updated_at,id,text,theme,metaphor,work_id,reviewed_on,provenance,created_at,comments,context,dictionary
2009-09-14 19:34:59 UTC,10437,"DAMON.
Pardon, blest Saint, the Rapture you enflame;
Pursue, MARIA, your Celestial Theme;
To my warm Soul such deep Impression give,
That with NASSAU my Thoughts, at least, may live.","","""To my warm Soul such deep Impression give,""",4031,,"Searching ""soul"" and ""impression"" in HDIS (Poetry)",2005-04-11 00:00:00 UTC,"","",Impression
2013-11-01 15:33:30 UTC,10542,"The mind of man is at first (if you will pardon the expression) like a tabula rasa, or like wax, which, while it is soft, is capable of any impression, till time has hardened it. And at length death, that grim tyrant, stops us in the midst of our career. The greatest conquerors have at last been conquered by death, which spares none, from the sceptre to the spade.","","""The mind of man is at first (if you will pardon the expression) like a tabula rasa, or like wax, which, while it is soft, is capable of any impression, till time has hardened it.""",4093,,"Found again reading Maclean's John Locke and English Literature, (1962), p. 33",2005-03-27 00:00:00 UTC,
•I've included twice: Wax and Tabula Rasa,"",Impressions and Writing
2012-03-02 16:21:40 UTC,10631,"But though we might possibly have all our sensations without them, yet perhaps it may be thought easier to conceive and explain the manner of their production, by supposing external bodies in their likeness rather than otherwise; and so it might be at least probable there are such things as bodies that excite their ideas in our minds. But neither can this be said; for though we give the materialists their external bodies, they by their own confession are never the nearer knowing how our ideas are produced: since they own themselves unable to comprehend in what manner body can act upon spirit, or how it is possible it should imprint any idea in the mind. Hence it is evident the production of ideas or sensations in our minds, can be no reason why we should suppose matter or corporeal substances, since that is acknowledged to remain equally inexplicable with, or without this supposition. If therefore it were possible for bodies to exist without the mind, yet to hold they do so, must needs be a very precarious opinion; since it is to suppose, without any reason at all, that God has created innumerable beings that are entirely useless, and serve to no manner of purpose.
(Part I, §19, p. 49)","","""But neither can this be said; for though we give the materialists their external bodies, they by their own confession are never the nearer knowing how our ideas are produced: since they own themselves unable to comprehend in what manner body can act upon spirit, or how it is possible it should imprint any idea in the mind.""",4138,2012-03-02,Past Masters,2004-02-18 00:00:00 UTC,•Republished in 1734 in London. Editor uses this second edition. ,"",Impressions
2013-07-24 15:39:16 UTC,21996,"II.
By thine own Light thou scarce her Form canst view;
Thy very Light and Essence too
Proceeds from her, as Phoebus 's borrow'd Ray,
Reflects the Image of the Day.
III.
Would she but cast such quickning Beams on me,
I should her living Image be;
Look when she pleas'd, her Picture she would find
Deeply imprinted in my Mind.
(pp. 133-4, ll. 5-12)
","","""Would she but cast such quickning Beams on me, / I should her living Image be; / Look when she pleas'd, her Picture she would find / Deeply imprinted in my Mind.""",7563,,"Searching ""mind"" in C-H Lion",2013-07-24 15:39:03 UTC,"Imagines self mirror, do mirrors take imprints? ","",Impressions
2013-09-11 21:10:47 UTC,22705,"From this accurate deduction it is manifest that for obtaining attention in public there is of necessity required a superior position of place. But although this point be generally granted, yet the cause is little agreed in; and it seems to me that very few philosophers have fallen into a true natural solution of this phenomenon. The deepest account, and the most fairly digested of any I have yet met with is this, that air being a heavy body, and therefore, according to the system of Epicurus, continually descending, must needs be more so when laden and pressed down by words, which are also bodies of much weight and gravity, as is manifest from those deep impressions they make and leave upon us, and therefore must be delivered from a due altitude, or else they will neither carry a good aim nor fall down with a sufficient force.
