work_id,theme,provenance,created_at,text,reviewed_on,id,comments,metaphor,dictionary,updated_at,context
5604,"",Searching in HDIS (Poetry),2005-06-01 00:00:00 UTC,"Sonnet LXXVII.
To the Insect of the Gossamer
Small, viewless aeronaut, that by the line
Of Gossamer suspended, in mid air
Float'st on a sun-beam--Living atom, where
Ends thy breeze-guided voyage? With what design
In æther dost thou launch thy form minute,
Mocking the eye? Alas! before the veil
Of denser clouds shall hide thee, the pursuit
Of the keen Swift may end thy fairy sail!
Thus on the golden thread that Fancy weaves
Buoyant, as Hope's illusive flattery breathes,
The young and visionary Poet leaves
Life's dull realities, while sevenfold wreaths
Of rainbow light around his head revolve.
Ah! soon at Sorrow's touch the radiant dreams dissolve.
(ii, p. 18) ",,14976,"• INTEREST: punning on ""line,"" poet/insect. USE IN ENTRY?","""Thus on the golden thread that Fancy weaves / Buoyant, as Hope's illusive flattery breathes, / The young and visionary Poet leaves / Life's dull realities, while sevenfold wreaths / Of rainbow light around his head revolve.""",Animals,2013-06-13 16:10:58 UTC,Volume II
5949,"","Reading Sheryl O' Donnell's ""Mr. Locke and the Ladies: The Indelible Words on the Tabula Rasa,"" Studies in Eighteenth-Century Culture. 8 (1979): 151–64. p. 157.",2005-07-06 00:00:00 UTC,"what knowledge they [women] have gotten stands out as it were above the very surface of their minds, like the appliquée fo the embroiderer, instead of having been interwoven with the growth of the piece, so as to have become a part of the stuff. They did not, like men, acquire what they know while the texture was forming.",2007-10-12,15794,"","""[W]hat knowledge they [women] have gotten stands out as it were above the very surface of their minds, like the appliquée of the embroiderer, instead of having been interwoven with the growth of the piece, so as to have become a part of the stuff. They did not, like men, acquire what they know while the texture was forming.""","",2009-09-14 19:44:41 UTC,""
6611,Dress of Thought,Reading,2009-12-02 18:23:29 UTC,"Our penal laws punish with death the thief who steals a few pounds; but to take by violence, or trepan, a man, is no such heinous offence.– For who shall dare to complain of the venerable vestige of the law that rendered the life of a deer more sacred than that of a man? But it was the poor man with only his native dignity who was thus oppressed – and only metaphysical sophists and cold mathematicians can discern this insubstantial form; it is a work of abstraction – and a gentleman of lively imagination must borrow some drapery from fancy before he can love or pity a man. — Misery, to reach your heart, I perceive, must have its cap and bells; your tears are reserved, very naturally considering your character, for the declamation of the theatre, or for the downfall of queens, whose rank alters the nature of folly, and throws a graceful veil over vices that degrade humanity; whilst the distress of many industrious mothers, whose helpmates have been torn from them, and the hungry cry of helpless babes, were vulgar sorrows that could not move your commiseration, though they might extort an alms. ‘The tears that are shed for fictitious sorrow are admirably adapted,’ says Rousseau, ‘to make us proud of all the virtues which we do not possess.’
(p. 45)",,17535,"","""But it was the poor man with only his native dignity who was thus oppressed – and only metaphysical sophists and cold mathematicians can discern this insubstantial form; it is a work of abstraction – and a gentleman of lively imagination must borrow some drapery from fancy before he can love or pity a man.""","",2009-12-02 18:24:05 UTC,""
7542,"",Reading; text from Google Books,2013-07-12 15:00:17 UTC,"I am glad you think that a friend's having been persecuted, imprisoned, maimed, and almost murdered, under the ancient government of France, is a good excuse for loving the revolution. What, indeed, but friendship, could have led my attention from the annals of imagination to the records of politics; from the poetry to the prose of human life? In vain might Aristocrates have explained to me the rights of kings, and Democrates have descanted on the rights of the people. How many fine-spun threads of reasoning would my wandering thoughts have broken; and how difficult should I have found it to arrange arguments and inferences in the cells of my brain! But, however dull the faculties of my head, I can assure you, that when a proposition is addressed to my heart, I have some quickness of perception. I can then decide, in one moment, points upon which philosophers and legislators have differed in all ages: nor could I be more convinced of the truth of any demonstration in Euclid, than I am, that, that system of politics must be the best, by which those I love are made happy.
(Letter XXIII, p. 195; p. 140 in Broadview ed.)",,21702,"","""How many fine-spun threads of reasoning would my wandering thoughts have broken; and how difficult should I have found it to arrange arguments and inferences in the cells of my brain!""",Rooms,2013-07-12 15:00:17 UTC,Letter XXIII