id,comments,provenance,dictionary,created_at,reviewed_on,work_id,theme,context,updated_at,metaphor,text
8436,"",Reading Watt's The Rise of the Novel (88),"",2004-04-18 00:00:00 UTC,2009-02-18,6838,Introspection; Madness,"",2009-09-14 19:33:34 UTC,"""Remember (continued he) that the solitary mortal is certainly luxurious, probably superstitious, and possibly mad: the mind stagnates for want of employment, grows morbid, and is extinguished like a candle in foul air.""","With advising others to be charitable however, Dr. Johnson did not content himfelf. He gave away all he had, and all he ever had gotten, except the two thousand pounds he left behind; and the very small portion of his income which he spent on himself, with all our calculation, we never could make more than seventy, or at most fourscore pounds a year, and he pretended to allow himself a hundred. He had numberless dependents out of doors as well as in, ""who, as he expressed it, did not like to see him latterly unless he brought 'em money."" For those people he used frequently to raise contributions on his richer friends ; "" and this (says he) is [End Page 105] one of the thoufand reasons which ought to restrain a man from drony solitude and useless retirement. Solitude (added he one day) is dangerous to reason, without being favourable to virtue: pleasures of some sort are necessary to the intellectual as to the corporeal health; and those who resist gaiety, will be likely for the most part to fall a sacrifice to appetite; for the solicitations of senfe are always at hand, and a dram to a vacant and solitary perfon is a speedy and seducing relief. Remember (continued he) that the solitary mortal is certainly luxurious, probably superstitious, and possibly mad: the mind stagnates for want of employment, grows morbid, and is extinguished like a candle in foul air."" It was on this principle that Johnfon encouraged parents to carry their daughters early and much into company: ""for what harm can be done before so many witnesses ? Solitude is the sureft nurse of all prurient passions, [End Page 106] and a girl in the hurry of preparation, or tumult of gaiety, has neither inclination nor leisure to let tender expressions soften or sink into her heart. The ball, the show, are not the dangerous places: no, 'tis the private friend, the kind consoler, the companion of the easy vacant hour, whose compliance with her opinions can flatter her vanity, and whose conversation can just sooth, without ever stretching her mind, that is the lover to be feared: he who buzzes in her ear at court, or at the opera, must be contented to buzz in vain."" These notions Dr. Johnson carried so very far, that I have heard him say, ""if you would shut up any man with any woman, so as to make them derive their whole pleasure from each other, they would inevitably fall in love, as it is called, with each other; but at six months end if you would throw them both into public life where they might change partners at pleasure, each would soon forget that fondness [End Page 107] which mutual dependance, and the paucity of general amusement alone, had caused, and each would separately feel delighted by their release.""
(pp. 105-8)"
15071,"",Searching in HDIS (Poetry),"",2005-06-07 00:00:00 UTC,,5628,"","",2009-09-14 19:42:41 UTC,"""In thy mild rhetoric dwells a social love / Beyond my wild conceptions, optics false!/ Thro' which I falsely judg'd of polish'd life""","Stella, how strong thy gentle argument!
By the convinc'd, I scorn the iron lore,
The savage virtues of untutor'd minds:
In thy mild rhetoric dwells a social love
Beyond my wild conceptions, optics false!
Thro' which I falsely judg'd of polish'd life."
15101,"","Searching ""engrav"" and ""heart"" in HDIS (Drama)",Writing,2005-03-09 00:00:00 UTC,,5650,"","Act IV, scene i",2012-07-05 17:01:25 UTC,"""But your humanity must ever be engraved on my heart.""","LADY.
I am a stranger to them, Sir.--But your humanity must ever be engraved on my heart."
