text,updated_at,metaphor,created_at,context,theme,reviewed_on,dictionary,comments,provenance,id,work_id
"The fair Sicilians now thy Soul inflame;
Why was I born, ye Gods, a Lesbian Dame?
But ah beware, Sicilian Nymphs! nor boast
That wandring heart which I so lately lost;
Nor be with all those tempting Words abus'd,
Those tempting Words were all to Sapho us'd.
(ll. 63-68, p. 30-1)",2009-09-14 19:35:14 UTC,"""The fair Sicilians now thy Soul inflame; / Why was I born, ye Gods, a Lesbian Dame?""",2003-12-05 00:00:00 UTC,"","",,"","",Reading,10741,4164
"With this Resolution I enter'd the Wood, and with all possible Waryness and Silence, Friday following close at my Heels, I march'd till I came to the Skirt of the Wood, on the Side which was next to them; only that one Corner of the Wood lay between me and them; here I call'd softly to Friday, and shewing him a great Tree, which was just at the Corner of the Wood, I bad him go to the Tree, and bring me Word if he could see there plainly what they were doing; he did so, and came immediately back to me, and told me they might be plainly view'd there; that they were all about their Fire, eating the Flesh of one of their Prisoners; and that another lay bound upon the Sand, a little from them, which he said they would kill next, and which fir'd all the very Soul within me; he told me it was not one of their Nation, but one of the bearded Men, who he had told me of, that came to their Country in the Boat: I was fill'd with Horror at the very naming the white-bearded Man, and going to the Tree, I saw plainly, by my Glass, a white Man who lay upon the Beach of the Sea, with his Hands and his Feet ty'd with Flags, or Things like Rushes; and that he was an European, and had Cloaths on.
(p. 276)",2011-06-07 18:18:42 UTC,"""I bad him go to the Tree, and bring me Word if he could see there plainly what they were doing; he did so, and came immediately back to me, and told me they might be plainly view'd there; that they were all about their Fire, eating the Flesh of one of their Prisoners; and that another lay bound upon the Sand, a little from them, which he said they would kill next, and which fir'd all the very Soul within me.""",2004-01-14 00:00:00 UTC,"","",,"","",HDIS (Prose),11145,4269
"As long as I kept up my daily Tour to the Hill to look out, so long also I kept up the Vigour of my Design, and my Spirits seem'd to be all the while in a suitable Form for so outragious an Execution as the killing twenty or thirty naked Savages, for an Offence which I had not at all entred into a Discussion of in my Thoughts, any farther than my Passions were at first fir'd by the Horror I conceiv'd at the unnatural Custom of that People of the Country, who, it seems, had been suffer'd by Providence, in his wise Disposition of the World, to have no other Guide than that of their own abominable and vitiated Passions; and consequently were left, and perhaps had been so for some Ages, to act such horrid Things, and receive such dreadful Customs, as nothing but Nature entirely abandon'd of Heaven, and acted by some Hellish Degeneracy, could have run them into: But now when, as I have said, I began to be weary of the fruitless Excursion which I had made so long, and so far, every Morning in vain, so my Opinion of the Action itself began to alter, and I began with cooler and calmer Thoughts to consider what it was I was going to engage in. What Authority or Call I had, to pretend to be Judge and Executioner upon these Men as Criminals, whom Heaven had thought fit for so many Ages to suffer unpunish'd, to go on, and to be, as it were, the Executioners of his Judgments one upon another. How far these People were Offenders against me, and what Right I had to engage in the Quarrel of that Blood, which they shed promiscuously one upon another. I debated this very often with my self thus; How do I know what God himself judges in this particular Case? it is certain these People either do not commit this as a Crime; it is not against their own Consciences reproving, or their Light reproaching them. They do not know it to be an Offence, and then commit it in Defiance of Divine Justice, as we do in almost all the Sins we commit. They think it no more a Crime to kill a Captive taken in War, than we do to kill an Ox; nor to eat humane Flesh, than we do to eat Mutton.
