updated_at,id,text,theme,metaphor,work_id,reviewed_on,provenance,created_at,comments,context,dictionary
2013-09-23 17:52:22 UTC,11605,"Must these like empty shadows pass,
Or forms reflected from a glass?
Or mere chimeras in the mind,
That fly, and leave no marks behind?
Does not the body thrive and grow
By food of twenty years ago?
And, had it not been still supplied,
It must a thousand times have died.
Then who with reason can maintain
That no effects of food remain?
And is not virtue in mankind
The nutriment that feeds the mind;
Upheld by each good action past,
And still continued by the last?
Then, who with reason can pretend
That all effects of virtue end?
(p. 480, ll. 51-66)",Lockean Philosophy,"""Must these like empty shadows pass, / Or forms reflected from a glass? / Or mere chimeras in the mind, / That fly, and leave no marks behind?""",4406,2011-01-04,"Reading Melinda Alliker Rabb's ""'Soft Figures' and 'a Pastes of Composition Rare': Pope, Swift, and Memory"" in SECC vol. 19, p. 189.",2003-10-21 00:00:00 UTC,•REVISIT and fill out citation. INTEREST. Cross-reference: Locke's Essay.,"",""
2013-04-14 20:54:57 UTC,13687,"If the fixture of Momus' glass, in the human breast, according to the proposed emendations of that arch-critick, had taken place,--first, This foolish consequence would certainly have followed,--That the very wisest and the very gravest of us all, in one coin or other, must have paid window-money every day of our lives.
And, secondly, That had said glass been there set up, nothing more would have been wanting, in order to have taken a man's character, but to have taken a chair and gone softly, as you would to a dioptrical bee-hive, and look'd in,--view'd the soul stark naked;--observ'd all her motions,--her machinations;--traced all her maggots from their first engendering to their crawling forth;--watched her loose in her frisks, her gambols, her capricios; and after some notice of her more solemn deportment, consequent upon such frisks, &c.--then taken your pen and ink and set down nothing but what you have seen, and could have sworn to:--But this is an advantage not to be had by the biographer in this planet.""
(I.xxiii, Norton, p. 52)",Momus Glass,"""That had said glass been there set up, nothing more would have been wanting, in order to have taken a man's character, but to have taken a chair and gone softly, as you would to a dioptrical bee-hive, and look'd in,--view'd the soul stark naked;--observ'd all her motions,--her machinations;--traced all her maggots from their first engendering to their crawling forth;--watched her loose in her frisks, her gambols, her capricios; and after some notice of her more solemn deportment, consequent upon such frisks, &c.""",5088,2013-04-14,Reading,2009-09-14 19:38:59 UTC,"Reviewed 2013-04-14: discovered missing text in the middle of the quote. What the fuck?
Reviewed 2011-09-23
Reviewed 2004-11-18
•borrowed from later, now deleted entry:
Maggots?!
The OED gives for maggot, n1:
2. a. A whimsical, eccentric, strange, or perverse notion or idea. Now arch. and regional .
a1625 J. F LETCHER Women Pleas'd III .iv, in F. Beaumont & J. Fletcher Comedies & Trag. (1647) sig. Eeeeee2 v/1, Are not you mad my friend?.. Have not you Maggots in your braines? c1645 J. H OWELL Epistolæ Ho-Elianæ (1688) II. 328 There's a strange Magot hath got into their Brain. 1680 DRYDEN Kind Keeper V.i. 57 What new Maggot's this? you dare not sure be jealous! 1685 S. W ESLEY (title )Maggots: Or, Poems on several subjects. a1692 T. S HADWELL Volunteers (1693) V.i. 51 M. G. Bl. Ha Fellow, what dost thou mean by a Maggot? Hop. Sir, a little Concern of mine in my way, alittle whim, or so sir. 1717 M. P RIOR Alma I.400 Your Horace owns, he various writ, As wild or sober maggots bit. 1784 R. B URNS Commonplace Bk. Aug., One who spends the hours..with Ossian, Shakspeare,..&c.; or, as the maggot takes him, a gun, a fiddle, or a song to make or mend. 1802 J. W OLCOT Pitt & Statue in Wks. (1812) IV. 501 Soon as a maggot crept into my head I caught a stump of pen and put it down. 1816 SCOTT Antiquary III. ix. 90 For a' the nonsense maggots that ye whiles take into your head, ye are the maist wise and discreet o' a' our country gentles. 1898 D. C. M URRAY Tales 255 She's got some maggot in her head about being loved for her own sake. 1928 D. L. S AYERS Lord Peter views Body 208 One o' these 'ere sersiety toffs wiv a maggot fer old books. 1957 G. H EYER Sylvester xvi. 180 'My love,' I said..'You've got a maggot in your Idea-pot.' ","Vol. 1, Chap. 23",Animals and Optics
2012-06-28 18:21:50 UTC,19810,"This double feeling is of various kinds and various degrees; some minds receiving a colour from the objects around them, like the effects of the sun beams playing thro' a prism; and others, like the cameleon, having no colours of their own, take just the colours of what chances to be nearest them. And it must be observed, that the greater degree a man is accustomed to assume of artificial feeling, the more probability is there that he has no character of his own on which we can depend, unless indeed he be born of an uncommon degree of firmness: hence it is that the French, who are celebrated as the politest people in Europe, and in conformity with the ideas which I have just now mentioned, may be considered as perpetual comedians, have the least original character, and have been censured as fickle and false: whereas the English, who have a plain bluntness of behaviour, are truly a nation of originals, and are universally allowed to be remarkably honest. But laying aside natural prejudice, and judging candidly, we must confess that the politeness of the French makes them much happier; because from the continual habit of working themselves into an agreeable frame—into complacency and self-satisfaction, they actually enjoy those blessings; and the falseness for which they are censured, is not tainted with malignity; for it is only volatility and changeableness.