17957,"",Contributed by PC Fleming,"",2010-07-14 20:58:05 UTC,,6746,"","",2010-07-14 20:58:05 UTC,"""It is true, that I have the dear little babes of some particular friends more immediately in view; but my heart glows at the idea of smoothing the thorny paths of a thousand little innocents—of sparing the tears of helpless infants.""","But I too have my joys;—if it were not a pleasure to me to facilitate the progress of children, I should not engage in preparing this apparatus for them.—It is true, that I have the dear little babes of some particular friends more immediately in view; but my heart glows at the idea of smoothing the thorny paths of a thousand little innocents—of sparing the tears of helpless infants. But I am wandering from my purpose, which was this—to hint, that a sprightly female must exert herself beyond what my diffidence will allow be to do;—she must (if she would be very successful) expatiate in a mirthful manner on the subject; and vary her frolics as occasion requires. (page 23)"
17958,"",Contributed by PC Fleming,"",2010-07-14 21:17:30 UTC,,6746,"","",2010-07-14 21:17:30 UTC,"""Authority may place a child in the path of learning; but pleasure only can entice him on; let us therefor endeavour to strew the entrance with flowers, which may induce him to proceed with alacrity.""","Authority may place a child in the path of learning; but pleasure only can entice him on; let us therefor endeavour to strew the entrance with flowers, which may induce him to proceed with alacrity. (page 52)"
18365,"",Reading,"",2011-05-08 07:20:15 UTC,,6838,"","",2011-05-08 07:20:15 UTC,"""'Solitude,' added he one day, 'is dangerous to reason, without being favourable to virtue: pleasures of some sort are necessary to the intellectual as to the corporeal health; and those who resist gaiety will be likely for the most part to fall a sacrifice to appetite; for the solicitations of sense are always at hand, and a dram to a vacant and solitary person is a speedy and seducing relief.'""","
With advising others to be charitable, however, Dr. Johnson did not content himself. He gave away all he had, and all he ever had gotten, except the two thousand pounds he left behind; and the very small portion of his income which he spent on himself, with all our calculation, we never could make more than seventy, or at most four-score pounds a year, and he pretended to allow himself a hundred. He had numberless dependents out of doors as well as in, who, as he expressed it, ""did not like to see him latterly unless he brought 'em money."" For those people he used frequently to raise contributions on his richer friends; ""and this,"" says he, ""is one of the thousand reasons which ought to restrain a man from drony solitude and useless retirement. Solitude,"" added he one day, ""is dangerous to reason, without being favourable to virtue: pleasures of some sort are necessary to the intellectual as to the corporeal health; and those who resist gaiety will be likely for the most part to fall a sacrifice to appetite; for the solicitations of sense are always at hand, and a dram to a vacant and solitary person is a speedy and seducing relief. Remember,"" concluded he, ""that the solitary mortal is certainly luxurious, probably superstitious, and possibly mad: the mind stagnates for want of employment, grows morbid, and is extinguished like a candle in foul air."" It was on this principle that Johnson encouraged parents to carry their daughters early and much into company: ""for what harm can be done before so many witnesses? Solitude is the surest nurse of all prurient passions, and a girl in the hurry of preparation, or tumult of gaiety, has neither inclination nor leisure to let tender expressions soften or sink into her heart. The ball, the show, are not the dangerous places: no, it is the private friend, the kind consoler, the companion of the easy, vacant hour, whose compliance with her opinions can flatter her vanity, and whose conversation can just soothe, without ever stretching her mind, that is the lover to be feared. He who buzzes in her ear at court or at the opera must be contented to buzz in vain."" These notions Dr. Johnson carried so very far, that I have heard him say, ""If you shut up any man with any woman, so as to make them derive their whole pleasure from each other, they would inevitably fall in love, as it is called, with each other; but at six months' end, if you would throw them both into public life, where they might change partners at pleasure, each would soon forget that fondness which mutual dependence and the paucity of general amusement alone had caused, and each would separately feel delighted by their release.""
(pp. 105-8)"
18366,INTEREST: The air pump reading is Yota's,"Cited in a talk by Yota Batsaki (Clark Library, May 7, 2011)","",2011-05-08 07:23:49 UTC,,6838,"","",2011-05-08 07:23:49 UTC,"""'Remember,' concluded he, 'that the solitary mortal is certainly luxurious, probably superstitious, and possibly mad: the mind stagnates for want of employment, grows morbid, and is extinguished like a candle in foul air.'""","With advising others to be charitable, however, Dr. Johnson did not content himself. He gave away all he had, and all he ever had gotten, except the two thousand pounds he left behind; and the very small portion of his income which he spent on himself, with all our calculation, we never could make more than seventy, or at most four-score pounds a year, and he pretended to allow himself a hundred. He had numberless dependents out of doors as well as in, who, as he expressed it, ""did not like to see him latterly unless he brought 'em money."" For those people he used frequently to raise contributions on his richer friends; ""and this,"" says he, ""is one of the thousand reasons which ought to restrain a man from drony solitude and useless retirement. Solitude,"" added he one day, ""is dangerous to reason, without being favourable to virtue: pleasures of some sort are necessary to the intellectual as to the corporeal health; and those who resist gaiety will be likely for the most part to fall a sacrifice to appetite; for the solicitations of sense are always at hand, and a dram to a vacant and solitary person is a speedy and seducing relief. Remember,"" concluded he, ""that the solitary mortal is certainly luxurious, probably superstitious, and possibly mad: the mind stagnates for want of employment, grows morbid, and is extinguished like a candle in foul air."" It was on this principle that Johnson encouraged parents to carry their daughters early and much into company: ""for what harm can be done before so many witnesses? Solitude is the surest nurse of all prurient passions, and a girl in the hurry of preparation, or tumult of gaiety, has neither inclination nor leisure to let tender expressions soften or sink into her heart. The ball, the show, are not the dangerous places: no, it is the private friend, the kind consoler, the companion of the easy, vacant hour, whose compliance with her opinions can flatter her vanity, and whose conversation can just soothe, without ever stretching her mind, that is the lover to be feared. He who buzzes in her ear at court or at the opera must be contented to buzz in vain."" These notions Dr. Johnson carried so very far, that I have heard him say, ""If you shut up any man with any woman, so as to make them derive their whole pleasure from each other, they would inevitably fall in love, as it is called, with each other; but at six months' end, if you would throw them both into public life, where they might change partners at pleasure, each would soon forget that fondness which mutual dependence and the paucity of general amusement alone had caused, and each would separately feel delighted by their release.""
