updated_at,id,text,theme,metaphor,work_id,reviewed_on,provenance,created_at,comments,context,dictionary
2009-09-14 19:37:35 UTC,12959,"This pathetic remonstrance had the desired effect upon his representative, who spared no pains to fulfil the request of the deceased; but exerted all the capacity with which nature had endowed him, in a series of efforts, which, however, did not succeed; for, by that time he had been fifteen years in trade, he found himself five thousand pounds worse than he was when he first took possession of his father's effects: a circumstance that affected him so nearly, as to detach his inclinations from business, and induce him to retire from the world, to some place where he might at leisure deplore his misfortunes, and, by frugality, secure himself from want, and the apprehensions of a jail, with which his imagination was incessantly haunted. He was often heard to express his fears of coming upon the parish; and to bless God, that, on account of his having been so long a housekeeper, he was intitled to that provision. In short, his talents were not naturally active, and there was a sort of inconsistency in his character; for, with all the desire of amassing which any citizen could possibly entertain, he was encumbered by a certain indolence and sluggishness that prevailed over every interested consideration, and even hindered him from profiting by that singleness of apprehension, and moderation of appetites, which have so frequently conduced to the acquisition of immense fortunes, and which he possessed in a very remarkable degree. Nature, in all probability, had mixed little or nothing inflammable in his composition; or, whatever seeds of excess she might have sown within him, were effectually stifled and destroyed by the austerity of his education.
(I.i, pp. 2-3)","","The imagination may be ""incessantly haunted"" by the ""apprehensions of a jail""",4861,,Searching haunt and imagination in HDIS,2004-04-27 00:00:00 UTC,•See also the description of his composition that follows. ,"",""
2009-09-14 19:37:35 UTC,12960,"In the morning, as early as decency would permit him to leave the arms of his dear wife, captain Gauntlet made a visit to Peregrine, who had passed a very tedious and uneasy night, having been subject to short intervals of delirium, during which Pipes had found it very difficult to keep him fast belayed. He owned indeed to Godfrey, that his imagination had been haunted by the ideas of Emilia and her officer, which tormented him to an unspeakable degree of anguish and distraction; and that he would rather suffer death than a repetition of such excruciating reflections. He was, however, comforted by his friend, who assured him, that his sister's inclinations would, in time, prevail over all the endeavours of resentment and pride, illustrating this asseveration by an account of the manner in which she was affected by the knowledge of his disorder, and advising him to implore the mediation of Sophy, in a letter which she should communicate to Emilia.
(IV.xciv, p. 13)","",Ideas of a love object with another lover may haunt the imagination,4861,,Searching haunt and imagination in HDIS,2004-04-27 00:00:00 UTC,•See also the description of his composition that follows. ,"",""
2009-09-14 19:37:37 UTC,12974,"Hatchway, overjoyed at the success of his negociation, went immediately to the hostler and bespoke a post-chaise for Mr. Pickle and his man, with whom he afterwards indulged himself in a double cann of rumbo, and when the night was pretty far advanced, left the lover to his repose, or rather to the thorns of his own meditation; for he slept not one moment, being incessantly tortured with the prospect of parting from his divine Emilia, who had now acquired the most absolute empire over his soul. One minute he proposed to depart early in the morning, without seeing this enchantress, in whose bewitching presence he durst not trust his own resolution. Then the thoughts of leaving her in such an abrupt and disrespectful manner, interposed in favour of his love and honour. This war of sentiments kept him all night upon the rack, and it was time to rise before he had determined to visit his charmer, and candidly impart the motives that induced him to leave her.
(pp. 157-8)","","A beloved may acquire ""the most absolute empire over"" a lover's soul",4861,,"Searching ""empire"" and ""soul"" in HDIS (Prose)",2004-08-11 00:00:00 UTC,"","",""
2009-09-14 19:37:39 UTC,13014,"After having sat a few minutes, he told the company, that he would favour them with a very proper opportunity to extend their benevolence, for the relief of a poor gentlewoman, who was reduced to the most abject misery, by the death of her husband, and just delivered of a couple of fine boys. They, moreover, understood from his information, that this object was daughter of a good family, who had renounced her, in consequence of her marrying an ensign without a fortune; and even obstructed his promotion with all their influence and power; a circumstance of barbarity, which had made such an impression upon his mind, as disordered his brain, and drove him to despair, in a fit of which he had made away with himself, leaving his wife then big with child, to all the horrors of indigence and grief.
