work_id,theme,provenance,created_at,text,reviewed_on,id,comments,metaphor,dictionary,updated_at,context
4024,"",Reading,2003-10-21 00:00:00 UTC,"Having, therefore, so narrowly passed through this intricate difficulty, the reader will, I am sure, agree with me in the conclusion that, if the moderns mean by madness only a disturbance or transposition of the brain, by force of certain vapours issuing up from the lower faculties, then has this madness been the parent of all those mighty revolutions that have happened in empire, in philosophy, and in religion. For the brain in its natural position and state of serenity disposeth its owner to pass his life in the common forms, without any thought of subduing multitudes to his own power, his reasons, or his visions, and the more he shapes his understanding by the pattern of human learning, the less he is inclined to form parties after his particular notions, because that instructs him in his private infirmities, as well as in the stubborn ignorance of the people. But when a man’s fancy gets astride on his reason, when imagination is at cuffs with the senses, and common understanding as well as common sense is kicked out of doors, the first proselyte he makes is himself; and when that is once compassed, the difficulty is not so great in bringing over others, a strong delusion always operating from without as vigorously as from within. For cant and vision are to the ear and the eye the same that tickling is to the touch. Those entertainments and pleasures we most value in life are such as dupe and play the wag with the senses. For if we take an examination of what is generally understood by happiness, as it has respect either to the understanding or the senses we shall find all its properties and adjuncts will herd under this short definition, that it is a perpetual possession of being well deceived. And first, with relation to the mind or understanding, it is manifest what mighty advantages fiction has over truth, and the reason is just at our elbow: because imagination can build nobler scenes and produce more wonderful revolutions than fortune or Nature will be at the expense to furnish. Nor is mankind so much to blame in his choice thus determining him, if we consider that the debate merely lies between things past and things conceived, and so the question is only this: whether things that have place in the imagination may not as properly be said to exist as those that are seated in the memory? which may be justly held in the affirmative, and very much to the advantage of the former, since this is acknowledged to be the womb of things, and the other allowed to be no more than the grave. Again, if we take this definition of happiness and examine it with reference to the senses, it will be acknowledged wonderfully adapt. How sad and insipid do all objects accost us that are not conveyed in the vehicle of delusion! How shrunk is everything as it appears in the glass of Nature, so that if it were not for the assistance of artificial mediums, false lights, refracted angles, varnish, and tinsel, there would be a mighty level in the felicity and enjoyments of mortal men. If this were seriously considered by the world, as I have a certain reason to suspect it hardly will, men would no longer reckon among their high points of wisdom the art of exposing weak sides and publishing infirmities--an employment, in my opinion, neither better nor worse than that of unmasking, which, I think, has never been allowed fair usage, either in the world or the play-house.
(pp. 82-3 in OUP ed.)",2003-10-23,10426,"•Previous metaphors are replayed in this passage. I haven't extracted them and stored them in their own record.
•I've separated fancy, understanding, and imagination into three separate entries (5/29/2003).","""But when a man's fancy gets astride his reason, when imagination is at cuffs with the senses, and common understanding as well as common sense, is kicked out of doors; the first proselyte he makes is himself, and when that is once compassed the difficulty is not so great in bringing over others, a strong delusion always operating from without as vigorously as from within.""","",2013-09-11 21:32:52 UTC,""
4200,"","",2004-11-08 00:00:00 UTC,"I could swagger about Fortitude and the Contempt of Riches as much as Seneca himself, and would undertake to write twice as much in behalf of Poverty as ever he did, for the tenth Part of his Estate:1 I could teach the way to his Summum bonum as exactly as I know my way home: I could tell People that to extricate themselves from all worldly Engagements, and to purify the Mind, they must divest themselves of their Passions, as Men take out the Furniture when they would clean a Room thoroughly; and I am clearly of the Opinion, that the Malice and most severe Strokes of Fortune can do no more Injury to a Mind thus stript of all Fears, Wishes and Inclinations, than a blind Horse can do in an empty Barn. In the The-ory of all this I am very perfect, but the Practice is very difficult; and if you went about picking my Pocket, offer'd to take the Victuals from before me when I am hungry, or made but the least Motion of spitting in my Face, I dare not promise how Philosophically I should behave my self. But that I am forced to submit to every Caprice of my unruly Nature, you'll say, is no Argument that others are as little Masters of theirs, and therefore I am willing to pay Adoration to Virtue wherever I can meet with it, with a Proviso that I shall not be obliged to admit any as such, where I can see no Self-denial, or to judge of Mens Sentiments from their Words, where I have their Lives before me.
(152)",,10897,•I've included twice: Barn and Horse
,"""Malice and most severe Strokes of Fortune can do no more Injury to a Mind thus stript of all Fears, Wishes and Inclinations, than a blind Horse can do in an empty Barn""","",2009-09-14 19:35:22 UTC,Remark O.
4577,"","Searching in HDIS (Poetry). Found again reading. See also Sean Silver, The Mind is a Collection: Case Studies in Eighteenth-Century Thought (Philadelphia: Penn Press, 2015), 275n.",2005-09-08 00:00:00 UTC,"With authors, Sationers obey'd the call,
The field of glory is a field for all;
Glory, and gain, th'industrious tribe provoke;
And gentle Dulness ever loves a joke.
A Poet's form she plac'd before their eyes,
And bad the nimblest racer seize the prize;
No meagre, muse-rid mope, adust and thin,
In a dun night-gown of his own loose skin,
But such a bulk as no twelve bards could raise,
Twelve starveling bards of these degen'rate days.