(pp. 105-8)"
19873,"",Searching in HDIS (Drama),"",2012-07-05 17:04:52 UTC,,5650,"","Act I, scene i",2012-07-05 17:04:52 UTC,"""Nay, with every other person 'tis the same thing--If we are stuffed into a coach, with a little chattering pert Miss, ""Oh dear, Mr. Anthony Euston, you must not ride backwards, here is room for you on this seat--and Mr. Euston, I know, will like one seat as well as another""--and then am I put with my back to the horses, though my head is whirling all the time like one of the coach wheels.""","SIR GEORGE.
Dear Sir--
MR. EUSTON.
Nay, with every other person 'tis the same thing--If we are stuffed into a coach, with a little chattering pert Miss, ""Oh dear, Mr. Anthony Euston, you must not ride backwards, here is room for you on this seat--and Mr. Euston, I know, will like one seat as well as another""--and then am I put with my back to the horses, though my head is whirling all the time like one of the coach wheels. Then if any thing be lost, or wanted, when no servant is by, ""Mr. Anthony Euston must not stir for the world--but Mr. Euston, they know, will be so kind as to go for it.""--And this is all because I am good natured. Egad! if this is my reward, no wonder there are so few in the world of my temper.
SIR GEORGE.
But, dear Sir, no jesting-- Does my Uncle intend to call on me or not?"
23223,Added. Had skipped this verse paragraph on first reading.,Reading,"",2013-11-17 17:12:25 UTC,,5612,"","",2013-11-17 17:12:25 UTC,"""O, Montagu! forgive me, if I sing / red with the milder ray / Of soft humanity, and kindness bland: / So wide its influence, that the bright beams / Reach the low vale where mists of ignorance lodge, / Strike on the innate spark which lay immersed, / Thick-clogged, and almost quenched in total night.""","O, Montagu! forgive me, if I sing
Thy wisdom tempered with the milder ray
Of soft humanity, and kindness bland:
So wide its influence, that the bright beams
Reach the low vale where mists of ignorance lodge,
Strike on the innate spark which lay immersed,
Thick-clogged, and almost quenched in total night--
On me it fell, and cheered my joyless heart.
Unwelcome is the first bright dawn of light
To the dark soul; impatient, she rejects,
And fain would push the heavenly stranger back;
She loathes the cranny which admits the day;
Confused, afraid of the intruding guest;
Disturbed, unwilling to receive the beam,
Which to herself her native darkness shows.
The effort rude to quench the cheering flame
Was mine, and e'en on Stella could I gaze
With sullen envy, and admiring pride,
Till, doubly roused by Montagu, the pair
Conspire to clear my dull, imprisoned sense,
And chase the mists which dimmed my visual beam.
Oft as I trod my native wilds alone,
Strong gusts of thought would rise, but rise to die;
The portals of the swelling soul ne'er oped
By liberal converse, rude ideas strove
Awhile for vent, but found it not, and died.
Thus rust the Mind's best powers. Yon starry orbs,
Majestic ocean, flowery vales, gay groves,
Eye-wasting lawns, and heaven-attempting hills
Which bound th' horizon, and which curb the view;
All those, with beauteous imagery, awaked
My ravished soul to ecstasy untaught,
To all the transport the rapt sense can bear;
But all expired, for want of powers to speak;
All perished in the mind as soon as born,
Erased more quick than cyphers on the shore,
O'er which cruel waves, unheedful roll.
Such timid rapture as young Edwin seized,
When his lone footsteps on the Sage obtrude,
Whose noble precept charmed his wondering.
Such rapture filled Lactilla's vacant soul,
When the bright Moralist, in softness dressed,
Opes all the glories of the mental world,
Deigns to direct the infant thought, to prune
The budding sentiment, uprear the stalk
Of feeble fancy, bid idea live,
Woo the abstracted spirit form its cares,
And gently guide her to scenes of peace.
Mine was than balm, and mine the grateful heart,
Which breathes its thanks in rough, but timid strains.
(ll. 30-79, pp. 395-6)"
24354,"",Searching in ECCO,"",2014-07-29 20:30:10 UTC,,7999,"",Letter LXVI.,2014-07-29 20:30:10 UTC,"""Perhaps of my policy to, in confessing at once, what my wandering ideas, and disjointed style would soon have discover'd.""","It will be no great proof either of my friendship or good breeding to tell you that I take the pen thro' mere vexation, but it will be one of my sincerity, and therefore beyond either. Perhaps of my policy to, in confessing at once, what my wandering ideas, and disjointed style would soon have discover'd. Prythee answer me, Herbert, Are those cruel moralists, who by telling us there is no happiness in life, contribute towards destroying it in hop, really at last in the right? Are love, confidence, and friendship, those shadows they would have us believe?--There was a time when my feelings gave the lie to their assertions; and holding the mirror of fancy before my eyes, shew'd me the future, in the happy present. By a caprice, as strange as inexplicable, on her side, my wife and I are at variance, without either of us being able to give one earthly reason, for even a disagreement.--I cannot make you an arbiter, but you shall at least judge of the affaird, and (what is as honest, as it is rare) will not inform you before-hand, that Lady Helen is peevish, and I am in the right.
(II, p. 257)"