(pp. 60-1)","","""[A] circumstance of barbarity, which had made such an impression upon his mind, as disordered his brain, and drove him to despair in a fit of which he had made away with himself, leaving his wife then big with child, to all the horrors of indigence and grief""",4863,,"Searching ""brain"" and ""impression"" in HDIS (Prose)",2005-05-18 00:00:00 UTC,"","Vol. 3, Chap. 87",Impression
2009-09-14 19:37:39 UTC,13015,"Matters being thus happily matured, the lover begged that immediate recourse might be had to the church, and his happiness ascertained before night. But the bride objected, with great vehemence, to such precipitation, being desirous of her mother's presence at the ceremony; and she was seconded in her opinion by her brother's wife: upon which Peregrine, maddening with desire, assaulted her with the most earnest intreaties, representing, that, as her mother's consent was already obtained, there was surely no necessity for a delay, that must infallibly make a dangerous impression upon his brain and constitution. He fell at her feet, in all the agony of impatience; swore that his life and intellects would actually be in jeopardy by her refusal; and when she attempted to argue him out of his demand, began to rave with such extravagance, that Sophy was frightened into conviction: and Godfrey enforcing the remonstrances of his friend, the amiable Emilia was teized into compliance.
(pp. 306-7)","","""[A]s her mother's consent was already obtained, there was surely no necessity for a delay, that must infallibly make a dangerous impression upon his brain and constitution""",4863,,"Searching ""brain"" and ""impression"" in HDIS (Prose)",2005-05-18 00:00:00 UTC,"","Vol. 4, Chap. 114",Impression
2013-09-23 18:07:49 UTC,13017,"The mendicant, who bore an inveterate grudge against this son of Æsculapius, ever since he had made so free with the catholic religion, replied with great bitterness, that he was a wretch with whom no Christian ought to communicate; that the vengeance of heaven would one day overtake him, on account of his profanity; and that his heart was shod with a metal much harder than iron, which he was afraid nothing but hell-fire would be able to melt.","","""[H]is heart was shod with a metal much harder than iron, which he was afraid nothing but hell-fire would be able to melt.""",4863,,"Searching ""heart"" and ""iron"" in HDIS (Prose)",2005-06-07 00:00:00 UTC,•INTEREST. I've included twice: Iron and Horse. Are the iron hearts I've discovered meant to be suggestive of horseshoes?,"Vol. 2, Chap. 61",Animals and Metal
2009-09-14 19:37:40 UTC,13023,"I.
While with fond rapture and amaze,
On thy transcendent charms I gaze,
My cautious soul essays in vain
Her peace and freedom to maintain:
Yet let that blooming form divine,
Where grace and harmony combine,
Those eyes, like genial orbs, that move,
Dispensing gladness, joy and love,
In all their pomp assail my view,
Intent my bosom to subdue;
My breast, by wary maxims steel'd,
Not all those charms shall force to yield.
II.
But, when invok'd to beauty's aid,
I see th' enlighten'd soul display'd;
That soul so sensibly sedate
Amid the storms of froward fate!
Thy genius active, strong and clear,
Thy wit sublime, tho' not severe,
The social ardour void of art,
That glows within thy candid heart;
My spirits, sense and strength decay,
My resolution dies away,
And ev'ry faculty opprest,
Almighty love invades my breast!","","""My breast, by wary maxims steel'd, / Not all those charms shall force to yield""",4861,,"Searching ""breast"" and ""steel"" in HDIS (Prose)",2005-06-09 00:00:00 UTC,"","Vol. 2, Chap. 61",Metal
2009-09-14 19:37:41 UTC,13026,"The rest of the company proceeded to the arsenal, which having viewed, together with some remarkable churches, they, in their return, went to the comedy, and saw the Cid of Corneille tolerably well represented. In consequence of this entertainment, the discourse at supper turned upon dramatic performances; and all the objections of Mons. de Scudery to the piece they had seen acted, together with the decision of the French academy, were canvassed and discussed. The knight was a man of letters and taste, and particularly well acquainted with the state of the English stage; so that when the painter boldly pronounced sentence against the French manner of acting, on the strength of having frequented a Covent-Garden club of criticks, and been often admitted by virtue of an order, into the pit; a comparison immediately ensued, not between the authors, but the actors of both nations, to whom the chevalier and Peregrine were no strangers. Our hero, like a good Englishman, made no scruple of giving the preference to the performers of his own country, who, he alledged, obeyed the genuine impulses of nature, in exhibiting the passions of the human mind; and entered so warmly into the spirit of their several parts, that they often fancied themselves the very heroes they represented. Whereas, [Page 137] the action of the Parisian players, even in their most interesting characters, was generally such an extravagance in voice and gesture, as is no where to be observed but on the stage. To illustrate this assertion, he availed himself of his talent, and mimicked the manner and voice of all the principal performers, male and female, belonging to the French comedy; to the admiration of the chevalier, who having complimented him upon this surprising modulation, begged leave to