(pp. 27-8 in OUP ed.)","","""The deepest account, and the most fairly digested of any I have yet met with is this, that air being a heavy body, and therefore, according to the system of Epicurus, continually descending, must needs be more so when laden and pressed down by words, which are also bodies of much weight and gravity, as is manifest from those deep impressions they make and leave upon us, and therefore must be delivered from a due altitude, or else they will neither carry a good aim nor fall down with a sufficient force.""",4024,,Reading,2013-09-11 21:10:47 UTC,"","",Impressions
2014-01-12 16:25:27 UTC,23352,"We were upon the heroic strain this evening, and the question was, What is the True Sublime? Many very good discourses happened thereupon; after which a gentleman at the table, who is, it seems, writing on that subject, assumed the argument; and though he ran through many instances of sublimity from the ancient writers, said, he had hardly known an occasion wherein the true greatness of soul, which animates a general in action, is so well represented, with regard to the person of whom it was spoken, and the time in which it was writ, as in a few lines in a modern poem: ""there is,"" continued he, ""nothing so forced and constrained, as what we frequently meet with in tragedies; to make a man under the weight of a great sorrow, or full of meditation upon what he is soon to execute, cast about for a simile to what he himself is, or the thing which he is going to act: but there is nothing more proper and natural than for a poet, whose business is to describe, and who is spectator of one in that circumstance when his mind is working upon a great image, and that the ideas hurry upon his imagination—I say, there is nothing so natural, as for a poet to relieve and clear himself from the burthen of thought at that time, by uttering his conception in simile and metaphor. The highest act of the mind of man, is to possess itself with tranquillity in imminent danger, and to have its thoughts so free, as to act at that time without perplexity. The ancient poets have compared this sedate courage to a rock that remains immovable amidst the rage of winds and waves; but that is too stupid and inanimate a similitude, and could do no credit to the hero. At other times they are all of them wonderfully obliged to a Lybian lion, which may give indeed very agreeable terrors to a description; but is no compliment to the person to whom it is applied: eagles, tigers, and wolves, are made use of on the same occasion, and very often with much beauty; but this is still an honour done to the brute, rather than the hero. Mars, Pallas, Bacchus, and Hercules, have each of them furnished very good similes in their time, and made, doubtless, a greater impression on the mind of a heathen, than they have on that of a modern reader. But the sublime image that I am talking of, and which I really think as great as ever entered into the thought of man, is in the poem called, 'The Campaign'; where the simile of a ministering angel sets forth the most sedate and the most active courage, engaged in an uproar of nature, a confusion of elements, and a scene of divine vengeance. Add to all, that these lines compliment the General and his Queen at the same time, and have all the natural horrors, heightened by the image that was still fresh in the mind of every reader.