All as a partridge plump, full-fed, and fair,
She form'd this image of well-bodied air,
With pert flat eyes she window'd well its head,
A brain of feathers, and a heart of lead,
And empty words she gave, and sounding strain,
But senseless, lifeless! idol void and vain!
Never was dash'd out, at one lucky hit,
A fool, so just a copy of a wit;
So like, that critics said, and courtiers swore,
A Wit it was, and call'd the phantom More.",2009-07-31,12040,•I've included twice: Lead and Feathers.,"""She form'd this image of well-bodied air, / With pert flat eyes she window'd well its head, / A brain of feathers, and a heart of lead, / And empty words she gave, and sounding strain, / But senseless, lifeless! idol void and vain!""","",2016-03-11 17:42:56 UTC,""
3330,"","Searching ""soul"" and ""bird"" in HDIS (Poetry)",2012-04-29 15:19:26 UTC,"I am the man who long have known
The strength and rage of inbred sin;
My soul is dead, my heart is stone,
A cage of birds and beasts unclean,
A den of thieves, a dire abode
Of dragons, but no house of God.",,19734,"","""My soul is dead, my heart is stone, / A cage of birds and beasts unclean, / A den of thieves, a dire abode / Of dragons, but no house of God.""",Beasts,2012-04-29 15:19:26 UTC,""
7400,"",Reading,2013-06-05 21:06:51 UTC,"Where shall I find him? Angels! tell me where.
You know him: he is near you: point him out:
Shall I see glories beaming from his brow,
Or trace his footsteps by the rising flowers?
Your golden wings, now hovering o'er him, shed
Protection; now are waving in applause
To that blest Son of Foresight! Lord of Fate!
That awful Independent on To-morrow!
Whose work is done; who triumphs in the past;
Whose yesterdays look backward with a smile;
Nor, like the Parthian, wound him as they fly;
That common, but opprobrious lot! Past hours,
If not by guilt, yet wound us by their flight,
If folly bounds our prospect by the grave,
All feeling of futurity benumb'd;
All god-like passion for eternals quench'd;
All relish of realities expired;
Renounced all correspondence with the skies;
Our freedom chain'd; quite wingless our desire;
In sense dark-prison'd all that ought to soar;
Prone to the centre; crawling in the dust;
Dismounted every great and glorious aim;
Embruted every faculty divine;
Heart-buried in the rubbish of the world:
The world, that gulf of souls, immortal souls,
Souls elevate, angelic, wing'd with fire
To reach the distant skies, and triumph there
On thrones, which shall not mourn their masters changed;
Though we from earth, ethereal they that fell.
Such veneration due, O man, to man.
(ll. 325-354, pp. 59-60 in CUP edition)",,20404,"","""Our freedom chain'd; quite wingless our desire; / In sense dark-prison'd all that ought to soar / Prone to the centre; crawling in the dust; / Dismounted every great and glorious aim; / Embruted every faculty divine; / Heart-buried in the rubbish of the world.""",Animals and Fetters and Rooms,2013-06-05 21:06:51 UTC,Night the Second
7593,"",Searching in ECCO-TCP,2013-08-16 18:05:52 UTC,"What was it then the Man was exercis'd with? I answer, he was harrass'd by the Reflection of his own Guilt, and the Sluices of the Soul were set open by the Angels or Spirits attending, and who by Divine Appointment are always at hand to execute the vindictive Part of Justice, as well as the more merciful Dispensations of Heaven, when they have them in Commission.
These abandon'd him to the Fury of an enrag'd Conscience, open'd the Sluices of the Soul, as I call them, and pour'd in a Flood of unsufferable Grief, letting loose those wild Beasts call'd Passions upon him, such as Rage, Anguish, Self-reproach, too late Repentance, and final Desperation, all to fall upon him at once; so the Man runs to Death for Relief, tho' it be to the Gallows, or any where, and that even by the meer Consequence of Things.
(p. 111)",,22216,"","""These abandon'd him to the Fury of an enrag'd Conscience, open'd the Sluices of the Soul, as I call them, and pour'd in a Flood of unsufferable Grief, letting loose those wild Beasts call'd Passions upon him, such as Rage, Anguish, Self-reproach, too late Repentance, and final Desperation, all to fall upon him at once; so the Man runs to Death for Relief, tho' it be to the Gallows, or any where, and that even by the meer Consequence of Things.""",Animals,2013-08-16 18:05:52 UTC,Chapter VII
7163,"",Reading,2014-05-26 20:18:09 UTC,"Then, Death, so call'd, is but old Matter dress'd
In some new Figure, and a vary'd Vest:
Thus all Things are but alter'd, nothing dies;
And here and there th' unbodied Spirit flies,
By Time, or Force, or Sickness dispossest,
And lodges, where it lights, in Man or Beast;
Or hunts without, till ready Limbs it find,
And actuates those according to their kind;
From Tenement to Tenement is toss'd;
The Soul is still the same, the Figure only lost:
And, as the soften'd Wax new Seals receives,
This Face assumes, and that Impression leaves;
Now call'd by one, now by another Name;
The Form is only chang'd, the Wax is still the same:
So Death, so call'd, can but the Form deface,
Th' immortal Soul flies out in empty space;
To seek her Fortune in some other Place.
(p. 512, cf. p. 821 in OUP)",,23860,"","""Thus all Things are but alter'd, nothing dies; / And here and there th' unbodied Spirit flies, / By Time, or Force, or Sickness dispossess, / And lodges, where it lights, in Man or Beast; / Or hunts without, till ready Limbs it find, / And actuates those according to their kind; / From Tenement to Tenement is toss'd; / The Soul is still the same, the Figure only lost.""",Rooms,2014-05-26 20:18:09 UTC,""