dissent in some particulars from the opinion he had avowed. ""That you have good actors in England, (said he) it would be unjust and absurd in me to deny; your theatre is adorned by one woman, whose sensibility and sweetness of voice is such as I have never observed on any other stage; she has, besides, an elegance of person and expression of features, that wonderfully adapt her for the most engaging characters of your best plays; and I must freely own that I have been as highly delighted, and as deeply affected, by a Monimia and Belvidera at London, as ever I was by a Cornelia and Cleopatra at Paris. You can, moreover, boast of several comic actors who are perfect masters of buffoonery and grimace; though, to be free with you, I think, in these qualifications you are excelled by the players of Amsterdam: neither are you destitute of those, who, with a good deal of cultivation, might acquire some degree of excellence in the representation of tragic characters: but I shall never cease to wonder that the English, who are certainly a sensible and discerning people should be so much infatuated, as to applaud and caress with the most extravagant approbation, not to say adoration and regard, one or two gracioso's, who, I will be [Page 138] bold to say, would scarce be able to earn their bread by their talents, on any other theatre under the sun. I have seen one of these, in the celebrated part of Richard the third, which, I believe, is not a character of ridicule, sollicit and triumph in the laugh of the audience, during the best part of a scene in which the author has represented that prince as an object of abhorrence. I have observed the same person in the character of Hamlet, shake his fist with all the demonstrations of wrath at his mistress, for no evident cause, and behave like a ruffian to his own mother. Shocked at such want of dignity and decorum in a prince, who seemed the favourite of the people, I condemned the genius that produced him, but, upon a second perusal of the play, transferred my censure to the actor, who, in my opinion, had egregiously mistaken the meaning of the poet. At a juncture, when his whole soul ought to be alarmed with terror and amazement, and all his attention engrossed by the dreadful object in view, I mean that of his friend whom he had murthered; he expresses no passion but that of indignation against a drinking glass, which he violently dashes in pieces on the floor, as if he had perceived a spider in his wine; nay, while his eyes are fixed upon the ground, he starts at the image of a dagger which he pretends to see above his head, as if the pavement was a looking-glass that represented it by reflexion: and at one time, I saw him walk a-cross the stage, and lend an inferior character a box on the ear, after he had with great wrath pronounced ""Take thou that,"" or some equivalent exclamation, at the other end of the scene. He represents the grief of an hero, by the tears and manner of a whining [Page 139] school-boy, and perverts the genteel deportment of a gentleman, into the idle buffoonery of a miserable tobacconist; his whole art is no other than a succession of frantic vociferation, such as I have heard in the cells of Bedlam, a slowness, hesitation and oppression of speech, as if he was troubled with an asthma, convulsive startings, and a ductility of features, suited to the most extravagant transitions. In a word, he is blessed with a distinct voice, and a great share of vivacity; but in point of feeling, judgment, and grace, is, in my opinion, altogether defective. Not to mention his impropriety in dress, which is so absurd, that he acts the part of a youthful prince, in the habit of an undertaker, and exhibits the gay, fashionable Lothario, in the appearance of a mountebank. I beg pardon for treating this darling of the English with so little ceremony; and to convince you of my candour, frankly confess, that notwithstanding all I have said, he is qualified to make a considerable figure in the low characters of humour, which are so much relished by a London audience, if he could be prevailed upon to abate of that monstrous burlesque, which is an outrage against nature and common sense. As for his competitor in fame, with an equal share of capacity, he is inferior to him in personal agility, sprightliness and voice. His utterance is a continual sing song, like the chanting of vespers, and his action resembles that of heaving ballast into the hold of a ship. In his outward deportment, he seems to have confounded the ideas of dignity and insolence of mien, acts the crafty, cool, designing Crookback, as a loud, shallow, blustering Hector; in the character of the mild patriot Brutus, loses all temper and decorum; [Page 140] nay, so ridiculous is the behaviour of him and Cassius at their interview, that setting foot to foot, and grinning at each other, with the aspect of two coblers enraged, they thrust their left sides together, with repeated shocks, that the hilts of their swords may clash for the entertainment of the audience; as if they were a couple of Merry Andrews, endeavouring to raise the laugh of the vulgar, on some scaffold at Bartholomew Fair. The despair of a great man who falls a sacrifice to the infernal practices of a subtle traitor, that enjoyed his confidence, this English Æsopus represents, by beating his own forehead, and bellowing like a bull; and indeed, in almost all his most interesting scenes, performs