work_id,theme,provenance,created_at,text,reviewed_on,id,comments,metaphor,dictionary,updated_at,context
6499,"",Brought to my notice by Patrick Abatiell,2009-03-16 00:00:00 UTC,"
SATURDAY 26 FEBRUARY. Last night Dempster came to me between ten and eleven and sat till one. He is really a most agreeable man: has fine sense, sweet dispositions, and the true manners of a gentleman. His sceptical notions give him a freedom and ease which in a companion is very pleasing, although to a man whose mind is possessed with serious thoughts of futurity, it is rather hurting to find them considered so lightly. He said he intended to write a treatise on the causes of happiness and misery. He considered the mind of man like a room, which is either made agreeable or the reverse by the pictures with which it is adorned. External circumstances are nothing to the purpose. Our great point is to have pleasing pictures in the inside. To illustrate this: we behold a man of quality in all the affluence of life. We are apt to imagined this man happy. We are apt to imagine that his gallery is hung with the most delightful paintings. But could we look into it, we should in all probability behold portraits of care, discontent, envy, languor, and distraction. When we see a beggar, how miserable do we think him! But let us examine his pictures. We will probably find merriment, hope, a keen stomach, a hearty meal, true friendship, the newspaper, and a pot of porter. The great art is to have an agreeable collection adn to preserve them well.
This is really an ingenious and lively fancy. We gave some examples. Lord Elibank has just a cabinet of curiosities, which are well ranged and of which he has an exact catalogue. Macpherson has some bold portraits and wild landscapes. Lord Eglinton has had a variety of pieces, but they have been mostly slightly painted and are fading, so that his most frequent picture is Regret. The [End Page 203] mind of a young man (his gallery I mean) is often furnished different ways. According to the scenes he is placed in, so are his pictures. They disappear, and he gets a new set in a moment. But as he grows up, he gets some substantial pieces which he always preserves, although he may alter his smaller paintings in a moment. I said that he whose pictures shifted too often, like the glaiks, was too light-headed, and so in Scotland, he is called glaiked, an expression perfectly of a piece with his system.
(pp. 203-4)
",,17294,"REVIST. INTEREST. USE. FASCINATING metaphor worked out in two paragraphs. Reminiscent of Crambe's theory?
I've included thrice: Room, Pictures, Cabinet
","""He considered the mind of man like a room, which is either made agreeable or the reverse by the pictures with which it is adorned.""",Rooms,2011-03-24 19:55:25 UTC,February
4167,"",Reading,2013-08-07 16:57:57 UTC,"What high Perfections grace the human Mind,
In Flesh imprison'd, and to Earth confin'd!
What Vigour has she? What a piercing Sight?
Strong as the Winds, and sprightly as the Light?
She moves unweary'd, as the active Fire,
And, like the Flame, her Flights to Heav'n aspire.
By Day her Thoughts in never-ceasing Streams
Flow clear, by Night they strive in troubled Dreams.
She draws ten thousand Landschapes in the Brain,
Dresses of airy Forms an endless Train,
Which all her Intellectual Scenes prepare,
Enter by turns the Stage, and disappear.
To the remoter Regions of the Sky
Her swift-wing'd Thought can in a Moment fly;
Climb to the Heights of Heav'n, to be employ'd
In viewing thence th'Interminable Void.
Can look beyond the Stream of Time, to see
The stagnant Ocean of Eternity.
Thoughts in an Instant thro' the Zodiack run,
A Year's long Journey for the lab'ring Sun:
Then down they shoot, as swift as darting Light,
Nor can opposing Clouds retard their Flight:
Thro' Subterranean Vaults with Ease they sweep,
And search the hidden Wonders of the Deep.
(VII, ll. 204-227, pp. 323-4)",,22108,"","""She [the mind] draws ten thousand Landschapes in the Brain, / Dresses of airy Forms an endless Train, / Which all her Intellectual Scenes prepare, / Enter by turns the Stage, and disappear.""",Inhabitants,2013-08-07 16:57:57 UTC,Book VII
5301,"",Searching in LION,2013-10-26 19:40:55 UTC,"Excuse me, Monsieur le Count, said I--as for the nakedness of your land, if I saw it, I should cast my eyes over it with tears in them--and for that of your women (blushing at the idea he had excited in me) I am so evangelical in this, and have such a fellow-feeling for what ever is weak about them, that I would cover it with a garment, if I knew how to throw it on--But I could wish, continued I, to spy the nakedness of their hearts, and through the different disguises of customs, climates, and religion, find out what is good in them to fashion my own by--and therefore am I come.
