work_id,theme,provenance,created_at,text,reviewed_on,id,comments,metaphor,dictionary,updated_at,context
5609,"",Searching in HDIS (Poetry); found again reading,2004-07-09 00:00:00 UTC,"Sonnet XXXVII.
Sent to the Honorable Mrs. O'Neill, with Painted Flowers
The poet's fancy takes from Flora's realm
Her buds and leaves to dress fictitious powers,
With the green olive shades Minerva's helm,
And gives to Beauty's Queen, the Queen of flowers.
But what gay blossoms of luxuriant Spring,
With rose, mimosa, amaranth entwin'd,
Shall fabled Sylphs, and fairy people bring,
As a just emblem of the lovely mind?
In vain the mimic pencil tries to blend
The glowing dyes that dress the flowery race,
Scented and colour'd by an hand divine!
Ah! not less vainly would the Muse pretend
On her weak lyre, to sing the native grace
And native goodness of a soul like thine! ",2011-10-06,14984,"","""But what gay blossoms of luxuriant Spring, / With rose, mimosa, amaranth entwin'd, / Shall fabled Sylphs and fairy people bring, / As a just emblem of the lovely mind?""","",2013-06-13 15:35:56 UTC,""
5750,"",HDIS,2004-01-02 00:00:00 UTC,"In vain, to thy white standard gathering round,
Wit, Worth, and Parts and Eloquence are found:
In vain, to push to birth thy great design,
Contending chiefs, and hostile virtues join;
All, from conflicting ranks, of power possesst
To rouse, to melt, or to inform the breast.
Where seasoned tools of Avarice prevail,
A Nation's eloquence, combined, must fail:
Each flimsy sophistry by turns they try;
The plausive argument, the daring lie,
The artful gloss, that moral sense confounds,
The' acknowledged thirst of gain that honour wounds:
Bane of ingenuous minds!--the' unfeeling sneer,
Which sudden turns to stone the falling tear:
They search assiduous, with inverted skill,
For forms of wrong, and precedents of ill;
With impious mockery wrest the sacred page,
And glean up crimes from each remoter age:
Wrung Nature's tortures, shuddering, while you tell,
From scoffing fiends bursts forth the laugh of hell;
In Britain's senate, Misery's pangs give birth
To jests unseemly, and to horrid mirth--
Forbear!--thy virtues but provoke our doom,
And swell the' account of vengeance yet to come;
For, not unmarked in Heaven's impartial plan,
Shall man, proud worm, contemn his fellow-man!
And injured Afric, by herself redresst,
Darts her own serpents at her tyrant's breast.
Each vice, to minds depraved by bondage known,
With sure contagion fastens on his own;
In sickly languors melts his nerveless frame,
And blows to rage impetuous Passion's flame:
Fermenting swift, the fiery venom gains
The milky innocence of infant veins;
There swells the stubborn will, damps learning's fire,
The whirlwind wakes of uncontrouled desire,
Sears the young heart to images of woe,
And blasts the buds of Virtue as they blow.
(ll. 19-56, pp. 123-4)",,15329,"","The ""buds of Virtue"" may be blasted as they blow","",2009-09-14 19:43:21 UTC,""
5775,"",Reading,2009-09-14 19:43:33 UTC,"Many of those children whose conduct has been most narrowly watched, become the weakest men, because their instructors only instil certain notions into their minds, that have no other foundation than their authority; and if they be loved or respected, the mind is cramped in its exertions and wavering in its advances. The business of education in this case, is only to conduct the shooting tendrils to a proper pole; yet after laying precept upon precept, without allowing a child to acquire judgement itself, parents expect them to act in the same manner by this borrowed fallacious light, as if they had illuminated it themselves; and be, when they enter life, what their parents are at the close. They do not consider that the tree, and even the human body, does not strengthen its fibres till it has reached its full growth.
(pp. 111-2)",2003-10-22,15401,"","""The business of education in this case, is only to conduct the shooting tendrils to a proper pole; yet after laying precept upon precept, without allowing a child to acquire judgement itself, parents expect them to act in the same manner by this borrowed fallacious light, as if they had illuminated it themselves; and be, when they enter life, what their parents are at the close. They do not consider that the tree, and even the human body, does not strengthen its fibres till it has reached its full growth""","",2012-01-23 16:55:21 UTC,Chapter V
5775,"",Reading,2009-09-14 19:43:34 UTC,"The behaviour of young people, to each other, as men and women, is the last thing that should be thought of in education. In fact, behaviour in most circumstances is now so much thought of, that simplicity of character is rarely seen: yet, if men were only anxious to cultivate each virtue, and let it take root firmly in the mind, the grace resulting from it, its natural exterior mark, would soon strip affectation and flaunting plumes; because, fallacious as unstable, is the conduct that is not founded on truth!
(p. 130)",,15406,"","""In fact, behaviour in most circumstances is now so much thought of, that simplicity of character is rarely seen: yet, if men were only anxious to cultivate each virtue, and let it take root firmly in the mind, the grace resulting from it, its natural exterior mark, would soon strip affectation and flaunting plumes; because, fallacious as unstable, is the conduct that is not founded on truth!""","",2012-01-23 18:20:10 UTC,Chapter VII
5775,"","Reading; found again reading Helen Thompson, Ingenuous Subjection (Penn Press, 2005), p. 201.",2009-09-14 19:43:35 UTC,"The pure animal spirits, which make both mind and body shoot out, and unfold the tender blossoms of hope, are turned sour, and vented in vain wishes or pert repinings, that contract the faculties and spoil the temper; else they mount to the brain, and sharpening the understanding before it gains proportionable strength, produce the pitiful cunning which disgracefully characterizes the female mind--and I fear will ever characterize it whilst women remain the slaves of power!
