work_id,theme,provenance,created_at,text,reviewed_on,id,comments,metaphor,dictionary,updated_at,context
7439,"",C-H Lion,2013-06-14 05:33:57 UTC,"Lady Adelina reached the gate, which opened from the cliffs to the lawn, she was fatigued by her lovely burthen and forced to stop. Emmeline would then have taken him; but she said no; and sitting down on the ground, held him in her lap, till Barret who had seen her from a window, came out and took him from her; to which, as to a thing usual, she consented, and then walked calmly home with Emmeline, who, extremely discomposed by the wildness of her manner, was fearful of again introducing any interesting topic, least she should again touch those fine chords which were untuned in the mind of her unhappy friend; and which seemed occasionally to vibrate with an acuteness that threatened the ruin of the whole fabric. Barret, who afterwards came to assist her in dressing, told her, that within the last six weeks her lady had often been subject to long fits of absence, sometimes of tears; and that they generally ended in her snatching the child eagerly to her, kissing him with the wildest fondness, and after having kept him with her some time, and wept extremely, she usually became rational and composed for the rest of the day.
(IV, p. 267)",,20703,"","""Emmeline would then have taken him; but she said no; and sitting down on the ground, held him in her lap, till Barret who had seen her from a window, came out and took him from her; to which, as to a thing usual, she consented, and then walked calmly home with Emmeline, who, extremely discomposed by the wildness of her manner, was fearful of again introducing any interesting topic, least she should again touch those fine chords which were untuned in the mind of her unhappy friend; and which seemed occasionally to vibrate with an acuteness that threatened the ruin of the whole fabric.""","",2013-06-14 05:33:57 UTC,""
7629,"",ECCO-TCP,2013-08-19 03:17:16 UTC,"I am provoked at this natural incapacity of conveying my sentiments to you; words are but a cloak, or rather a clog, to our ideas; there should be no curtain before the hearts of friends; and the longing I have ever felt for an intuitive converse, is to me a strong argument for a future state--What says my sceptical friend to this opinion?--Don't be alarmed, I am not going to sermonize--but what is almost as dull, to narrate.
(I, p. 2)",,22404,"","""I am provoked at this natural incapacity of conveying my sentiments to you; words are but a cloak, or rather a clog, to our ideas; there should be no curtain before the hearts of friends; and the longing I have ever felt for an intuitive converse, is to me a strong argument for a future state.""","",2013-08-19 03:17:16 UTC,""
5088,"",Contributed by Neal Curtis,2015-11-24 21:57:49 UTC,"My father, who dipp'd into all kinds of books, upon looking into Lithopædus Senonesis de Partu difficili, published by Adrianus Smelvgot, had found out, That the lax and pliable state of a child's head in parturition, the bones of the cranium having no sutures at that time, was such,--that by force of the woman's efforts, which, in strong labour-pains, was equal, upon an average, to a weight of 470 pounds averdupoise acting perpendicularly upon it;--it so happened that, in 49 instances out of 50, the said head was compressed and moulded into the shape of an oblong conical piece of dough, such as a pastry-cook generally rolls up in order to make a pye of.---Good God! cried my father, what havock and destruction must this make in the infinitely fine and tender texture of the cerebellum!--Or if there is such a juice as Borri pretends,--is it not enough to make the clearest liquor in the world both feculent and mothery?
But how great was his apprehension, when he further understood, that this force, acting upon the very vertex of the head, not only injured the brain itself or cerebrum,--but that it necessarily squeez'd and propell'd the cerebrum towards the cerebellum, which was the immediate seat of the understanding.--Angels and Ministers of grace defend us! cried my father,--can any soul withstand this shock?--No wonder the intellectual web is so rent and tatter'd as we see it; and that so many of our best heads are no better than a puzzled skein of silk,--all perplexity,--all confusion within side.
(II.xix, pp. 172-4)",,24738,"","""Angels and Ministers of grace defend us! cried my father,--can any soul withstand this shock?--No wonder the intellectual web is so rent and tatter'd as we see it; and that so many of our best heads are no better than a puzzled skein of silk,--all perplexity,--all confusion within side.""","",2015-11-24 21:58:14 UTC,"Volume II, chapter xix"
5088,"",Contributed by Neal Curtis,2015-11-24 22:04:05 UTC,"When my father was gone with this about a month, there was scarce a phænomenon of stupidity or of genius, which he could not readily solve by it;--it accounted for the eldest son being the greatest blockhead in the family.--Poor devil, he would say,--he made way for the capacity of his younger brothers.--It unriddled the observation of drivellers and monstrous heads,--shewing, à priori, it could not be otherwise,--unless * * * * I don't know what. It wonderfully explain'd and accounted for the acumen of the Asiatic genius, and that sprightlier turn, and a more penetrating intuition of minds, in warmer climates; not from the loose and common-place solution of a clearer sky, and a more perpetual sun-shine, &c.--which, for aught he knew, might as well rarify and dilute the faculties of the soul into nothing, by one extreme,--as they are condensed in colder climates by the other;--but he traced the affair up to its spring-head;--shew'd that, in warmer climates, nature had laid a lighter tax upon the fairest parts of the creation;--their pleasures more;--the necessity of their pains less, insomuch that the pressure and resistance upon the vertex was so slight, that the whole organization of the cerebellum was preserved;--nay, he did not believe, in natural births, that so much as a single thread of the net-work was broke or displaced,--so that the soul might just act as she liked.
(II.xix, pp. 176-7)",,24740,"","""It wonderfully explain'd and accounted for the acumen of the Asiatic genius, and that sprightlier turn, and a more penetrating intuition of minds, in warmer climates; not from the loose and common-place solution of a clearer sky, and a more perpetual sun-shine, &c.--which, for aught he knew, might as well rarify and dilute the faculties of the soul into nothing, by one extreme,--as they are condensed in colder climates by the other;--but he traced the affair up to its spring-head;--shew'd that, in warmer climates, nature had laid a lighter tax upon the fairest parts of the creation;--their pleasures more;--the necessity of their pains less, insomuch that the pressure and resistance upon the vertex was so slight, that the whole organization of the cerebellum was preserved;--nay, he did not believe, in natural births, that so much as a single thread of the net-work was broke or displaced,--so that the soul might just act as she liked.""","",2015-11-24 22:04:53 UTC,"Volume II, chapter xix"
5088,"",Reading,2016-02-23 16:03:36 UTC,"With all my precautions, how was my system turned topside turvy in the womb with my child! his head exposed to the hand of violence, and a pressure of 470 pounds averdupois weight acting so perpendicularly upon its apex---that at this hour 'tis ninety per Cent. insurance, that the fine network of the intellectual web be not rent and torn to a thousand tatters.
(IV.xix, p. 134; Norton, 216)",,24844,"","""With all my precautions, how was my system turned topside turvy in the womb with my child! his head exposed to the hand of violence, and a pressure of 470 pounds averdupois weight acting so perpendicularly upon its apex---that at this hour 'tis ninety per Cent. insurance, that the fine network of the intellectual web be not rent and torn to a thousand tatters.""","",2016-02-23 16:03:36 UTC,"Vol. IV, Chap. xix"