work_id,theme,provenance,created_at,text,reviewed_on,id,comments,metaphor,dictionary,updated_at,context
7541,"",Reading; text from DocSouth,2013-07-11 21:21:59 UTC,"Do not you condemn me for the very thing that you are guilty of yourself;--but before I recriminate--let me be grateful, and acknowledge that heart-felt satisfaction which I ever feel from the praise of the good.--Sterne says--every worthy mind loves praise--and declares that he loves it too--but then it must be sincere.--Now I protest that you have something very like flattery;--no matter--I honestly own it pleases me--Vanity is a shoot from self-love--and self-love, Pope declares to be the spring of motion in the human breast.--Friendship founded upon right judgement takes the good and bad with the indulgence of blind love;--nor is it wrong--for as weakness and error is the lot of humanity--real friendship must oft kindly overlook the undesigning frailties of undisguised nature.--My dear Madam, I beg ten thousand pardons for the dull sermon I have been preaching:--you may well yawn.--So the noble! the humane! the patron! the friend! the good Duke leaves Tunbridge on Monday--true nobility will leave the place with him--and kindness and humanity will accompany Miss L---- whenever she thinks fit to leave it.--Mrs. Sancho is pretty well, pretty round, and pretty tame!--she bids me say, Thank you, in the kindest manner I possibly can--and observe, I say, Thank you kindly.--I will not pretend to enumerate the many things you deserve our thanks for:--you are upon the whole an estimable young woman--your heart is the best part of you--may it meet with its likeness in the man of your choice!--and I will pronounce you happy couple.--I hope to hear in your next--(that is, if--) that you are about thinking of coming to town--no news stirring but politics--which I deem very unfit for ladies.--I shall conclude with John Moody's prayer--""The goodness of goodness bless and preserve you!""--I am dear Miss L----'s most sincere servant and friend, [...]
(I.ix, pp. 30-2; pp. 40-1 in Carretta)",,21670,"","""Vanity is a shoot from self-love--and self-love, Pope declares to be the spring of motion in the human breast.""","",2013-07-11 21:21:59 UTC,"Vol. I, Letter ix"
7541,"",Reading; text from DocSouth,2013-07-11 21:51:10 UTC,"FOR this month past--we have wished--to hear something about you--and every day for these two past weeks have I had it in serious contemplation-- to put the question--not to the amiable Miss C--but to my friend R--who--notwithstanding your friendly excuse--is, I do think, rather culpable for his silence.--But hang recrimination--your goodness is more than sufficient to exculpate a thousand such sinners; we thank you, with heart-felt pleasure, for the information of our and your dear friend Mrs. C--'s health--which I hope she will be careful of--for our--and many sakes--I have a favour to beg of her--through your mediation, which is this--I have a pair of Antigua turtles--the gift of Mr. P--who kindly burthened himself with the care of them--the true property is vested in Kitty--but so it is--we having neither warmth nor room, and Kitty's good godmother having both--and that kind of humanity withal which delighteth in doing good to orphans--I, in the name of Kate and her doves, do through you--our trusty council--petition Mrs. C--in behalf of said birds.--Were I poetically turned--what a glorious field for fancy flights--such as the blue-eyed Goddess with her flying carr--her doves and sparrows, &c. &c.--Alas! my imagination is as barren as the desert sands of Arabia--but in serious truth--the shop--(the only place I have to put them in) is so cold--that I shall be happy to billet them to warmer quarters--which shall be done--as soon as Mrs. C--announces her consent--and empowers Molly to take them in.--As to news--we have none worth heeding--your camps have ruined all trade--but that of hackney men.--You much supprize us in the account of your late fair visitant--but pleased us more in the account of O--'s success--the season has been, through God's blessing, as favourable as his friends--he is a lucky soul.--The S--s are both well, I hope--to whom pray be so kind to remember us:--as to friend R--, tell him, that whatever censure his omissions in writing may draw upon him--when the goodness of his heart--and urbanity of soul is slung into the other scale--the faulty scale kicks the beam--we forgive, because we love--and love sees no faults.
(II.vi, pp. 19-22; pp. 139-40 in Carretta)",,21692,"","""Were I poetically turned--what a glorious field for fancy flights--such as the blue-eyed Goddess with her flying carr--her doves and sparrows, &c. &c.--Alas! my imagination is as barren as the desert sands of Arabia.""","",2013-07-11 21:51:10 UTC,"Vol. II, letter vi"
7542,"",Reading; text from Google Books,2013-07-12 15:00:17 UTC,"I am glad you think that a friend's having been persecuted, imprisoned, maimed, and almost murdered, under the ancient government of France, is a good excuse for loving the revolution. What, indeed, but friendship, could have led my attention from the annals of imagination to the records of politics; from the poetry to the prose of human life? In vain might Aristocrates have explained to me the rights of kings, and Democrates have descanted on the rights of the people. How many fine-spun threads of reasoning would my wandering thoughts have broken; and how difficult should I have found it to arrange arguments and inferences in the cells of my brain! But, however dull the faculties of my head, I can assure you, that when a proposition is addressed to my heart, I have some quickness of perception. I can then decide, in one moment, points upon which philosophers and legislators have differed in all ages: nor could I be more convinced of the truth of any demonstration in Euclid, than I am, that, that system of politics must be the best, by which those I love are made happy.
(Letter XXIII, p. 195; p. 140 in Broadview ed.)",,21702,"","""How many fine-spun threads of reasoning would my wandering thoughts have broken; and how difficult should I have found it to arrange arguments and inferences in the cells of my brain!""",Rooms,2013-07-12 15:00:17 UTC,Letter XXIII