updated_at,id,text,theme,metaphor,work_id,reviewed_on,provenance,created_at,comments,context,dictionary
2011-06-21 15:44:31 UTC,12356,"A DIALOGUE
Says Body to Mind, ''Tis amazing to see,
We're so nearly related yet never agree,
But lead a most wrangling strange sort of life,
As great plagues to each other as husband and wife.
The fault's all your own, who, with flagrant oppression,
Encroach every day on my lawful possession.
The best room in my house you have seized for your own,
And turned the whole tenement quite upside down,
While you hourly call in a disorderly crew
Of vagabond rogues, who have nothing to do
But to run in and out, hurry-scurry, and keep
Such a horrible uproar, I can't get to sleep.
There's my kitchen sometimes is as empty as sound,
I call for my servants, not one's to be found:
They are all sent out on your ladyship's errand,
To fetch some more riotous guests in, I warrant!
And since things are growing, I see, worse and worse,
I'm determined to force you to alter your course.'
Poor Mind, who heard all with extreme moderation,
Thought it now time to speak, and make her allegation:
''Tis I that, methinks, have most cause to complain,
Who am cramped and confined like a slave in a chain.
I did but step out, on some weighty affairs,
To visit last night, my good friends in the stars,
When, before I was got half as high as the moon,
You despatched Pain and Languor to hurry me down;
Vi & Armis they seized me, in midst of my flight,
And shut me in caverns as dark as the night.'
''Twas no more,' replied Body, 'than what you deserved;
While you rambled abroad, I at home was half starved:
And, unless I had closely confined you in hold,
You had left me to perish with hunger and cold.'
'I've a friend,' answers Mind, 'who, though slow, is yet sure,
And will rid me at last of your insolent power:
Will knock down your walls, the whole fabric demolish,
And at once your strong holds and my slavery abolish:
And while in your dust your dull ruins decay,
I'll snap off my chains and fly freely away.'
(p. 168)",Dualism,"""Says Body to Mind, ''Tis amazing to see, / We're so nearly related yet never agree, / But lead a most wrangling strange sort of life, / As great plagues to each other as husband and wife.'""",4685,2011-06-21,Reading,2009-09-14 19:36:53 UTC,Reviewed 2003-10-22,I've included the entire poem,""
2011-06-11 19:18:54 UTC,14404,"For as old Memnon's image, long renown'd
By fabling Nilus, to the quivering touch
Of Titan's ray, with each repulsive string
Consenting, sounded through the warbling air
Unbidden strains; even so did nature's hand
To certain species of external things,
Attune the finer organs of the mind:
So the glad impulse of congenial powers,
Or of sweet sound, or fair proportion'd form,
The grace of motion, or the bloom of light,
Thrills through imagination's tender frame,
From nerve to nerve: all naked and alive
They catch the spreading rays: till now the soul
At length discloses every tuneful spring,
To that harmonious movement from without
Responsive. Then the inexpressive strain
Diffuses its inchantment: fancy dreams
Of sacred fountains and Elysian groves,
And vales of bliss: the intellectual power
Bends from his awful throne a wondering ear,
And smiles: the passions, gently sooth'd away,
Sink to divine repose, and love and joy
Alone are waking; love and joy, serene
As airs that fan the summer. O! attend,
Whoe'er thou art, whom these delights can touch,
Whose candid bosom the refining love
Of nature warms, o! listen to my song;
And i will guide thee to her favourite walks,
And teach thy solitude her voice to hear,
And point her loveliest features to thy view.
(Bk. I, ll. 109-39, pp. 17-8)","","""Then the inexpressive strain / Diffuses its inchantment: fancy dreams / Of sacred fountains and Elysian groves, / And vales of bliss: the intellectual power / Bends from his awful throne a wondering ear, / And smiles: the passions, gently sooth'd away, / Sink to divine repose, and love and joy / Alone are waking; love and joy, serene / As airs that fan the summer.""",5366,2011-06-11,HDIS (Poetry),2004-01-06 00:00:00 UTC,"•Edited to include more lines: Throne and Population now lumped in; two entries deleted.