(pp. 201-2)",2010-07-01 20:35:47 UTC,"""As long as I kept up my daily Tour to the Hill to look out, so long also I kept up the Vigour of my Design, and my Spirits seem'd to be all the while in a suitable Form for so outragious an Execution as the killing twenty or thirty naked Savages, for an Offence which I had not at all entred into a Discussion of in my Thoughts, any farther than my Passions were at first fir'd by the Horror I conceiv'd at the unnatural Custom of that People of the Country, who, it seems, had been suffer'd by Providence, in his wise Disposition of the World, to have no other Guide than that of their own abominable and vitiated Passions; and consequently were left, and perhaps had been so for some Ages, to act such horrid Things, and receive such dreadful Customs, as nothing but Nature entirely abandon'd of Heaven, and acted by some Hellish Degeneracy, could have run them into.""",2004-01-14 00:00:00 UTC,"","",,"","",HDIS (Prose),11154,4269
"I should now have done, if I were not convinced that whatever I have yet advanced upon this subject is liable to great exception. For allowing all I have said to be true, it may still be justly objected that there is, in the commonwealth of artificial enthusiasm, some real foundation for art to work upon in the temper and complexion of individuals, which other mortals seem to want. Observe but the gesture, the motion, and the countenance, of some choice professors though in their most familiar actions, you will find them of a different race from the rest of human creatures. Remark your commonest pretender to a light within, how dark, and dirty, and gloomy he is without; as lanterns which, the more light they bear in their bodies, cast out so much the more soot and smoke and fuliginous matter to adhere to the sides. Listen but to their ordinary talk, and look on the mouth that delivers it; you will imagine you are hearing some ancient oracle, and your understanding will be equally informed. Upon these and the like reasons, certain objectors pretend to put it beyond all doubt that there must be a sort of preternatural spirit, possessing the heads of the modern saints; and some will have it to be the heat of zeal working upon the dregs of ignorance, as other spirits are produced from lees by the force of fire. Some again think that when our earthly tabernacles are disordered and desolate, shaken and out of repair, the spirit delights to dwell within them, as houses are said to be haunted, when they are forsaken and gone to decay.
(p. 138)",2009-09-14 19:50:16 UTC,"""Remark your commonest pretender to a light within, how dark, and dirty, and gloomy he is without; as lanterns which, the more light they bear in their bodies, cast out so much the more soot and smoke and fuliginous matter to adhere to the sides.""",2009-07-09 00:00:00 UTC,"","",,"",I've included twice: Lantern and Fire,Reading,17466,6572
"If your mistakes their ill opinion gain,
No merit can their favour reobtain:
And if they're not vindictive in their fury,
'Tis their unconstant temper does secure ye;
Their brain's so cool, their passion seldom burns;
For all's condens'd before the flame returns;
The fermentation's of so weak a matter,
The humid damps the fume, and runs it all to water.
So, tho the inclination may be strong,
They're pleas'd by fits, and never angry long.
(Part II, p. 41, ll. 558-67)",2010-06-08 21:34:49 UTC,"""Their brain's so cool, their passion seldom burns; / For all's condens'd before the flame returns; The fermentation's of so weak a matter, / The humid damps the fume, and runs it all to water.""",2010-06-08 21:34:49 UTC,Part II,"",,"","",Reading,17875,6718
"It is without Doubt, that Fancy and Imagination form a world of Apparitions in the Minds of Men and Women; (for we must not exclude the Ladies in this Part, whatever we do) and People go away as thoroughly possess'd with the Reality of having seen the Devil, as if they convers'd Face to Face with him; when in short the Matter is no more than a Vapour of the Brain, a sick delirious fume of Smoke in the Hypochondria; forming it self in such and such Figure to the Eye-sight of the Mind, as well as of the Head, which all look'd upon with a calm Revision, would appear, as it really is, nothing but a Nothing, a Skeleton of the Brain, a Whymsy, and no more.
(p. 390)",2013-08-16 18:26:49 UTC,"""It is without Doubt, that Fancy and Imagination form a world of Apparitions in the Minds of Men and Women; (for we must not exclude the Ladies in this Part, whatever we do) and People go away as thoroughly possess'd with the Reality of having seen the Devil, as if they convers'd Face to Face with him; when in short the Matter is no more than a Vapour of the Brain, a sick delirious fume of Smoke in the Hypochondria; forming it self in such and such Figure to the Eye-sight of the Mind, as well as of the Head, which all look'd upon with a calm Revision, would appear, as it really is, nothing but a Nothing, a Skeleton of the Brain, a Whymsy, and no more.""",2013-08-16 18:26:49 UTC,Chapter XV,"",,"","INTEREST: a common phrase ""a skeleton of the brain""? ",Searching in ECCO-TCP,22233,7593
"Nor shall it any ways detract from the just reputation of this famous sect that its rise and institution are owing to such an author as I have described Jack to be, a person whose intellectuals were overturned and his brain shaken out of its natural position, which we commonly suppose to be a distemper, and call by the name of madness or frenzy. For if we take a survey of the greatest actions that have been performed in the world under the influence of single men, which are the establishment of new empires by conquest, the advance and progress of new schemes in philosophy, and the contriving as well as the propagating of new religions, we shall find the authors of them all to have been persons whose natural reason hath admitted great revolutions from their diet, their education, the prevalency of some certain temper, together with the particular influence of air and climate. Besides, there is something individual in human minds that easily kindles at the accidental approach and collision of certain circumstances, which, though of paltry and mean appearance, do often flame out into the greatest emergencies of life. For great turns are not always given by strong hands, but by lucky adaptation and at proper seasons, and it is of no import where the fire was kindled if the vapour has once got up into the brain. For the upper region of man is furnished like the middle region of the air, the materials are formed from causes of the widest difference, yet produce at last the same substance and effect. Mists arise from the earth, steams from dunghills, exhalations from the sea, and smoke from fire; yet all clouds are the same in composition as well as consequences, and the fumes issuing from a jakes will furnish as comely and useful a vapour as incense from an altar. Thus far, I suppose, will easily be granted me; and then it will follow that as the face of Nature never produces rain but when it is overcast and disturbed, so human understanding seated in the brain must be troubled and overspread by vapours ascending from the lower faculties to water the invention and render it fruitful. Now although these vapours (as it hath been already said) are of as various original as those of the skies, yet the crop they produce differs both in kind and degree, merely according to the soil. I will produce two instances to prove and explain what I am now advancing.
