work_id,theme,provenance,created_at,text,reviewed_on,id,comments,metaphor,dictionary,updated_at,context
5960,"",Reading,2003-07-21 00:00:00 UTC,"Let me see: they tell me this is Monday night. Only three days yet to come! If thus restless to day; if my heart thus bounds till its mansion scarcely hold it, what must be my state tomorrow! What next day! What as the hour hastens on; as the sun descends; as my hand touches her in sign of wedded unity, of love without interval; of concord without end.
I must quell these tumults. They will disable me else. They will wear out all my strength. They will drain away life itself. But who could have thought! So soon! Not three months since I first set eyes upon her. Not three weeks since our plighted love, and only three days to terminate suspense and give me all.
I must compel myself to be quiet: to sleep. I must find some refuge from anticipations so excruciating. All extremes are agonies. A joy like this is too big for this narrow tenement. I must thrust it forth; I must bar and bolt it out for a time, or these frail walls will burst asunder. The pen is a pacifyer. It checks the mind's career; it circumscribes her wanderings. It traces out, and compels us to adhere to one path. It ever was my friend. Often has it blunted my vexations; hushed my stormy passions; turned my peevishness to soothing; my fierce revenge to heart-dissolving pity.
(Part II, chapter 23, p. 605; cf. pp. 207-8 in 1800 ed.)",,15853,"•:The beginning of the end. Mervyn to marry. Great stuff about the pen and mental control. (See Clarissa.)
•I've included twice: Wandering and Pen
•The ""all"" of the wedding night had me supposing that Brown would have us think that more than Mervyn's joy must thrust forth. Hints of masturbation?
•Note the heart's mansion and the mind's career.
•A writing or a landscape metaphor? — revised as MOTION.","""The pen is a pacifyer. It checks the mind's career; it circumscribes her wanderings.""",Inhabitants and Writing,2014-10-05 16:51:30 UTC,"Part II, Chapter 23"
5968,Blank Slate,"Searching ""tabula rasa"" in ECCO",2006-10-15 00:00:00 UTC,"The great Mr. Locke, and several other ingenious philosophers, have represented the human intellect, antecedent to its intercourse with external objects, as a tabula rasa, or a substance capable of receiving any impressions, but upon which no original impressions of any kind are stamped. Agreeable to this hypothesis, the soul, while destitute of that knowledge we acquire by experience and observation, is a mere passive being, having no natural principles of action, no power of chusing or refusing, but entirely subjected to receive the first impressions that are made upon it, without the capacity of discovering whether they are proper or improper, whether they tend to its preservation of destruction.
(p. 313)",,15876,"","""The great Mr. Locke, and several other ingenious philosophers, have represented the human intellect, antecedent to its intercourse with external objects, as a tabula rasa, or a substance capable of receiving any impressions, but upon which no original impressions of any kind are stamped.""",Writing,2009-09-14 19:44:58 UTC,Part I. Origin of Selfishness
5973,"","Found again searching ""stamp"" and ""mind"" in HDIS (Poetry)",2003-12-17 00:00:00 UTC,"In gulfs of aweful night we find
The God of our desires;
'Tis there he stamps the yielding mind,
And doubles all its fires.
(ll. 9-12, p. 104)",,15882,"","The ""yielding mind"" may be stamped","",2009-09-14 19:44:59 UTC,""
6021,"",Reading,2009-09-14 19:45:22 UTC,"No vulgar genius did his care commend,
He gave me Blount, his favourite and his friend;
To draw whose character exceeds my art,
I bear it deep engraven in my heart;
Yet this one print drawn out, I'll dare to say
Phoebus himself can scarce the whole display.
(ll. 19-24, p. 187)",2003-10-23,15995,•An anti-feminist poem (recommends domesticity rather than poetic efforts).
•Cross-reference: This is another C18 sense of 'character' (compare with Locke's use of the word.),"""To draw whose character exceeds my art, / I bear it deep engraven in my heart; / Yet this one print drawn out, I'll dare to say / Phoebus himself can scarce the whole display""",Writing,2009-09-14 19:45:22 UTC,""
6027,"","Searching ""engrav"" and ""thought"" in HDIS (Drama)",2005-03-09 00:00:00 UTC,"VILLARS.
Mean you Maria's?--Oh! you little know --her door is shut against the common tribe, who visit but to murder Fame and Time; but to the poor and houseless wanderer, 'tis open as her heart
(Tourly and Jack Analyse appear at the wing and listen)
: --come--she shall greet you with a sister's smiles,--and for myself--
(taking her hand and kissing it,)
pity first stamp'd your story in my breast, and the impression is engrav'd for ever!",,16004,•Reynolds is much given to Writing and Engraving metaphors!
•I've included twice: Engraving and Stamping.,"Pity first stamp'd your story in my breast, and the impression is engrav'd for ever""","",2009-09-14 19:45:23 UTC,"Act II, scene iv"
6052,"","Searching ""engrav"" and ""heart"" in HDIS (Poetry)",2005-03-09 00:00:00 UTC,"'Now on the bosom of the list'ning Youth
'Impress, engrave the sacred form of Truth;
'Bid them, as varying life unfolds to view,
'Be still thro' all her scenes to honor true;
'True to the man on Friendship's list enroll'd,
'Th' entrusted secret of his soul untold.
'Woe to that Chief, and blasted be his fame,
'Whose mean soul chills Affection's holy flame;
'Forgetting that he once, with zeal impress'd,
'Drank the pure drops that flow'd from Friendship's breast.