(p. 470)","","""This double feeling is of various kinds and various degrees; some minds receiving a colour from the objects around them, like the effects of the sun beams playing thro' a prism; and others, like the cameleon, having no colours of their own, take just the colours of what chances to be nearest them.""",7267,,Reading,2012-06-28 18:21:50 UTC,"",Essay II,Beasts and Optics
2012-06-29 20:46:03 UTC,19822,"[...] It was the nature of Fika-kaka to be impatient and impetuous. Perceiving that none of his Bonzes had any communication with the devil, and that many of them doubted whether there was any such personage as the devil, he began to have some doubts about his own soul: ""For if there is no devil (said he), there is no soul to be damned; and it would be a reproach to the justice of heaven to suppose that all souls are to be saved, considering what rascally stuff mankind are made of."" This was an inference which gave him great disturbance; for he was one of those who would rather encounter eternal damnation, than run any risque of being annihilated. He therefore assembled all those among the Bonzes who had the reputation of being great philosophers and metaphysicians, in order to hear their opinions concerning the nature of the soul. The first reverend sage who delivered himself on this mysterious subject, having stroked his grey beard, and hemmed thrice with great solemnity, declared that the soul was an animal; a second pronounced it to be the number three, or proportion; a third contended for the number seven, or harmony; a fourth defined the soul the universe; a fifth affirmed it was a mixture of elements; a sixth asserted it was composed of fire; a seventh opined it was formed of water; an eighth called it an essence; a ninth, an idea; a tenth stickled for substance without extension; an eleventh, for extension without substance; a twelfth cried it was an accident; a thirteenth called it a reflecting mirrour; a fourteenth, the image reflected; a fifteenth insisted upon its being a tune; a sixteenth believed it was the instrument that played the tune; a seventeenth undertook to prove it was material; an eighteenth exclaimed it was immaterial; a nineteenth allowed it was something; and a twentieth swore it was nothing.--By this time all the individuals that composed this learned assembly, spoke together with equal eagerness and vociferation. The volubility with which a great number of abstruse and unintelligible terms and definitions were pronounced and repeated, not only resembled the confusion of Babel, but they had just the same effect upon the brain of Fika-kaka, as is generally produced in weak heads by looking stedfastly at a mill-wheel or a vortex, or any other object in continual rotation. He grew giddy, ran three times round, and dropped down in the midst of the Bonzes, deprived of sense and motion. When he recovered so far as to be able to reflect upon what had happened, he was greatly disturbed with the terror of annihilation, as he had heard nothing said in the consultation which could give him any reason to believe there was such a thing as an immortal soul. In this emergency he sent for his counsellor Mura-clami, and when that lawyer entered his chamber, exclaimed, ""My dear Mura, as I have a soul to be saved!--A soul to be saved!--ay, there's the rub!--the devil a soul have I!--Those Bonzes are good for nothing but to kiss my a---se;---a parcel of ignorant asses! --Pox on their philosophy! Instead of demonstrating the immortality of the soul, they have plainly proved the soul is a chimæra, a will o' the wisp, a bubble, a term, a word, a nothing!--My dear Mura! prove but that I have a soul, and I shall be contented to be damned to all eternity!""--""If that be the case, (said the other) your Quambucuship may set your heart at rest: for, if you proceed to govern this empire, in conjunction with Taycho, as you have begun, it will become a point of eternal justice to give you an immortal soul (if you have not one already) that you may undergo eternal punishment, according to your demerits."" The Cuboy was much comforted by this assurance, and returned to his former occupations with redoubled ardour. He continued to confer benefices on his back-friends the Bonzes; to regulate the whole army of tax-gatherers; to bribe the tribunes, the centurions, the decuriones, and all the inferior mob-drivers of the empire; to hire those pipers who were best skilled in making the multitude dance, and find out the ablest artists to scratch their long ears, and tickle their noses. These toils were sweetened by a variety of enjoyments. He possessed all the pomp of ostentation; the vanity of levees, the pride of power, the pleasure of adulation, the happiness of being kicked by his sovereign and kissed by his Bonzes; and, above all, the delights of the stomach and the close-stool, which recurred in perpetual succession, and which he seemed to enjoy with a particular relish: for, it must be observed, to the honour of Fika-kaka, that what he eagerly received at one end, he as liberally refunded at the other. But as the faculties of his mind were insufficient to digest the great mess of power which had fallen to his share, so were the organs of his body unable to concoct the enormous mass of aliments which he so greedily swallowed. He laboured under an indigestion of both; and the vague promises which went upwards, as well as the murmurs that passed the other way, were no other than eruptive crudities arising from the defects of his soul and body.