(pp. 77-8 in OUP ed.)",2013-09-11 21:23:57 UTC,"""Besides, there is something individual in human minds that easily kindles at the accidental approach and collision of certain circumstances, which, though of paltry and mean appearance, do often flame out into the greatest emergencies of life.""",2013-09-11 21:23:57 UTC,"","",,"","",Reading,22714,4024
"The Heart of the tender Youth, by forbearance of Instruction, grows opinionated, and obstinately embraces the Follies he has been indulg'd in, not being easily convinc'd of the criminal Quality of what he has been so long allow'd the Practice of by his negligent Parents; and this renders late Instruction fruitless: THEN as to Correction, the Heart being hardned, as before, by Opinion and Practice, and especially in a Belief that he ought not to be corrected, the Rod of Correction has a different Effect; for as the Blow of a Stripe makes an Impression on the Heart of a Child, as stamping a Seal does upon the soft Wax, the Reproof even of Words on the same Heart when grown up, and made hard, is like striking upon Steel, which instead of making an Impression on the Metal, darts back sparks of Fire in your Face.
(pp. 68-9)",2014-03-12 21:07:31 UTC,"""THEN as to Correction, the Heart being hardned, as before, by Opinion and Practice, and especially in a Belief that he ought not to be corrected, the Rod of Correction has a different Effect; for as the Blow of a Stripe makes an Impression on the Heart of a Child, as stamping a Seal does upon the soft Wax, the Reproof even of Words on the same Heart when grown up, and made hard, is like striking upon Steel, which instead of making an Impression on the Metal, darts back sparks of Fire in your Face.""",2014-03-12 21:07:11 UTC,"","",,Impressions and Metal,INTEREST. USE IN ENTRY. ,"Searching ""steel"" and ""heart"" in ECCO-TCP",23681,7846
"They pour along like a Fire that sweeps the whole Earth before it. 'Tis however remarkable that his Fancy, which is every where vigorous, is not discover'd immediately at the beginning of his Poem in its fullest Splendor: It grows in the Progress both upon himself and others, and becomes on Fire like a Chariot-Wheel, by its own Rapidity. Exact Disposition, just Thought, correct Elocution, polish'd Numbers, may have been found in a thousand; but this Poetical Fire, this Vivida vis animi, in a very few. Even in Works where all those are imperfect or neglected, this can over-power Criticism, and make us admire even while we dis-approve. Nay, where this appears, tho' attended with Absurdities, it brightens all the Rubbish about it, 'till we see nothing but its own Splendor. This Fire is discern'd in Virgil, but discern'd as through a Glass, reflected, and more shining than warm, but every where equal and constant: In Lucan and Statius, it bursts out in sudden, short, and interrupted Flashes: In Milton, it glows like a Furnace kept to an uncommon Fierceness by the Force of Art: In Shakespear, it strikes before we are aware, like an accidental Fire from Heaven: But in Homer, and in him only, it burns every where clearly, and every where irresistibly.
",2016-03-01 06:17:07 UTC,"""'Tis however remarkable that his Fancy, which is every where vigorous, is not discover'd immediately at the beginning of his Poem in its fullest Splendor: It grows in the Progress both upon himself and others, and becomes on Fire like a Chariot-Wheel, by its own Rapidity.""",2016-03-01 06:15:12 UTC,Preface,"",,"","",Reading,24849,4209
"In a Glass-House, the Workmen often fling in a small quantity of fresh Coals, which seems to disturb the Fire, but very much enlivens it. This seems to allude to a gentle stirring of the Passions, that the Mind may not languish.
(p. 235)",2023-09-11 15:59:26 UTC,"""In a Glass-House, the Workmen often fling in a small quantity of fresh Coals, which seems to disturb the Fire, but very much enlivens it. This seems to allude to a gentle stirring of the Passions, that the Mind may not languish.""",2023-09-07 17:20:51 UTC,"","",,"","",Reading,25322,8364