It is for this reason, Monsieur le Count, continued I, that I have not seen the Palais royal--nor the Luxembourg--nor the Façade of the Louvre--nor have attempted to swell the catalogues we have of pictures, statues, and churches--I conceive every fair being as a temple, and would rather enter in, and see the original drawings and loose sketches hung up in it, than the transfiguration of Raphael itself.
The thirst of this, continued I, as impatient as that which inflames the breast of the connoisseur, has led me from my own home into France--and from France will lead me through Italy--'tis a quiet journey of the heart in pursuit of Nature, and those affections which rise out of her, which make us love each other--and the world, better than we do.
(pp. 66-8)",,23062,INTEREST. A erotics of tourism... Still euphemistically (at least) looking at artworks.,"""I conceive every fair being as a temple, and would rather enter in, and see the original drawings and loose sketches hung up in it, than the transfiguration of Raphael itself.""","",2013-10-26 19:40:55 UTC,""
4702,"",Searching and Reading in Google Books,2014-02-05 22:11:00 UTC,"III. Use all Diligence to acquire and treasure up a large Store of Ideas and Notions: Take every Opportunity to add something to your Stock; and by frequent Recollection fix them in your memory: Nothing tends to confirm and enlarge the Memory like a frequent Review of its Possessions. Then the Brain being well furnished with various Traces, Signatures and Images, will have a rich Treasure always ready to be proposed or offered to the Soul, when it directs its Thoughts towards any particular Subject. This will gradually give the Mind a Faculty of surveying many objects at once; as a Room that is richly adorned and hung round with a great Variety of Pictures, strikes the Eye almost at once with all that Variety, especially if they have been well surveyed one by one at first: This makes it habitual and more easy to the Inhabitants to take in many of those painted Scenes with a single Glance or two.
(pp. 239-40)",,23372,USE IN ENTRY,"""This will gradually give the Mind a Faculty of surveying many objects at once; as a Room that is richly adorned and hung round with a great Variety of Pictures, strikes the Eye almost at once with all that Variety, especially if they have been well surveyed one by one at first: This makes it habitual and more easy to the Inhabitants to take in many of those painted Scenes with a single Glance or two.""",Inhabitants and Rooms,2014-02-05 22:11:00 UTC,""
7984,"",Reading,2014-07-25 18:20:09 UTC,"Whoever thinks must see that man was made
To face the storm, not languish in the shade;
Action's his sphere, and,for that sphere design'd,
Eternal pleasures open on his mind.
For this, fair hope leads on the' impassion'd soul
Through life's wild labyrinths to her distant goal;
Paints in each dream, to fan the genial flame,
The pomp of riches, and the pride of fame,
Or fondly gives reflection's cooler eye
A glance, an image, of a future sky.
Yet, though kind Heaven points out the' unerring road
That leads through nature up to bliss and God;
Spite of that God, and all his voice divine
Speaks in the heart, or teaches from the shrine,
Man, feebly vain, and impotently wise,
Disdains the manna sent him from the skies;
Tasteless of all that virtue gives to please,
For thought too active, and too mad for ease,
From wish to wish in life's mad vortex toss'd,
For ever struggling, and for ever lost;
He scorns religion, though her seraphs call,
And lives in rapture, or not lives at all.
(pp. 154-155)",,24302,"","""For this, fair hope leads on the' impassion'd soul / Through life's wild labyrinths to her distant goal; / Paints in each dream, to fan the genial flame, / The pomp of riches, and the pride of fame, / Or fondly gives reflection's cooler eye / A glance, an image, of a future sky.""","",2014-07-25 18:20:09 UTC,""
5598,"","Reading Marjorie Nicholson's Newton Demands the Muse (Princeton: Princeton UP, 1946), 152-153. Found again in Earl Wasserman, ""The English Romantics: The Grounds of Knowledge""
4:1 Studies in Romanticism (Autumn, 1964): 17-34, 19.",2014-07-25 18:59:07 UTC,"Requires there aught of learning's pompous aid
To prove that all this outward frame of things
Is what it seems, not unsubstantial air,
Ideal vision, or a waking dream,
Without existence, save what Fancy gives?