(pp.168-9)",2012-01-23,15414,"","""The pure animal spirits, which make both mind and body shoot out, and unfold the tender blossoms of hope, are turned sour, and vented in vain wishes or pert repinings, that contract the faculties and spoil the temper.""","",2013-10-28 16:42:21 UTC,Chapter XII
6611,"",Reading,2009-12-02 18:02:14 UTC,"The civilization which has taken place in Europe has been very partial, and, like every custom that an arbitrary point of honour has established, refines the manners at the expence of morals, by making sentiments and opinions current in conversation that have no root in the heart, or weight in the cooler resolves of the mind. – And what has stopped its progress? – hereditary property – hereditary honours. The man has been changed into an artificial monster by the station in which he was born, and the consequent homage that benumbed his faculties like the torpedo’s touch; – or a being, with a capacity of reasoning, would not have failed to discover, as his faculties unfolded, that true happiness arose from the friendship and intimacy which can only be enjoyed by equals; and that charity is not a condescending distribution of alms, but an intercourse of good offices and mutual benefits, founded on respect for justice and humanity.
(p. 39)",,17530,"","""The civilization which has taken place in Europe has been very partial, and, like every custom that an arbitrary point of honour has established, refines the manners at the expence of morals, by making sentiments and opinions current in conversation that have no root in the heart, or weight in the cooler resolves of the mind.""","",2009-12-02 18:03:05 UTC,""
6856,"",Reading,2011-05-19 20:25:59 UTC,"Experience, in all ages, and in all countries, has demonstrated that it is impossible to controul Nature in her distribution of mental powers. She gives them as she pleases. Whatever is the rule by which she, apparently to us, scatters them among mankind, that rule remains a secret to man. It would be as ridiculous to attempt to fix the hereditaryship of human beauty, as of wisdom. Whatever wisdom constituently is, it is like a seedless plant; it may be reared when it appears, but it cannot be voluntarily produced. There is always a sufficiency somewhere in the general mass of society for all purposes; but with respect to the parts of society, it is continually changing its place. It rises in one to-day, in another to-morrow, and has most probably visited in rotation every family of the earth, and again withdrawn.
(p. 277)",,18436,"","""Whatever wisdom constituently is, it is like a seedless plant; it may be reared when it appears, but it cannot be voluntarily produced.""","",2011-05-19 20:25:59 UTC,Chapter 3
7438,Punning on portray and draw?,Reading,2013-06-13 17:18:37 UTC,"Thou spectre of terrific mien,
Lord of the hopeless heart and hollow eye,
In whose fierce train each form is sees
That drives sick Reason to insanity!
I woo thee with unusual prayer,
""Grim visaged, comfortless Despair:""
Approach; in me a willing victim find,
Who seeks thine iron sway--and calls thee kind!
Ah! hide for ever from my sight
The faithless flatterer Hope--whose pencil, gay,
Portrays some vision of delight,
Then bids the fairy tablet fade away;
While in dire contrast, to mine eyes
Thy phantoms, yet more hideous, rise,
And Memory draws, from Pleasure's wither'd flower,
Corrosives for the heart--of fatal power!
I bid the traitor Love, adieu!
Who to this fond, believing bosom came,
A guest insidious and untrue,
With Pity's soothing voice--in Friendship's name;
The wounds he gave, nor Time shall cure
Nor Reason teach me to endure.
And to that breast mild Patience pleads in vain,
Which feels the curse--of meriting it's pain.
(ll. 1-24, pp. 49-50)",,20630,"","""Ah! hide for ever from my sight / The faithless flatterer Hope--whose pencil, gay, / Portrays some vision of delight, / Then bids the fairy tablet fade away; / While in dire contrast, to mine eyes / Thy phantoms, yet more hideous, rise, / And Memory draws, from Pleasure's wither'd flower, / Corrosives for the heart--of fatal power!""",Writing,2013-06-13 17:18:37 UTC,""
7575,"",Reading,2013-07-25 16:16:01 UTC,"It must be remembered, that as this great stile itself is artificial in the highest degree, it presupposes in the Spectator, a cultivated and prepared artificial state of mind. It is an absurdity therefore to suppose we are born with this taste, though we are with the seeds of it, which by the heat and kindly influence of his genius, may be ripened in us.
(p. 22)",,22078,"","""It is an absurdity therefore to suppose we are born with this taste, though we are with the seeds of it, which by the heat and kindly influence of his genius, may be ripened in us.""","",2013-07-25 16:16:01 UTC,""
7871,"",Reading,2014-04-24 02:32:45 UTC,"The truth I allude to is, the equality of all things, with respect to their intrinsic and real dignity and worth. But indeed, a little consideration will soon enable us to account for the ignorance of mankind in this interesting particular; and will teach us, that it solely arises from those baneful habits of perverse reasoning, which have from time to time immemorial taken root in the minds of men, and have at last sunk so deep, as to render their final and general extirpation, an immensely laborious, if not a ridiculous, attempt.
(Chap. I, p. 10)",,23796,"","""But indeed, a little consideration will soon enable us to account for the ignorance of mankind in this interesting particular; and will teach us, that it solely arises from those baneful habits of perverse reasoning, which have from time to time immemorial taken root in the minds of men, and have at last sunk so deep, as to render their final and general extirpation, an immensely laborious, if not a ridiculous, attempt.""","",2014-04-24 02:32:45 UTC,""