","","""Mars, Pallas, Bacchus, and Hercules, have each of them furnished very good similes in their time, and made, doubtless, a greater impression on the mind of a heathen, than they have on that of a modern reader.""",7798,,Reading,2014-01-12 16:25:27 UTC,META-METAPHORICAL,"",Impressions
2014-01-12 16:27:33 UTC,23353,"We were upon the heroic strain this evening, and the question was, What is the True Sublime? Many very good discourses happened thereupon; after which a gentleman at the table, who is, it seems, writing on that subject, assumed the argument; and though he ran through many instances of sublimity from the ancient writers, said, he had hardly known an occasion wherein the true greatness of soul, which animates a general in action, is so well represented, with regard to the person of whom it was spoken, and the time in which it was writ, as in a few lines in a modern poem: ""there is,"" continued he, ""nothing so forced and constrained, as what we frequently meet with in tragedies; to make a man under the weight of a great sorrow, or full of meditation upon what he is soon to execute, cast about for a simile to what he himself is, or the thing which he is going to act: but there is nothing more proper and natural than for a poet, whose business is to describe, and who is spectator of one in that circumstance when his mind is working upon a great image, and that the ideas hurry upon his imagination—I say, there is nothing so natural, as for a poet to relieve and clear himself from the burthen of thought at that time, by uttering his conception in simile and metaphor. The highest act of the mind of man, is to possess itself with tranquillity in imminent danger, and to have its thoughts so free, as to act at that time without perplexity. The ancient poets have compared this sedate courage to a rock that remains immovable amidst the rage of winds and waves; but that is too stupid and inanimate a similitude, and could do no credit to the hero. At other times they are all of them wonderfully obliged to a Lybian lion, which may give indeed very agreeable terrors to a description; but is no compliment to the person to whom it is applied: eagles, tigers, and wolves, are made use of on the same occasion, and very often with much beauty; but this is still an honour done to the brute, rather than the hero. Mars, Pallas, Bacchus, and Hercules, have each of them furnished very good similes in their time, and made, doubtless, a greater impression on the mind of a heathen, than they have on that of a modern reader. But the sublime image that I am talking of, and which I really think as great as ever entered into the thought of man, is in the poem called, 'The Campaign'; where the simile of a ministering angel sets forth the most sedate and the most active courage, engaged in an uproar of nature, a confusion of elements, and a scene of divine vengeance. Add to all, that these lines compliment the General and his Queen at the same time, and have all the natural horrors, heightened by the image that was still fresh in the mind of every reader.","",""Mars, Pallas, Bacchus, and Hercules, have each of them furnished very good similes in their time, and made, doubtless, a greater impression on the mind of a heathen, than they have on that of a modern reader.""",7798,,Reading,2014-01-12 16:27:33 UTC,"","",Impressions
2014-03-02 19:32:35 UTC,23415,"I Have been this Evening recollecting what Passages (since I could first think) have left the strongest Impressions upon my Mind; and after strict Enquiry, I am convinced, that the Impulses I have received from Theatrical Representations, have had a greater Effect, than otherwise would have been wrought in me by the little Occurrences of my private Life. My old Friends, Hart and Mohun; the one by his natural and proper Force, the other by his great Skill and Art, never failed to send me Home full of such Idea's as affected my Behaviour, and made me insensibly more courteous and humane to my Friends and Acquaintance. It is not the Business of a good Play to make every Man an Hero; but it certainly gives him a livelier Sense of Virtue and Merit than he had when he entered the Theatre.
(II, p. 301; cf. II, p. 108 in Bond ed.)","","""I Have been this Evening recollecting what Passages (since I could first think) have left the strongest Impressions upon my Mind; and after strict Enquiry, I am convinced, that the Impulses I have received from Theatrical Representations, have had a greater Effect, than otherwise would have been wrought in me by the little Occurrences of my private Life.""",7808,,Searching in ECCO-TCP,2014-03-02 19:32:35 UTC,"","",Impressions