(pp. 206-12)","","""The first reverend sage who delivered himself on this mysterious subject, having stroked his grey beard, and hemmed thrice with great solemnity, declared that the soul was an animal; a second pronounced it to be the number three, or proportion; a third contended for the number seven, or harmony; a fourth defined the soul the universe; a fifth affirmed it was a mixture of elements; a sixth asserted it was composed of fire; a seventh opined it was formed of water; an eighth called it an essence; a ninth, an idea; a tenth stickled for substance without extension; an eleventh, for extension without substance; a twelfth cried it was an accident; a thirteenth called it a reflecting mirrour; a fourteenth, the image reflected; a fifteenth insisted upon its being a tune; a sixteenth believed it was the instrument that played the tune; a seventeenth undertook to prove it was material; an eighteenth exclaimed it was immaterial; a nineteenth allowed it was something; and a twentieth swore it was nothing.""",5319,,Searching in HDIS (Prose),2012-06-29 20:41:53 UTC,"Crazy collection of metaphors here, and farther along in this passage. Could be useful for demonstrating diversity of metaphorics? REVISIT. RICH PASSAGE. META-METAPHORICAL. INTEREST.","",Beast and Optics
2013-07-09 03:05:47 UTC,21540,"I am not unacquainted with the reasonings of materialists, that the whole of man is composed of one substance. But whoever can really bring himself to believe, that the consciousness of power is an attribute of matter, is, I am pretty certain, not composed of the same substance that I am; for I have an immediate impression of that proposition being as impossible to believe, as that my eyes are shut when I feel they are wide open, and perceive by them a number and diversity of objects. To reason or even fancy, concerning what we do not see, from what we have seen, is pleasing to the mind. And my similitude between a watch in its case, and the soul in its material frame, will, I persuade myself, be agreeable to all my readers, whose dispositions are mild, and like better to be pleased with what they read, than to attack it. An antient philosopher indeed, full of real or pretended honesty, declared it to be his wish that there were a window in his breast that every body might see the integrity and purity of his thoughts. It would be truly be very pretty and amusing if our bodies were transparent, so that we could see one anothers sentiments and passions working as we see bees in a glass-hive.
(I, p. 143 in SUP edition)","","""An antient philosopher indeed, full of real or pretended honesty, declared it to be his wish that there were a window in his breast that every body might see the integrity and purity of his thoughts. It would be truly be very pretty and amusing if our bodies were transparent, so that we could see one anothers sentiments and passions working as we see bees in a glass-hive.""",7513,,"Reading Ann Jessie van Sant's Sensibility and the Novel (Cambridge UP, 1993), p. 60.",2013-07-09 03:05:47 UTC,"","","Animals, Optics, and Rooms"
2013-10-16 17:26:17 UTC,23033,"As it is the character of Genius to penetrate with a lynx's beam into unfathomable abysses and uncreated worlds, and to see what is not, so it is the property of good sense to distinguish perfectly, and judge accurately what really is. Good sense has not so piercing an eye, but it has as clear a sight: it does not penetrate so deeply, but as far as it does see, it discerns distinctly. Good sense is a judicious mechanic, who can produce beauty and convenience out of suitable means; but Genius (I speak with reverence of the immeasurable distance) bears some remote resemblance to the divine architect, who produced perfection of beauty without any visible materials, who spake, and it was created; who said, Let it be, and it was.
(pp. 213-4)","","""As it is the character of Genius to penetrate with a lynx's beam into unfathomable abysses and uncreated worlds, and to see what is not, so it is the property of good sense to distinguish perfectly, and judge accurately what really is.""",7739,,ECCO-TCP,2013-10-16 17:26:17 UTC,"","",""