work_id,theme,provenance,created_at,text,reviewed_on,id,comments,metaphor,dictionary,updated_at,context
3196,"",Reading,2003-12-03 00:00:00 UTC,"Good God! what an Incongruous Animal is Man? how unsettled in his best part, his soul; and how changing and variable in his frame of body? The constancy of the one, shook by every notion, the temperature of the other, affected by every blast of wind. What an April weather in the mind!
(p. 232)",2009-03-23,8419,"•From a letter to Caryll.
•In the same letter there is a great line: ""Our passions, our interests, flow in upon us, and unphilosophize us into mere mortals"" (233). ","""What an April weather in the mind!""","",2009-09-14 19:33:34 UTC,""
7508,"",Reading in Google Books,2013-07-08 17:09:30 UTC,"You have at length comply'd with the request I have often made you, for you have shown me, I must confess, several of my faults in the sight of those letters. Upon a review of them, I find many things that would give me shame, if I were not more desirous to be thought honest than prudent: so many things freely thrown out, such lengths of unreserv'd friendship, thoughts just warm from the brain, without any polishing or dress, the very dishabille of the understanding. You have prov'd your self more tender of another's embryo's than the fondest mothers are of their own, for you have preserv'd every thing that I miscarry'd of. Since I know this, I shall in one respect be more afraid of writing to you than ever, at this careless rate, because I see my evil works may again rise in judgment against me: yet in another respect I shall be less afraid, since this has given me such a proof of the extreme indulgence you afford to my slightest thoughts. The revisal of these letters has been a kind of examination of conscience to me; so fairly and faithfully have I set down in 'em from time to time the true and undisguised state of my mind. But I find, that these which were intended as sketches of my friendship, give as imperfect images of it, as the little landscapes we commonly see in black and white do of a beautiful country; they can represent but a very small part of it, and that depriv'd of the life and lustre of nature. I perceive that the more I endeavour'd to render manifest the real affection and value I ever had for you, I did but injure it by representing less and less of it: as glasses which are design'd to make an object very clear, generally contract it. Yet as when people have a full Idea of a thing first upon their own knowledge, the least traces of it serve to refresh the remembrance, and are not displeasing on that score; so I hope the foreknowledge you had of my esteem for you, is the reason that you do not dislike my letters.
(To the Hon. J. C. Esq., Dec. 5, 1712, pp. 95-6)",,21514,GREAT metaphor. INTEREST,"""So many things freely thrown out, such lengths of unreserv'd friendship, thoughts just warm from the brain, without any polishing or dress, the very dishabille of the understanding.""","",2013-07-08 17:09:30 UTC,Letter XLVIII
7508,"",Reading in Google Books,2013-07-08 17:11:23 UTC,"I was the other day in company with five or six men of some learning, where chancing to mention the famous verses which the Emperor Adrian spoke on his death-bed, they were all agreed that 'twas a piece of Gayety unworthy of that prince in those circumstances. I could not but differ from this opinion: methinks it was by no means a gay, but a very serious soliloquy to his soul at the point of its departure; in which sense I naturally took the verses at my first reading them when I was very young, and before I knew what interpretation the world generally put upon them.
Hospes comesque corporis,
Quae nunc abibis in loca?
Pallidula rigida nudula,
Nec (ut soles) dabis joca!
""Alas, my soul! thou pleasing companion of this body, thou fleeting thing that art now deserting it! whither art thou flying? to what unknown scene? all trembling, fearful, and pensive! what now is become of thy former wit and humour? thou shalt jest and be gay no more.""
