theme,metaphor,work_id,dictionary,provenance,id,created_at,updated_at,reviewed_on,comments,text,context
Mind's Eye,"""What a conjuncture was here lost! ... my uncle Toby in one of the finest dispositions for it in the world;--his head like a smoak-jack;--the funnel unswept, and the ideas whirling round and round about in it, all obfuscated and darkened over with fuliginous matter!""",5088,"",Searching in HDIS (Prose),13749,2005-09-12 00:00:00 UTC,2014-10-26 16:21:07 UTC,2008-10-07,•A robbery of the Ontologic treasury!!! META-METAPHORICAL: REVISIT AND USE IN BOOK.,"--What a conjuncture was here lost! --My father in one of his best explanatory moods,--in eager pursuit of a metaphysic point into the very regions where clouds and thick darkness would soon have encompassed it about;--my uncle Toby in one of the finest dispositions for it in the world;--his head like a smoak-jack;--the funnel unswept, and the ideas whirling round and round about in it, all obfuscated and darkened over with fuliginous matter!--By the tomb stone of Lucian--if it is in being,--if not, why then, by his ashes! by the ashes of my dear Rabelais, and dearer Cervantes, --my father and my uncle Toby's discourse upon TIME and ETERNITY,--was a discourse devoutly to be wished for! and the petulancy of my father's humour in putting a stop to it, as he did, was a robbery of the Ontologic treasury, of such a jewel, as no coalition of great occasions and great men, are ever likely to restore to it again.
(III.xix, pp. 81-2; p. 139 in Norton ed.)","Vol. 3, Chapter 19"
"","""As for my uncle Toby, his smoak-jack had not made a dozen revolutions, before he fell asleep also. """,5088,"",Searching in HDIS (Prose),13750,2005-09-12 00:00:00 UTC,2011-09-23 19:40:08 UTC,2008-10-07,•In the first paragraph the metaphor is everywhere and nowhere. The smoak-jack of Walter's mind peers reflectively into the fire and falls asleep. INTEREST.,"Tho' my father persisted in not going on with the discourse,--yet he could not get my uncle Toby's smoak-jack [Page 83] out of his head,--piqued as he was at first with it;--there was something in the comparison at the bottom, which hit his fancy; for which purpose resting his elbow upon the table, and reclining the right side of his head upon the palm of his hand,--but looking first stedfastly in the fire,--he began to commune with himself and philosophize about it: but his spirits being wore out with the fatigues of investigating new tracts, and the constant exertion of his faculties upon that variety of subjects which had taken their turn in the discourse,--the idea of the smoak-jack soon turned all his ideas upside down,--so that he fell asleep almost before he knew what he was about.
As for my uncle Toby, his smoak-jack had not made a dozen revolutions, before [Page 84] he fell asleep also.--Peace be with them both.--Dr. Slop is engaged with the midwife, and my mother above stairs.--Trim is busy in turning an old pair of jack-boots into a couple of mortars to be employed in the siege of Messina next summer,--and is this instant boring the touch holes with the point of a hot poker. --All my heroes are off my hands;--'tis the first time I have had a moment to spare,--and I'll make use of it, and write my preface.
(pp. 82-4)","Vol. 3, Chapter 20"
"","""Whether they were above my uncle Toby's reason,--or contrary to it,-- or that his brain was like wet tinder, and no spark could possibly take hold,--or that it was so full of saps, mines, blinds, curtins, and such military disqualifications to his seeing clearly into Prignitz and Scroderus's doctrines,--I say not,-- let school-men--scullions, anatomists, and engineers, fight for it amongst themselves.""",5088,"",Contributed by Emily Anderson. Found again reading.,16960,2007-03-20 00:00:00 UTC,2016-02-23 05:13:37 UTC,2008-10-07,"","My uncle Toby would give my father all possible fair play in this attempt; and with infinite patience would sit smoaking his pipe for whole hours together, whilst my father was practising upon his head, and trying every accessible avenue to drive Prignitz and Scroderus's solutions into it.
Whether they were above my uncle Toby's reason,--or contrary to it,-- or that his brain was like wet tinder, and no spark could possibly take hold,--or that it was so full of saps, mines, blinds, curtins, and such military disqualifications to his seeing clearly into Prignitz and Scroderus's doctrines,--I say not,-- let school-men--scullions, anatomists, and engineers, fight for it amongst themselves.--
(III.xxxix, pp. 188-9; Norton, 171-2)","Vol. III, Chap. xxxix"
"","""In saying this, I was making not so much La Fleur's eloge, as my own, having been in love with one princess or another almost all my life, and I hope I shall go on so, till I die, being firmly persuaded, that if ever I do a mean action, it must be in some interval betwixt one passion and another: whilst this interregnum lasts, I always perceive my heart locked up--I can scarce find in it, to give Misery a sixpence; and therefore I always get out of it as fast as I can, and the moment I am rekindled, I am all generosity and good will again; and would do any thing in the world either for, or with any one, if they will but satisfy me there is no sin in it.""",5301,"","Reading; found again searching in LION. And again: reading Paul Kelleher's Making Love: Sentiment and Sexuality in Eighteenth-Century British Literature (Lanham, MD: Bucknell UP, 2015), 3.
",23051,2013-10-26 19:30:58 UTC,2015-12-02 18:12:51 UTC,,"","The young fellow, said the landlord, is beloved by all the town, and there is scarce a corner in Montriul where the want of him will not be felt: he has but one misfortune in the world, continued he, ""He is always in love.""--I am heartily glad of it, said I,--'twill save me the trouble every night of putting my breeches under my head. In saying this, I was making not so much La Fleur's eloge, as my own, having been in love with one princess or another almost all my life, and I hope I shall go on so, till I die, being firmly persuaded, that if ever I do a mean action, it must be in some interval betwixt one passion and another: whilst this interregnum lasts, I always perceive my heart locked up--I can scarce find in it, to give Misery a sixpence; and therefore I always get out of it as fast as I can, and the moment I am rekindled, I am all generosity and good will again; and would do any thing in the world either for, or with any one, if they will but satisfy me there is no sin in it.
(I, pp. 104-5)",""
"","""In every human breast there lives enshrined / Some atom pregnant with the' etherial mind; / Some plastic power, some intellectual ray, / Some genial sunbeam from the source of day; / Something that, warm and restless to aspire, / Works the young heart, and sets the soul on fire, / And bids us all our inborn powers employ / To catch the phantom of ideal joy.""",7984,"",Reading,24295,2014-07-25 18:12:02 UTC,2014-07-25 18:12:02 UTC,,"","In every human breast there lives enshrined
Some atom pregnant with the' etherial mind;
Some plastic power, some intellectual ray,
Some genial sunbeam from the source of day;
Something that, warm and restless to aspire,
Works the young heart, and sets the soul on fire,
And bids us all our inborn powers employ
To catch the phantom of ideal joy.
Were it not so, the soul, all dead and lost,
Like the tall cliff beneath the' impassive frost,
Form'd for no end, and impotent to please,
Would lie inactive on the couch of ease:
And, heedless of proud fame's immortal lay,
Sleep all her dull divinity away.
(p. 153)",""