work_id,theme,provenance,created_at,text,reviewed_on,id,comments,metaphor,dictionary,updated_at,context
5767,"",Reading,2005-09-19 00:00:00 UTC,"At this time I think he had published nothing with his name, thought it was pretty well known that one Dr. Goldsmith was the author of ""An Enquiry into the present State of polite Learning in Europe,"" and of ""The Citizen of the World,"" a series of letters supposed o be written from London by a Chinese. No man had the art of displaying with more advantage as a writer, whatever literary acquisitions he made. ""Nihil quod tetigit non ornavit."" His mind resembled a fertile, but thin soil. There was a quick, but not a strong vegetation, of whatever chanced to be thrown upon it. No deep root could be struck. The oak of the forest did not grow there: but the elegant shrubbery and the fragrant parterre appeared in gay succession. It has been generally circulated and believed that he was a mere fool in conversation; but, in truth, this has been greatly exaggerated. He had, no doubt, a more than common share of that hurry of ideas which we often find in his countrymen, and which sometimes produces a laughable confusion in expressing them. He was very much what the French call un étourdi, and from vanity and an eager desire of being conspicuous wherever he was, he frequently talked carelessly without knowledge of his subject, or even without thought. His person was short, his countenance coarse and vulgar, his deportment that of a scholar awkwardly affecting the easy gentleman. Those who were in any way distinguished, excited envy in him to so ridiculous an excess, that the instances of it are hardly credible. When accompanying two beautiful ladies with their mother on tour in France, he was seriously angry that more attention was paid to them than to him; and once at an exhibition of the Fantoccini in London, when those who sat next him observed with what dexterity a puppet was made to toss a pike, he could not bear that it should have such praise, and exclaimed with some warmth, ""Pshaw! I can do better myself.""
(pp. 259-61)",,15357,"•Extended through the following sentences. I've included five times: Soil, Vegetation, Root, Shrubbery","""His mind resembled a fertile, but thin soil. There was a quick, but not a strong vegetation, of whatever chanced to be thrown upon it. No deep root could be struck. The oak of the forest did not grow there: but the elegant shrubbery and the fragrant parterre appeared in gay succession.""","",2011-03-24 20:00:54 UTC,"A.D. 1763, Aetat. 54"
5767,"",Reading,2005-09-19 00:00:00 UTC,"""I have now vexed you enough, and will try to please you. Your resolution to obey your father I sincerely approve; but do not accustom yourself to enchain your volatility by vows; they will sometime leave a thorn in your mind, which you will, perhaps, never be able to extract or eject. Take this warning; it is of great importance.
(p. 327)",2011-05-26,15362,"","""Your resolution to obey your father I sincerely approve; but do not accustom yourself to enchain your volatility by vows; they will sometime leave a thorn in your mind, which you will, perhaps, never be able to extract or eject.""",Fetters,2011-05-26 19:03:41 UTC,"A.D. 1766, Aetat. 57"
5767,"",Reading,2016-03-15 04:28:02 UTC,"He was of opinion, that the English nation cultivated both their soil and their reason better than any other people; but admitted that the French, though not the highest, perhaps, in any department of literature, yet in every department were very high. Intellectual pre-eminence, he observed, was the highest superiority; and that every nation derived their highest reputation from the splendour and dignity of their writers. Voltaire, he said, was a good narrator, and that his principal merit consisted in a happy selection and arrangement of circumstances.
(I, p. 342; p. 326 in Penguin)",,24879,"","""He was of opinion, that the English nation cultivated both their soil and their reason better than any other people; but admitted that the French, though not the highest, perhaps, in any department of literature, yet in every department were very high.""","",2016-03-15 04:28:02 UTC,"AETAT. 61, 1770"