work_id,theme,provenance,created_at,text,reviewed_on,id,comments,metaphor,dictionary,updated_at,context
6817,"","Reading. Found again reading Deidre Lynch's Loving Literature: A Cultural History (Chicago and London: University of Chicago Press, 2015), p. 45.",2011-03-25 02:22:08 UTC,"Those parallel circumstances, and kindred images, to which we readily conform our minds, are, above all other writings, to be found in narratives of the lives of particular persons; and therefore no species of writing seems more worthy of cultivation than biography, since none can be more delightful or more useful, none can more certainly enchain the heart by irresistible interest, or more widely diffuse instruction to every diversity of condition.",,18255,"Lynch writes, ""Mingled with the praise is a hint of nervousness about the enforced passivity that might be the lot of the loving reader whose heart, 'enchained,' is no longer at his or her own disposal"" (45). ","""Those parallel circumstances, and kindred images, to which we readily conform our minds, are, above all other writings, to be found in narratives of the lives of particular persons; and therefore no species of writing seems more worthy of cultivation than biography, since none can be more delightful or more useful, none can more certainly enchain the heart by irresistible interest, or more widely diffuse instruction to every diversity of condition.""",Fetters,2015-08-05 18:25:57 UTC,""
6873,"",Searching in UVa E-Text Center,2011-05-24 21:47:07 UTC,"Polyphilus, in a short time, obtained a commission; but before he could rub off the solemnity of a scholar, and gain the true air of military vivacity, a war was declared, and forces sent to the continent. Here Polyphilus unhappily found that study alone would not make a soldier; for being much accustomed to think, he let the sense of danger sink into his mind, and felt at the approach of any action, that terrour which a sentence of death would have brought upon him. He saw that, instead of conquering their fears, the endeavour of his gay friends was only to escape them; but his philosophy chained his mind to its object, and rather loaded him with shackles than furnished him with arms. He, however, suppressed his misery in silence, and passed through the campaign with honour, but found himself utterly unable to support another.
(127)",2011-05-26,18497,"","""He saw that, instead of conquering their fears, the endeavour of his gay friends was only to escape them; but his philosophy chained his mind to its object, and rather loaded him with shackles than furnished him with arms.""",Fetters,2011-05-26 19:37:33 UTC,""
6882,"",Searching in UVa E-Text Center,2011-05-25 03:15:08 UTC,"Yet it too often happens that sorrow, thus lawfully entering, gains such a firm possession of the mind, that it is not afterwards to be ejected; the mournful ideas, first violently impressed and afterwards willingly received, so much engross the attention, as to predominate in every thought, to darken gaiety, and perplex ratiocination. An habitual sadness seizes upon the soul, and the faculties are chained to a single object, which can never be contemplated but with hopeless uneasiness.
(pp. 304-5)",2011-05-26,18513,"","""An habitual sadness seizes upon the soul, and the faculties are chained to a single object, which can never be contemplated but with hopeless uneasiness.""",Fetters,2011-05-26 19:32:14 UTC,""
6910,"",Searching UVa E-Text Center,2011-05-26 05:52:38 UTC,"Austerities and mortifications are means by which the mind is invigorated and roused, by which the attractions of pleasure are interrupted, and the chains of sensuality are broken. It is observed by one of the fathers, that he who restrains himself in the use of things lawful, will never encroach upon things forbidden. Abstinence, if nothing more, is, at least, a cautious retreat from the utmost verge of permission, and confers that security which cannot be reasonably hoped by him that dares always to hover over the precipice of destruction, or delights to approach the pleasures which he knows it fatal to partake. Austerity is the proper antidote to indulgence; the diseases of mind as well as body are cured by contraries, and to contraries we should readily have recourse, if we dreaded guilt as we dread pain.
(p. 346)
",2011-05-26,18572,"","""Austerities and mortifications are means by which the mind is invigorated and roused, by which the attractions of pleasure are interrupted, and the chains of sensuality are broken.""",Fetters,2011-05-26 19:24:06 UTC,""
6911,"",Searching UVa E-Text Center,2011-05-26 05:57:46 UTC,"That it is every man's interest to be pleased, will need little proof: that it is his interest to please others, experience will inform him. It is therefore not less necessary to happiness than to virtue, that he rid his mind of passions which make him uneasy to himself, and hateful to the world, which enchain his intellects, and obstruct his improvement.
(p. 359)",,18575,"","""It is therefore not less necessary to happiness than to virtue, that he rid his mind of passions which make him uneasy to himself, and hateful to the world, which enchain his intellects, and obstruct his improvement.""",Fetters,2011-05-26 05:57:46 UTC,""
6927,"",Searching in UVa E-Text Center,2011-06-06 02:30:56 UTC,"They whose souls are so chained down to coffers and tenements, that they cannot conceive a state in which they shall look upon them with less solicitude, are seldom attentive or flexible to arguments; but the votaries of fame are capable of reflection, and therefore may be called to reconsider the probability of their expectations.
(pp. 185-6)",,18611,"","""They whose souls are so chained down to coffers and tenements, that they cannot conceive a state in which they shall look upon them with less solicitude, are seldom attentive or flexible to arguments; but the votaries of fame are capable of reflection, and therefore may be called to reconsider the probability of their expectations.""",Fetters,2011-06-06 02:30:56 UTC,""
7253,"",Reading,2012-05-09 13:47:37 UTC,"There are likewise internal causes equally forcible. The language most likely to continue long without alteration, would be that of a nation raised a little, and but a little, above barbarity, secluded from strangers, and totally employed in procuring the conveniencies of life; either without books, or, like some of the Mahometan countries, with very few: men thus busied and unlearned, having only such words as common use requires, would perhaps long continue to express the same notions by the same signs. But no such constancy can be expected in a people polished by arts, and classed by subordination, where one part of the community is sustained and accommodated by the labour of the other. Those who have much leisure to think, will always be enlarging the stock of ideas, and every increase of knowledge, whether real or fancied, will produce new words, or combinations of words. When the mind is unchained from necessity, it will range after convenience; when it is left at large in the fields of speculation, it will shift opinions; as any custom is disused, the words that expressed it must perish with it; as any opinion grows popular, it will innovate speech in the same proportion as it alters practice.