",,16051,"","""'Now on the bosom of the list'ning Youth / 'Impress, engrave the sacred form of Truth""","",2009-09-14 19:45:32 UTC,""
6147,Blank Slate,"Searching ""mind"" and ""blank"" in HDIS (poetry)",2005-03-02 00:00:00 UTC,"A subject now arrests the wand'ring lay,
A theme congenial to my closing day:
Say, in the future world, to friendship true,
Shall friends with friends the social pact renew?
Search the deep record of the Sibyl's leaves,
There no instruction the blank mind receives
Bid Science spread her riches to the eye,
Consult her volume--it makes no reply!
Not all the wisdom of the wisest sage
Can break the slumber of the silent page:
In this distress, the soul, entranc'd in fright,
Looks all around, and all around is night.
At length with smiling lip, and cheering eye,
Gay Hope, the Hebe of the Christian sky,
Appears--she mitigates the circling gloom;
And o'er the cheek of Darkness throws a bloom.
Hark! now the Cherub rears her voice divine:
'To soothe the gath'ring cares of man be mine;
'Be mine to raise, endu'd with sacred power,
'The human blossom bending from the shower:
'To those now weeping o'er a kindred urn
'This bland consoling answer I return:",,16204,•REVISIT. How is the blank slate metaphor operating here?,"In the ""deep record of the Sibyl's leaves, / There no instruction the blank mind receives.""","",2009-09-14 19:46:02 UTC,""
6155,"","Reading Reisner, Thomas A. ""Tablua Rasa: Shelley's Metaphor of Mind."" Ariel IV.2 (197): 90-102. p. 94.",2006-10-03 00:00:00 UTC,"O Spirit! through the sense
By which thy inner nature was apprised
Of outward shows, vague dreams have rolled,
And varied reminiscences have waked
Tablets that never fade;
All things have been imprinted there,
The stars, the sea, the earth, the sky,
Even the unshapeliest lineaments
Of wild and fleeting visions
Have left a record there
To testify of earth.
(VII, ll. 49-59)",,16219,"•Reisner notes, ""Although Shelley ostensibly takes Locke's tablet for his analogy of the mind, his own use of it is conspicuously at odds with that intended by the English philosopher"" (94).","""O Spirit! through the sense / By which thy inner nature was apprised / Of outward shows, vague dreams have rolled, / And varied reminiscences have waked / Tablets that never fade.""","",2009-09-14 19:46:05 UTC,VII
6180,"","Searching ""ink"" and ""bosom"" in HDIS (Poetry)",2005-03-27 00:00:00 UTC,"But Scandal has always her mud,
At Merit, poor Merit, to throw;
Of ink has for ever a flood,
To blacken a bosom of snow!
",,16356,"","""Of ink has for ever a flood, / To blacken a bosom of snow!""","",2012-06-27 15:13:39 UTC,Epistle III
6936,"","Searching ""mind"" in HDIS (Austen)",2011-06-09 21:06:24 UTC,"It was presumed that Mr. Crawford was travelling back to London, on the morrow, for nothing more was seen of him at Mr. Price's; and two days afterwards, it was a fact ascertained to Fanny by the following letter from his sister, opened and read by her, on another account, with the most anxious curiosity:--
""I have to inform you, my dearest Fanny, that Henry has been down to Portsmouth to see you; that he had a delightful walk with you to the Dock-yard last Saturday, and one still more to be dwelt on the next day, on the ramparts; when the balmy air, the sparkling sea, and your sweet looks and conversation were altogether in the most delicious harmony, and afforded sensations which are to raise ecstacy even in retrospect. This, as well as I understand, is to be the substance of my information. He makes me write, but I do not know what else is to be communicated, except this said visit to Portsmouth, and these two said walks, and his introduction to your family, especially to a fair sister of your's, a fine girl of fifteen, who was of the party on the ramparts, taking her first lesson, I presume, in love. I have not time for writing much, but it would be out of place if I had, for this is to be a mere letter of business, penned for the purpose of conveying necessary information, which could not be delayed without risk of evil. My dear, dear Fanny, if I had you here, how I would talk to you!--You should listen to me till you were tired, and advise me till you were tired still more; but it is impossible to put an hundredth part of my great mind on paper, so I will abstain altogether, and leave you to guess what you like. I have no news for you. You have politics of course; and it would be too bad to plague you with the names of people and parties, that fill up my time. I ought to have sent you an account of your cousin's first party, but I was lazy, and now it is too long ago; suffice it, that every thing was just as it ought to be, in a style that any of her connections must have been gratified to witness, and that her own dress and manners did her the greatest credit. My friend Mrs. Fraser is mad for such a house, and it would not make me miserable. I go to Lady Stornaway after Easter. She seems in high spirits, and very happy. I fancy Lord S. is very good-humoured and pleasant in his own family, and I do not think him so very ill-looking as I did, at least one sees many worse. He will not do by the side of your cousin Edmund. Of the last-mentioned hero, what shall I say? If I avoided his name entirely, it would look suspicious. I will say, then, that we have seen him two or three times, and that my friends here are very much struck with his gentleman-like appearance. Mrs. Fraser (no bad judge), declares she knows but three men in town who have so good a person, height, and air; and I must confess, when he dined here the other day, there were none to compare with him, and we were a party of sixteen. Luckily there is no distinction of dress now-a-days to tell tales, but--but--but. Your's, affectionately.""
(pp. 415-6)",,18643,Hyperbole more than metaphor. Figure fails? ,"""You should listen to me till you were tired, and advise me till you were tired still more; but it is impossible to put an hundredth part of my great mind on paper, so I will abstain altogether, and leave you to guess what you like.","",2011-06-09 21:06:24 UTC,"Volume III, Chapter xii"