Shall we, because we strive in vain to tell
How Matter acts on incorporeal Mind,
Or how, when sleep has lock'd up ev'ry sense,
Or fevers rage, Imagination paints
Unreal scenes, reject what sober sense,
And calmest thought attest? Shall we confound
States wholly diff'rent? Sleep with wakeful life?
Disease with health? This were to quit the day,
And seek our path at midnight. To renounce
Man's surest evidence, and idolize
Imagination. Hence then banish we
These metaphysic subtleties, and mark
The curious structure of these visual orbs,
The windows of the mind; substance how clear,
Aqueous, or crystalline! through which the soul,
As thro' a glass, all outward things surveys.",,24306,"","""Shall we, because we strive in vain to tell / How Matter acts on incorporeal Mind, / Or how, when sleep has lock'd up ev'ry sense, / Or fevers rage, Imagination paints / Unreal scenes, reject what sober sense, / And calmest thought attest?""","",2017-01-18 14:52:41 UTC,""
8132,"","Reading Sean Silver, The Mind is a Collection: Case Studies in Eighteenth-Century Thought (Philadelphia: Penn Press, 2015), 275n.",2016-03-11 17:30:00 UTC,"[March 20, 1768] We went at night to the inn on Barnby Moor. We were now jumbled into old acquaintance. I felt myself quite strong, and exulted when I compared my present mind with my mind some years ago. Formerly my mind was quite a lodging-house for all ideas who chose to put up there, so that it was at the mercy of accident, for I had no fixed mind of my own. Now my mind is a house where, though the street rooms and the upper floors are open to strangers, yet there is always a settled family in the back parlour and sleeping-closet behind it; and this family can judge of the ideas which come to lodge. This family! this landlord, let me say, or this landlady, as the mind and the soul are both she. I shall confuse myself with metaphor. Let me then have done with it. Only this more. The ideas--my lodgers--are of all sorts. Some, gentlemen of the law, who pay me a great deal more than others. Divines of all sorts have been with me, and have ever disturbed me. When I first took up house, Presbyterian ministers used to make me melancholy with dreary tones. Methodists next shook my passions. Romish clergy filled me with solemn ideas, and, although their statues and many movable ornaments are gone, yet they drew some pictures upon my walls with such deep strokes that they still remain. They are, indeed, only agreeable ones. I had Deists for a very short while. But they, being sceptics, were perpetually alarming me with thoughts that my walls were made of clay and could not last, so I was glad to get rid of them. I am forced to own that my rooms have been occupied by women of the town, and by some ladies of abandoned manners. But I am resolved that by degrees there shall be only decent people and innocent, gay lodgers.
(pp. 137-8)",,24874,"","""Only this more. The ideas--my lodgers--are of all sorts. Some, gentlemen of the law, who pay me a great deal more than others. Divines of all sorts have been with me, and have ever disturbed me. When I first took up house, Presbyterian ministers used to make me melancholy with dreary tones. Methodists next shook my passions. Romish clergy filled me with solemn ideas, and, although their statues and many movable ornaments are gone, yet they drew some pictures upon my walls with such deep strokes that they still remain. They are, indeed, only agreeable ones. I had Deists for a very short while. But they, being sceptics, were perpetually alarming me with thoughts that my walls were made of clay and could not last, so I was glad to get rid of them. I am forced to own that my rooms have been occupied by women of the town, and by some ladies of abandoned manners. But I am resolved that by degrees there shall be only decent people and innocent, gay lodgers.""",Inhabitants,2016-03-11 17:30:00 UTC,""
8274,"",Reading at The Yale Digital Edition of the Works of Samuel Johnson. ,2018-04-19 20:22:22 UTC,"Now commences the reign of judgment or reason; we begin to find little pleasure, but in comparing arguments, stating propositions, disentangling perplexities, clearing ambiguities, and deducing consequences. The painted vales of imagination are deserted, and our intellectual activity is exercised in winding through the labyrinths of fallacy, and toiling with firm and cautious steps up the narrow tracks of demonstration. Whatever may lull vigilance, or mislead attention, is contemptuously rejected, and every disguise in which error may be concealed, is carefully observed, till by degrees a certain number of incontestable or unsuspected propositions are established, and at last concatenated into arguments, or compacted into systems.",,25184,"","""The painted vales of imagination are deserted, and our intellectual activity is exercised in winding through the labyrinths of fallacy, and toiling with firm and cautious steps up the narrow tracks of demonstration.""","",2018-04-19 20:22:22 UTC,""