finds that his judgment is offended, and his time lost. An idea that sparkled in the eye of fancy, is often condemned by judgment as false and unsubstantial.""",Eye,2013-06-27 18:13:05 UTC,""
7498,"",C-H Lion,2013-07-01 18:15:27 UTC,"The third species of Invention, by which we observed original Genius will be distinguished, is that of IMAGERY. The stile of an original Author in Poetry is for the most Part FIGURATIVE and METAPHORICAL. The ordinary modes of speech being unable to express the grandeur or the strength of his conceptions, appear FLAT and LANGUID to his ardent Imagination. In order therefore to supply the poverty of common language, he has recourse to METAPHORS and IMAGES; which, though they may sometimes occasion the want of precision, will always elevate his stile, as well as give a peculiar dignity and energy to his sentiments. An original Author indeed will frequently be apt to exceed in the use of this ornament, by pouring forth such a blaze of imagery, as to dazzle and overpower the mental sight; the effect of which is, that his Writings become obscure, if not unintelligible to common Readers; just as the eye is for some time rendered incapable of distinguishing the objects that are presented to it, after having stedfastly contemplated the Sun. Well chosen images, happily adapted to the purpose for which they are adduced, if not too frequently employed, produce a fine effect in Poetry. They impart a pleasing gratification to the mind, arising from the discovery of the resemblance betwixt the similitude and the object to which it is compared; they remarkably enliven description, at the same time that they embellish it with additional graces; they give force as well as grandeur to the stile of Poetry, and are a principal source of those exquisite sensations, which it is calculated to inspire. On the other hand, the too liberal use of IMAGERY even in Poetry (besides that obscurity which it occasions to the ordinary class of Readers, as well as that fatigue which the Imagination experiences from its excessive glare) so disgusts the mind with the perpetual labour of tracing relations and resemblances, which cannot always be immediately perceived, that the tide of passion is by this means diverted, if it doth not subside, and the pleasure arising from poetic imitation is greatly diminished, if not utterly destroyed. A Writer however, who is only possessed of a moderate degree of Genius, is in very little hazard of falling into this extreme. His imagination is not extensive enough to comprehend those remote analogies which subsist betwixt different objects in nature, nor does it possess force sufficient to throw off a bold and glowing image founded upon such analogies: the performances of such an Author therefore will either be intirely destitute of the images of Poetry, excepting such as arise from the most obvious relations of ideas; of else those which he adopts will be borrowed from Authors of superior Genius. Hence it is, that the images of Homer have been so often copied by modern Poets, who either possessed not fertility of Invention enough to strike out new similitudes for themselves, or dared not to exert it. A Poet endued with a truly original Genius, will however be under no necessity of drawing any of the materials of his composition from the Works of preceding Bards; since he has an unfailing resource in the exuberance of his own Imagination, which will furnish him with a redundance of all those materials, and particularly with an inexhaustible variety of new and splendid imagery, which must be regarded as one distinguishing mark of original poetic Genius.
(pp. 143-8)",,21378,"","""An original Author indeed will frequently be apt to exceed in the use of this ornament, by pouring forth such a blaze of imagery, as to dazzle and overpower the mental sight; the effect of which is, that his Writings become obscure, if not unintelligible to common Readers; just as the eye is for some time rendered incapable of distinguishing the objects that are presented to it, after having stedfastly contemplated the Sun.""","",2013-07-01 18:15:27 UTC,""
7516,"",Reading,2013-07-09 03:40:51 UTC,"Many of the phoenomena of Memory and circumstances attending it, while they puzzle a keen inquirer, are exceedingly amusing to a moderate observer. If there be no substance in the mind on which impressions are made, how is it that by reiterated repetition we produce this effect, that ideas and words which we are conscious were not in our minds before are now in it, and though forgotten or unobserved for a time, appear again in it? How is it that according to the common very expressive phrase, we get compositions by heart? If impressions are made upon some substance in the mind, may not forgetfulness of them be only that the perceptive faculty of the soul is turned to other objects, while these still remain ready to be perceived whenever the ""mind's eye,"" glances upon them? An Hypochondriack is subject to forgetfulness, which may be owing to another cause; that there is a darkness in his mind, or that its perceptive eye is injured and weak at times."" Or it may be thus: his ideas hide themselves like birds in gloomy weather; but in warm sunshine they spring forth gay and airy. It is plain they cannot rise if they are not there. Let an Hypochondriack then have his park well stocked. Let him get as many agreeable ideas into his mind as he can; and though there may in wintery days seem: a total vacancy, yet when summer glows benignant, and the time of singing of birds is come, he will be delighted with gay colours and enchanting notes.
(p. 158 in London Magazine)",,21556,"","""An Hypochondriack is subject to forgetfulness, which may be owing to another cause; that there is a darkness in his mind, or that its perceptive eye is injured and weak at times.""",Eye,2013-07-09 03:40:51 UTC,""