updated_at,id,text,theme,metaphor,work_id,reviewed_on,provenance,created_at,comments,context,dictionary
2013-06-26 19:09:53 UTC,17293,"
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 and 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)
","","""Lord Elibank has just a cabinet of curiosities [in his mind], which are well ranged and of which he has an exact catalogue.""",6499,,Brought to my notice by Patrick Abatiell,2009-03-16 00:00:00 UTC,"REVISIT. INTEREST. USE. FASCINATING metaphor worked out in two paragraphs. Reminiscent of Crambe's theory?
I've included thrice: Room, Pictures, Cabinet
",February,Rooms
2011-03-24 19:55:25 UTC,17294,"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)
","","""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.""",6499,,Brought to my notice by Patrick Abatiell,2009-03-16 00:00:00 UTC,"REVIST. INTEREST. USE. FASCINATING metaphor worked out in two paragraphs. Reminiscent of Crambe's theory?
I've included thrice: Room, Pictures, Cabinet
",February,Rooms
2011-10-26 04:45:48 UTC,19301,"I then went to president Gemmingen's, where I heard music and danced and was gay. I have a weakness of mind which is scarcely credible. Here amidst music and dancing I am as cheerful as if nothing had ever vexed me. My mind is like an air-pump which receives and ejects ideas with wonderful facility. Munzesheim went home with me a little. I told him in confidence my proceedings with his sovereign as to the Order. He told me I would obtain it when I returned. I bid him speak plain. He assured me that I might depend upon having it. I supped at the Marshal's table, where I am much liked. It has been observed that the Grand Écuyer has spoken more to me than to any stranger. He is silent and backward. I have put him at his ease, led him to talk of horses, of which I am, by the by, completely ignorant. But I had address enough to make that conversation go well on.","","""My mind is like an air-pump which receives and ejects ideas with wonderful facility.""",7122,,"Reading Travel Writing: 1700-1830, eds. Elizabeth A. Bohls and Ian Duncan (Oxford: Oxford UP, 2005), 23-4.
",2011-10-26 04:45:48 UTC,"","Friday, November 16, 1764",""
2012-06-28 18:16:48 UTC,19808,"If I may be allowed to conjecture what is the nature of that mysterious power by which a player really is the character which he represents, my notion is, that he must have a kind of double feeling. He must assume in a strong degree the character which he represents, while he at the same time retains the consciousness of his own character. The feelings and passions of the character which he represents, must take full possession as it were of the antichamber of his mind, while his own character remains in the innermost recess. This is experienced in some measure by the barrister who enters warmly into the cause of his client, while at the same time, when he examines himself coolly, he knows that he is much in the wrong, and does not even wish to prevail. But during the time of his pleading, the genuine colour of his mind is laid over with a temporary glaring varnish, which flies off instantaneously when he has finished his harangue. The double feeling which I have mentioned is experienced by many men in the common intercourse of life. Were nothing but the real character to appear, society would not be half so safe and agreeable as we find it. Did we discover to our companions what we really think of them, frequent quarrels would ensue; and did we not express more regard for them than we really feel, the pleasure of social intercourse would be very contracted. It being necessary then in the intercourse of life to have such appearances, and dissimulation being to most people irksome and fatiguing, we insensibly, for our own ease, adopt feelings suitable to every occasion, and so, like players, are to a certain degree a different character from our own. It is needless to mention many instances of this; every man's experience must have furnished him with a variety of instances, which will readily occur to him. He will recollect instances in every funeral that he has attended—every birth-day entertainment at which he has been a guest—every country seat, the beauties of which have been shewn him by its master--every party of pleasure in which he has shared---In short, he can hardly recollect a scene of social life, where he has not been conscious more or less, of having been obliged to work himself into a state of feeling, which he would not naturally have had.
(pp. 469-70)","","""The feelings and passions of the character which he represents, must take full possession as it were of the antichamber of his mind, while his own character remains in the innermost recess.""",7267,2012-06-28,Reading a draft of Dorothy Couchman's dissertation,2012-06-28 18:16:05 UTC,"",Essay II,Rooms
2012-06-28 18:27:17 UTC,19809,"If I may be allowed to conjecture what is the nature of that mysterious power by which a player really is the character which he represents, my notion is, that he must have a kind of double feeling. He must assume in a strong degree the character which he represents, while he at the same time retains the consciousness of his own character. The feelings and passions of the character which he represents, must take full possession as it were of the antichamber of his mind, while his own character remains in the innermost recess. This is experienced in some measure by the barrister who enters warmly into the cause of his client, while at the same time, when he examines himself coolly, he knows that he is much in the wrong, and does not even wish to prevail. But during the time of his pleading, the genuine colour of his mind is laid over with a temporary glaring varnish, which flies off instantaneously when he has finished his harangue. The double feeling which I have mentioned is experienced by many men in the common intercourse of life. Were nothing but the real character to appear, society would not be half so safe and agreeable as we find it. Did we discover to our companions what we really think of them, frequent quarrels would ensue; and did we not express more regard for them than we really feel, the pleasure of social intercourse would be very contracted. It being necessary then in the intercourse of life to have such appearances, and dissimulation being to most people irksome and fatiguing, we insensibly, for our own ease, adopt feelings suitable to every occasion, and so, like players, are to a certain degree a different character from our own. It is needless to mention many instances of this; every man's experience must have furnished him with a variety of instances, which will readily occur to him. He will recollect instances in every funeral that he has attended—every birth-day entertainment at which he has been a guest—every country seat, the beauties of which have been shewn him by its master--every party of pleasure in which he has shared---In short, he can hardly recollect a scene of social life, where he has not been conscious more or less, of having been obliged to work himself into a state of feeling, which he would not naturally have had.