(To and From Mr. Steele Nov. 7, 1712, L53, p. 103)",,21515,Soliloquy,"""""Alas, my soul! thou pleasing companion of this body, thou fleeting thing that art now deserting it! whither art thou flying? to what unknown scene? all trembling, fearful, and pensive! what now is become of thy former wit and humour? thou shalt jest and be gay no more.""",Inhabitants,2013-07-08 17:11:23 UTC,Letter LIII
7508,"",Reading in Google Books,2013-07-08 17:12:08 UTC,"I have been lying in wait for my own imagination this week and more, and watching what thoughts came up in the whirl of the fancy, that were worth communicating to you in a letter. But I am at length convinced that my rambling head can produce nothing of that sort; so I must e'en be contented with telling you the old story, that I love you heartily. I have often found by experience, that nature and truth, tho' never so low or vulgar, are yet pleasing when openly and artlessly represented: It would be diverting to me to read the very letters of an infant, could it write its innocent inconsistencies and tautologies just as it thought them. This makes me hope a letter from me will not be unwelcome to you, when I am conscious I write with more unreservedness than ever man wrote or perhaps talk'd to another. I trust your good nature with the whole range of my follies, and really love you so well that I would rather you should pardon me than esteem me; since one is an act of goodness and benevolence, the other a kind of constrained deference.
(To and From Addison, Dec. 14, 1713, L59, p. 111)",,21516,"","""I have been lying in wait for my own imagination this week and more, and watching what thoughts came up in the whirl of the fancy, that were worth communicating to you in a letter.""","",2013-07-08 17:12:08 UTC,Letter LIX
7508,"",Reading in Google Books,2013-07-08 17:13:04 UTC,"The same thing that makes old men willing to leave this world makes me willing to leave poetry, long-habit, and weariness of the same track. Homer will work a cure upon me; fifteen thousand verses are equivalent to fourscore years, to make one old in rhime: and I mould be sorry and ashamed, to go on jingling to the last step, like a waggoner's horse, in the same road, and so leave my bells to the next silly animal that will be proud of 'em. That man makes a mean figure in the eye of reason, who is measuring syllables and coupling rhimes, when he should be mending his own soul and securing his own immortality. If I had not this opinion, I mould be unworthy even of those small and limited parts which God has given me; and unworthy of the friendship of such a man as you. I am your, &c.
(To and from Mr. Addison, July 13, 1714, L66, p. 123)",,21517,"","""That man makes a mean figure in the eye of reason, who is measuring syllables and coupling rhimes, when he should be mending his own soul and securing his own immortality.""",Eye,2013-07-08 17:13:04 UTC,Letter LXVI.
7508,"",Reading in Google Books,2013-07-08 17:14:07 UTC,"Methinks when I write to you, I am making a confession, I have got (I can't tell how) such a custom of throwing my self out upon paper without reserve. You were not mistaken in what you judged of my temper of mind when I writ last. My faults will not be hid from you, and perhaps it is no dispraise to me that they will not: the cleanness and purity of one's mind is never better proved, than in discovering its own faults at first view; as when a stream shows the dirt at its bottom, it shows also the transparency of the water.
(To Mr. Congreve, Jan. 16, 1714-5, L83, p. 148)",,21518,"","""My faults will not be hid from you, and perhaps it is no dispraise to me that they will not: the cleanness and purity of one's mind is never better proved, than in discovering its own faults at first view; as when a stream shows the dirt at its bottom, it shows also the transparency of the water.""","",2013-07-08 17:14:07 UTC,Letter LXXXIII
7508,"",Reading in Google Books,2013-07-08 17:14:58 UTC,"I can't return from so agreeable an entertainment as yours in the country without acknowledging it. I thank you heartily for the new idea of life you there gave me; it will remain long with me, for it is very strongly impressed upon my imagination. I repeat the memory of it often, and shall value that faculty of the mind now more than ever, for the power it gives me of being entertained in your villa, when absent from it. As you are possessed of all the pleasures of the country, and as I think of a right mind, what can I wish you but health to enjoy them? This I so heartily do, that I should be even glad to hear your good old mother might lose all her present pleasures in her unwearied care of you, by your better health convincing her it is unnecessary.