2014-03-02 19:53:49 UTC,23422,"When I reflect upon the many Nights I have sat up for some Months last past in the greatest Anxiety for the Good of my Neighbours and Contemporaries, it is no small Discouragement to me, to see how slow a Progress I make in the Reformation of the World. But indeed I must do my Female Readers the Justice to own, that their tender Hearts are much more susceptible of good Impressions, than the Minds of the other Sex. Business and Ambition take up Men's Thoughts too much to leave Room for Philosophy: But if you speak to Women in a Style and Manner proper to approach them, they never fail to improve by your Counsel. I shall therefore for the future turn my Thoughts more particularly to their Service, and study the best Methods to adorn their Persons, and inform their Minds in the justest Methods to make them what Nature designed them, the most beauteous Objects of our Eyes, and the most agreeable Companions of our Lives. But when I say this, I must not omit at the same Time to look into their Errors and Mistakes, that being the readiest Way to the intended End of adorning and instructing them. It must be acknowledged, That the very Inadvertencies of this Sex are owing to the other; for if Men were not Flatterers, Women could not fall into that general Cause of all their Follies, and our Misfortunes, their Love of Flattery. Were the Commendation of these agreeable Creatures built upon its proper Foundation, the higher we raised their Opinion of themselves, the greater would be the Advantage to our Sex; but all the Topick of Praise is drawn from very senseless and extravagant Idea's we pretend we have of their Beauty and Perfection. Thus when a young Man falls in Love with a young Woman, from that Moment she is no more Mrs. Alice such a one, born of such a Father, and educated by such a Mother, but from the first Minute that he cast his Eye upon her with Desire, he conceives a Doubt in his Mind, What Heavenly Power gave so unexpected a Blow to an Heart that was ever before untouched. But who can resist Fate and Destiny, which are lodged in Mrs. Alice's Eyes? After which he desires Orders accordingly, Whether he is to live or breath; the Smile or Frown of his Goddess is the only Thing that can now either save or destroy him. By this Means, the well-humoured Girl, that would have romped with him before she received this Declaration, assumes a State suitable to the Majesty he has given her, and treats him as the Vassal he calls himself. The Girl's Head is immediately turned by having the Power of Life and Death, and takes Care to suit every Motion and Air to her new Sovereignty. After he has placed himself at this Distance, he must never hope to recover his former Familiarity, till she has had the Addresses of another, and found them less sincere.
(III, pp. 121-3; cf. II, pp. 297-8 in Bond ed.)","","""But indeed I must do my Female Readers the Justice to own, that their tender Hearts are much more susceptible of good Impressions, than the Minds of the other Sex.""",7813,,ECCO-TCP,2014-03-02 19:53:49 UTC,"","",Impressions
2014-03-02 20:25:23 UTC,23430,"The first Sense of Sorrow I ever knew was upon the Death of my Father, at which Time I was not quite Five Years of Age; but was rather amazed at what all the House meant, than possessed with a real Understanding why no Body was willing to play with me. I remember I went into the Room where his Body lay, and my Mother sate weeping alone by it. I had my Battledore in my Hand, and fell a beating the Coffin, and calling Papa; for I know not how I had some slight Idea that he was locked up there. My Mother catched me in her Arms, and transported beyond all Patience of the silent Grief she was before in, she almost smothered me in her Embrace, and told me in a Flood of Tears, Papa could not hear me, and would play with me no more, for they were going to put him under Ground, whence he could never come to us again. She was a very beautiful Woman, of a noble Spirit, and there was a Dignity in her Grief amidst all the Wildness of her Transport, which, methought, struck me with an Instinct of Sorrow, which, before I was sensible of what it was to grieve, seized my very Soul, and has made Pity the Weakness of my Heart ever since. The Mind in Infancy is, methinks, like the Body in Embrio, and receives Impressions so forcible, that they are as hard to be removed by Reason, as any Mark with which a Child is born is to be taken away by any future Application. Hence it is, that Good-Nature in me is no Merit; but having been so frequently over-whelmed with her Tears before I knew the Cause of any Affliction, or could draw Defences from my own Judgment, I imbibed Commiseration, Remorse, and an unmanly Gentleness of Mind, which has since insnared me into Ten Thousand Calamities, and from whence I can reap no Advantage, except it be, that in such an Humour as I am now in, I can the better indulge my self, in the Softnesses of Humanity, and enjoy that sweet Anxiety which arises from the Memory of past Afflictions.
(III, pp. 331-2; cf. II, pp. 483-4 in Bond ed.)","","""The Mind in Infancy is, methinks, like the Body in Embrio, and receives Impressions so forcible, that they are as hard to be removed by Reason, as any Mark with which a Child is born is to be taken away by any future Application.""",7821,,ECCO-TCP,2014-03-02 20:25:23 UTC,INTEREST: first impressions as birthmarks? ,"",Impressions