(pp. 469-70)","","""But during the time of his pleading, the genuine colour of his mind is laid over with a temporary glaring varnish, which flies off instantaneously when he has finished his harangue.""",7267,,Reading a draft of Dorothy Couchman's dissertation,2012-06-28 18:18:41 UTC,"",Essay II,""
2012-06-28 18:21:50 UTC,19810,"This double feeling is of various kinds and various degrees; some minds receiving a colour from the objects around them, like the effects of the sun beams playing thro' a prism; and others, like the cameleon, having no colours of their own, take just the colours of what chances to be nearest them. And it must be observed, that the greater degree a man is accustomed to assume of artificial feeling, the more probability is there that he has no character of his own on which we can depend, unless indeed he be born of an uncommon degree of firmness: hence it is that the French, who are celebrated as the politest people in Europe, and in conformity with the ideas which I have just now mentioned, may be considered as perpetual comedians, have the least original character, and have been censured as fickle and false: whereas the English, who have a plain bluntness of behaviour, are truly a nation of originals, and are universally allowed to be remarkably honest. But laying aside natural prejudice, and judging candidly, we must confess that the politeness of the French makes them much happier; because from the continual habit of working themselves into an agreeable frame—into complacency and self-satisfaction, they actually enjoy those blessings; and the falseness for which they are censured, is not tainted with malignity; for it is only volatility and changeableness.
(p. 470)","","""This double feeling is of various kinds and various degrees; some minds receiving a colour from the objects around them, like the effects of the sun beams playing thro' a prism; and others, like the cameleon, having no colours of their own, take just the colours of what chances to be nearest them.""",7267,,Reading,2012-06-28 18:21:50 UTC,"",Essay II,Beasts and Optics
2013-07-09 02:59:08 UTC,21537,"Nothing characterises a Hypochondriack more peculiarly than irresolution, or the want of power over his own mind. What that power is by which the conscious spirit governs and directs various mental faculties, is, it must be confessed, utterly inexplicable as long as our souls are enclosed in material frames. While a watch is shut up in its case, we cannot see how the operations of its curious machinery are carried on; and the operations of the mind may, I think, be very well assimilated to those of a watch, as that comparison probably suggests the justest conception of what we can only fancy. An eminent physician in Holland, entrusted at once with a medical chair in the university of Leyden, and with the health of the Prince of Orange, being asked what the soul was? paused, and then answer, ""C'est un ressort. It is a spring."" As the main-spring actuates the wheels and other component part of a watch, so the soul actuates the faculties of the mind; and as the main-spring of a watch may either be broken alltogether, or hurt in different degrees, we may justly talk from analogy in the same terms of the soul.
(I, p. 142 in SUP edition)","","""What that power is by which the conscious spirit governs and directs various mental faculties, is, it must be confessed, utterly inexplicable as long as our souls are enclosed in material frames. While a watch is shut up in its case, we cannot see how the operations of its curious machinery are carried on; and the operations of the mind may, I think, be very well assimilated to those of a watch, as that comparison probably suggests the justest conception of what we can only fancy.""",7513,,Reading,2013-07-09 02:59:08 UTC,"","",""
2016-03-11 17:25:05 UTC,24872,"[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)","","""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.""",8132,,"Reading Sean Silver, The Mind is a Collection: Case Studies in Eighteenth-Century Thought (Philadelphia: Penn Press, 2015), 275n.",2016-03-11 17:25:05 UTC,"How did I miss this when I was drafting my book! -- too bad for Rooms.
META-METAPHORICAL","March 20, 1768",Rooms
2016-03-11 17:30:40 UTC,24873,"[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)","","""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.""",8132,,"Reading Sean Silver, The Mind is a Collection: Case Studies in Eighteenth-Century Thought (Philadelphia: Penn Press, 2015), 275n.",2016-03-11 17:27:01 UTC,"","",Population
2016-03-11 17:30:00 UTC,24874,"[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)","","""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.""",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,"","",Inhabitants