such strange shakings of the head, and other antic gesticulations, that when I first saw him act, I imagined the poor man laboured under that paralytical disorder, which is known by the name of St. Vitus's dance. In short, he seems to be a stranger to the more refined sensations of the soul, consequently his expression is of the vulgar kind, and he must often sink under the idea of the poet; so that he has recourse to such violence of affected agitation, as imposes upon the undiscerning spectator, but to the eye of taste, evinces him a meer player of that class whom your admired Shakespear justly compares to nature's journeymen tearing a passion to rags. Yet this man, in spite of all these absurdities, is an admirable Falstaff, exhibits the character of the eighth Henry to the life, is reasonably applauded in the Plain Dealer, excels in the part of Sir John Brute, and would be equal to many humorous situations in low comedy, which [Page 141] his pride will not allow him to undertake. I should not have been so severe upon these rivals, had not I seen them extolled by their partizans, with the most ridiculous and fulsome manifestation of praise, even in those very circumstances wherein (as I have observed) they chiefly failed.""","","""In short, he seems to be a stranger to the more refined sensations of the soul, consequently his expression is of the vulgar kind, and he must often sink under the idea of the poet""",4863,,"Searching ""soul"" and ""stranger"" in HDIS (Prose)",2006-03-06 00:00:00 UTC,"","Vol. 2, Chap. 55",Inhabitants
2009-09-14 19:37:41 UTC,13028,"All these previous steps being taken in less than an hour, our hero took his leave of the Fleet, after he had left twenty guineas with the warden [Page 291] for the relief of the poor prisoners, a great number of whom conveyed him to the gate, pouring forth prayers for his long life and prosperity; and he took the road to the garison, in the most elevated transports of joy, unallayed with the least mixture of grief at the death of a parent whose paternal tenderness he had never known; so that his breast was absolutely a stranger to that boasted Storgh, or instinct of affection, by which the charities are supposed to subsist.",Innatism,"""[H]e took the road to the garison, in the most elevated transports of joy, unallayed with the least mixture of grief at the death of a parent whose paternal tenderness he had never known; so that his breast was absolutely a stranger to that boasted Storgh, or instinct of affection, by which the charities are supposed to subsist""",4863,,"Searching ""breast"" and ""stranger"" in HDIS (Prose)",2006-03-06 00:00:00 UTC,"•Storgh? Huh? Not in the OED, but bible.org explains this is one of three kinds of love (filos, storgh, and agaph). Storgh is ""natural affection."" Also filostorgos in Romans 12:10 and astorgos in 2 Tim 3:3.","Vol. 4, Chap. 112",Inhabitants
2009-09-14 19:37:41 UTC,13032,"The company were agreeably undeceived by this explanation; which her ladyship acknowledged in very polite terms, as a compliment equally genteel and unexpected: and our hero, after having testified the sense he had of her complaisance and condescension, in regaling him with such a mark of her confidence and esteem, took his leave, and went home in a state of confusion and perplexity; for, from the circumstances of the tale he had heard, he plainly [Page 237] perceived, that her ladyship's heart was too delicate to receive such incense, as he, in the capacity of an admirer, could at present pay; because, though he had in some measure abridged the empire of Emilia in his own breast, it was not in his power to restrain it so effectually, but that it would interfere with any other sovereign whom his thoughts should adopt: and, unless lady--could ingross his whole love, time and attention, he foresaw, that it would be impossible for him to support the passion which he might have the good fortune to inspire. He was, moreover, deterred from declaring his love, by the fate of her former admirers, who seemed to have been wound up to a degree of enthusiasm, that looked more like the effect of inchantment, than the inspiration of human attractions; an extasy of passion which he durst not venture to undergo; therefore resolved to combat with the impressions he had already received, and, if possible, cultivate her friendship without soliciting her affection: but, before he could fix upon this determination, he desired to know the predicament in which he stood in her opinion; and by the intelligence of Crabtree, obtained in the usual manner, understood that her sentiments of him were very favourable, though without the least tincture of love. He would have been transported with joy, had her thoughts of him been of a more tender texture; though his reason was better pleased with the information he received; in consequence of which, he mustered up the ideas of his first passion, and set them in opposition to those of this new and dangerous attachment; by which means, he kept the balance in equilibrio, and his bosom tolerably quiet.
(pp. 236-7)",Countervailing Passions,"""in consequence of which, he mustered up the ideas of his first passion, and set them in opposition to those of this new and dangerous attachment; by which means, he kept the balance in equilibrio, and his bosom tolerably quiet.""",4863,,"Searching ""bosom"" and ""balance"" in HDIS (Prose)",2006-12-11 00:00:00 UTC,"","Vol. 3, Chap. 88",""