(p. 295 in Brady and Wimsatt)",,19761,"","""When the mind is unchained from necessity, it will range after convenience; when it is left at large in the fields of speculation, it will shift opinions; as any custom is disused, the words that expressed it must perish with it; as any opinion grows popular, it will innovate speech in the same proportion as it alters practice.""",Fetters,2012-05-09 13:47:37 UTC,""
7856,"",Reading,2014-03-14 20:46:16 UTC,"[...] I cannot see why they should not be sometimes viewed through the medium of figure; nor why the palates of those who relish this stile should not be gratified. Mr. Locke gratifies them in this very place, and in most pages of his work. What is the juxta-position of ideas? what is that chain which connects, by intermediate ideas that are the links of it, ideas that are remote, but figurative stile? what else are those dormant, that is, sleeping pictures, which are wakened as it were, and brought into appearance by an act of the mind? what else are the pictures drawn there, but laid in fading colors, or the images calcined to dust by the flames of a fever? His invective therefore, against figurative speech, in his chapter of the abuse of words, must be understood not of the use, but of the abuse, of this stile, though it seems to go further, or it will not be agreeable to his own practice, nor to the truth as I imagine. False eloquence there is no doubt, and fraudulent eloquence too. Figurative stile often causes one, and is often employed by the other; but there is false and fraudulent reasoning too without eloquence: and we may find as much trifling and fallacy in some of the most dry didactic writings, as can be shewn in those of poets and orators.
(Essay I, ยง5; vol. iii, p. 447)",,23738,"","""What is the juxta-position of ideas? what is that chain which connects, by intermediate ideas that are the links of it, ideas that are remote, but figurative stile?""",Fetters,2014-03-14 20:46:16 UTC,""
8267,"","Reading ""Samuel Johnson, Unbeliever,"" Eighteenth-Century Life 29:3 (Fall 2005): 1-19, 9. https://doi.org/10.1215/00982601-29-3-1",2018-04-16 20:12:47 UTC,"[SEPT.]8 18. 1766. AT STREATHAM. I have this day completed my fifty seventh year. O Lord, for Jesus Christ's sake have mercy upon me. Amen.
Almighty and most merciful Father, who hast granted me to prolong my life to another year, look down upon me with pity. Let not my manifold sins and negligences avert from me thy fatherly regard. Enlighten my mind that I may know my duty; that I may perform it strengthen my resolution. Let not another year be lost in vain deliberations: Let me remember [that] of the short life of man a great part is already past, in sinfulness and sloth. Deliver me, gracious Lord from the bondage of doubt and from all evil customs, and take not from me thy Holy Spirit, but enable me so to spend my remaining days, that by performing thy will I may promote thy glory, and grant that after the troubles and disappointments of this mortal state I may obtain everlasting happiness for the sake of Jesus Christ, our Lord. Amen.
",,25162,"","""Deliver me, gracious Lord from the bondage of doubt and from all evil customs, and take not from me thy Holy Spirit, but enable me so to spend my remaining days, that by performing thy will I may promote thy glory, and grant that after the troubles and disappointments of this mortal state I may obtain everlasting happiness for the sake of Jesus Christ, our Lord.""","",2018-04-16 20:12:47 UTC,""
8271,"",Reading at The Yale Digital Edition of the Works of Samuel Johnson. ,2018-04-17 16:53:56 UTC,"Godliness, or piety, is elevation of the mind towards the supreme being, and extension of the thoughts to another life. The other life is future, and the supreme being is invisible. None would have recourse to an invisible power, but that all other subjects had eluded their hopes. None would fix their attention upon the future, but that they are discontented with the present. If the senses were feasted with perpetual pleasure, they would always keep the mind in subjection. Reason has no authority over us, but by its power to warn us against evil.
In childhood, while our minds are yet unoccupied, religion is impressed upon them, and the first years of almost all who have been well educated are passed in a regular discharge of the duties of piety. But as we advance forward into the crowds of life, innumerable delights sollicit our inclinations, and innumerable cares distract our attention; the time of youth is passed in noisy frolicks; manhood is led on from hope to hope, and from project to project; the dissoluteness of pleasure, the inebriation of success, the ardour of expectation, and the vehemence of competition, chain down the mind alike to the present scene, nor is it remembered how soon this mist of trifles must be scattered, and the bubbles that float upon the rivulet of life be lost for ever in the gulph of eternity. To this consideration scarce any man is awakened but by some pressing and resistless evil. The death of those from whom he derived his pleasures, or to whom he destined his possessions, some disease which shews him the vanity of all external acquisitions, or the gloom of age, which intercepts his prospects of long enjoyment, forces him to fix his hopes upon another state, and when he has contended with the tempests of life till his strength fails him, he flies at last to the shelter of religion.",,25171,"","""But as we advance forward into the crowds of life, innumerable delights sollicit our inclinations, and innumerable cares distract our attention; the time of youth is passed in noisy frolicks; manhood is led on from hope to hope, and from project to project; the dissoluteness of pleasure, the inebriation of success, the ardour of expectation, and the vehemence of competition, chain down the mind alike to the present scene, nor is it remembered how soon this mist of trifles must be scattered, and the bubbles that float upon the rivulet of life be lost for ever in the gulph of eternity.""",Fetters,2018-04-17 16:56:24 UTC,""