(From Mr. Digby, Aug. 14, 1723, L140, pp. 192-3)",,21519,"","""I thank you heartily for the new idea of life you there gave me; it will remain long with me, for it is very strongly impressed upon my imagination.""",Impressions,2013-07-08 17:14:58 UTC,Letter CXI
7508,"",Reading in Google Books,2013-07-08 17:16:18 UTC,"The old project of a window in the bosom, to render the Soul of man visible, is what every honest friend has manifold reason to wish for; yet even that would not do in our case, while you are so far separated from me, and so long. I begin to fear you'll die in Ireland, and that denunciation will be fulfilled upon you, Hibernus es, & in Hiberniam reverteris. I should be apt to think you in Sancho's case; some Duke has made you Governour of an Island, or wet place, and you are administring laws to the wild Irish. But I must own, when you talk of building and planting, you touch my string; and I am as apt to pardon you as the fellow that thought himself Jupiter would have pardon'd the other madman who call'd himself his brother Neptune. Alas Sir, do you know whom you talk to? one that had been a Poet, was degraded to a Translator, and at last thro' meer dulness is turn'd an Architect. You know Martial's censure, Præconem facito vel Architectum. However I have one way left, to plan, to elevate, and to surprize: (as Bays fays) the next news you may expect to hear, is that I am in debt.
(Mr. Pope to [...], Decemb. 12, 1718, L117, pp. 205-6)",,21520,"","""The old project of a window in the bosom, to render the Soul of man visible, is what every honest friend has manifold reason to wish for; yet even that would not do in our case, while you are so far separated from me, and so long.""",Rooms,2013-07-08 17:16:18 UTC,Letter CXVII
7508,"",Reading in Google Books,2013-07-08 17:17:19 UTC,"When I come to you, 'tis in order to be with you only: A President of the council, or a star and garter will make no more impression upon my mind, at such a time, than the hearing of a bagpipe, or the sight of a poppet-show. I have said to Greatness sometime ago — Tuas tibi res babetoy egomet curabo meas. The Time is not far off when we shall all be upon the level: and I am resolv'd for my part to anticipate that time, and be upon the level with them now: for he is so, that neither seeks nor wants them. Let them have more Virtue and less Pride: and then I'll court them as much as any body: but till they resolve to distinguish themselves some way else than by their outward Trappings, I am determined (and I think I have a right) to be as proud as they are: tho' I trust in God, my pride is neither of so odious a nature as theirs, nor of so mischievous a consequence.
(From the Bishop of Rochester, April 6, 1722, L137, p. 245)",,21521,"Google's OCR corrects misspelling of ""semetime""
","""A President of the council, or a star and garter will make no more impression upon my mind, at such a time, than the hearing of a bagpipe, or the sight of a poppet-show.""",Impressions,2013-07-08 17:17:19 UTC,"Letter CXXXVII
"
7511,Momus Glass,"Reading Anne Jessie van Sant's Eighteenth-Century Sensibility and the Novel (Cambridge UP, 1993), p. 60. Found again reading Dennis Todd's Imagining Monsters (University of Chicago Press, 1995), p. 250. ",2013-07-08 20:35:15 UTC,"The freedom I shall use in this manner of thinking aloud (as somebody calls it), or talking upon paper, may indeed prove me a fool, but it will prove me one of the best sort of fools, the honest ones. And since what folly we have will infallibly buoy up at one time or other in spite of all our art to keep it down, it is almost foolish to take any pains to conceal it at all, and almost knavish to do it from those that are our friends. If Momus’s project had taken, of having windows in our breasts, I should be for carrying it further, and making those windows casements: that while a man showed his heart to all the world, he might do something more for his friends, e’en take it out, and trust to their handling. I think I love you as well as King Herod could Herodias (though I never had so much as one dance with you), and would as freely give you my heart in a dish as he did another’s head.",,21534,INTEREST. USE IN ENTRY.,"""If Momus’s project had taken, of having windows in our breasts, I should be for carrying it further, and making those windows casements: that while a man showed his heart to all the world, he might do something more for his friends, e’en take it out, and trust to their handling.""",Rooms,2013-07-08 20:35:34 UTC,""