•INTERESTING. The intellectual power is often female.",Book I,Inhabitants and Throne
2014-07-15 16:04:26 UTC,18775,"Ye pale Inhabitants of Night,
Before my intellectual Sight
In solemn Pomp ascend:
O tell how trifling now appears
The Train of idle Hopes and Fears
That varying Life attend.
Ye faithless Idols of our Sense,
Here own how vain your fond Pretence,
Ye empty Names of Joy!
Your transient Forms like Shadows pass,
Frail Offspring of the magic Glass,
Before the mental Eye.
The dazzling Colours, falsely bright,
Attract the gazing vulgar Sight
With superficial State:
Thro' Reason's clearer Optics view'd,
How stript of all it's Pomp, how rude
Appears the painted Cheat.
(pp. 80-1)",Mind's Eye,"Melancholy's ""transient Forms like Shadows pass, / Frail Offspring of the magic Glass, / Before the mental Eye.""",6964,,Reading,2011-06-23 04:17:33 UTC,"","",Mirror
2011-06-27 18:01:40 UTC,18819,"But I shall have one comfort, if I marry, which pleases me not a little. If a man's wife has a dear friend of her sex, a hundred liberties may be taken with that friend, which could not be taken, if the single lady (knowing what a title to freedoms marriage has given him with her friend) was not less scrupulous with him than she ought to be, as to herself. Then there are broad freedoms (shall I call them?) that may be taken by the husband with his wife, that may not be quite shocking, which if the wife bears before her friend, will serve for a lesson to that friend; and if that friend bears to be present at them without check or bashfulness, will shew a sagacious fellow, that she can bear as much herself, at proper time and place. Chastity, Jack, like Piety, is an uniform thing. If in look, if in speech, a girl waves way to undue levity, depend upon it, the devil has got one of his cloven feet in her heart already -- So, Hickman, take care of thyself, I advise thee, whether I marry or not.","","""If in look, if in speech, a girl waves way to undue levity, depend upon it, the devil has got one of his cloven feet in her heart already.""",4785,,"Reading Laura E. Thomason's ""Hester Chapone as a Living Clarissa in Letters on Filial Obedience and A Matrimonial Creed."" Eighteenth Century Fiction 21.3 (2009): 329. <Link to Project Muse",2011-06-27 18:00:11 UTC,"","Vol. 6, Letter 33",""
2013-06-10 19:55:06 UTC,20492,"And, first, the importance of our end survey'd.
Friends counsel quick dismission of our grief.
Mistaken kindness! our hearts heal too soon.
Are they more kind than He who struck the blow,
Who bid it do His errand in our hearts,
And banish peace, till nobler guests arrive,
And bring it back a true and endless peace?
Calamities are friends: as glaring day
Of these unnumber'd lustres robs our sight,
Prosperity puts out unnumber'd thoughts
Of import high, and light Divine, to man.
(ll. 299-309, pp. 124-5 in CUP edition)","","""Mistaken kindness! our hearts heal too soon. / Are they more kind than He who struck the blow, / Who bid it do His errand in our hearts, / And banish peace, till nobler guests arrive, / And bring it back a true and endless peace?""",7407,,Reading,2013-06-10 19:54:27 UTC,"",Night the Fifth,Inhabitants
2013-06-10 20:08:03 UTC,20496,"Is this the cause Death flies all human thought?
Or is it Judgment by the Will struck blind,
(That domineering mistress of the soul,)
Like him so strong, by Delilah the fair?
Or is it Fear turns startled Reason back,
From looking down a precipice so steep?
'Tis dreadful; and the dread is wisely placed,
By Nature, conscious of the make of man.
A dreadful friend it is, a terror kind,
A flaming sword to guard the tree of life.
By that unawed, in life's most smiling hour,
The good man would repine; would suffer joys,
And burn impatient for his promised skies.
The bad, on each punctilious pique of Pride,
Or gloom of Humour, would give Rage the rein,
Bound o'er the barrier, rush into the dark,
And mar the schemes of Providence below.
(ll. 417-433, pp. 127-8 in CUP edition)","","""Is this the cause Death flies all human thought? / Or is it Judgment by the Will struck blind, / (That domineering mistress of the soul,) / Like him so strong, by Delilah the fair?""",7407,,Reading,2013-06-10 20:08:03 UTC,"",Night the Fifth,Inhabitants