work_id,theme,id,metaphor,dictionary,updated_at,created_at,context,comments,text,reviewed_on,provenance
6162,Ruling Passion,16244,"""No single passion, and no ruling thought / That leaves the rest, as once, unseen, unsought, / But the wild prospect when the Soul reviews, / All rushing through their thousand avenues""","",2013-11-02 15:22:31 UTC,2005-10-23 00:00:00 UTC,Stanza X,•I've included twice: Rule of Thought and Avenue.,"'Twere vain to paint to what his feelings grew--
It even were doubtful if their victim knew.
There is a war, a chaos of the mind,
When all its elements convulsed, combined
Lie dark and jarring with perturbéd force,
And gnashing with impenitent Remorse--
That juggling fiend, who never spake before,
But cries ""I warned thee!"" when the deed is o'er.
Vain voice! the spirit burning but unbent,
May writhe--rebel--the weak alone repent!
Even in that lonely hour when most it feels,
And, to itself, all--all that self reveals,--
No single passion, and no ruling thought
That leaves the rest, as once, unseen, unsought,
But the wild prospect when the Soul reviews,
All rushing through their thousand avenues--
Ambition's dreams expiring, Love's regret,
Endangered Glory, Life itself beset;
The joy untasted, the contempt or hate
'Gainst those who fain would triumph in our fate;
The hopeless past, the hasting future driven
Too quickly on to guess if Hell or Heaven;
Deeds--thoughts--and words, perhaps remembered not
So keenly till that hour, but ne'er forgot;
Things light or lovely in their acted time,
But now to stern Reflection each a crime;
The withering sense of Evil unrevealed,
Not cankering less because the more concealed;
All, in a word, from which all eyes must start,
That opening sepulchre, the naked heart
Bares with its buried woes--till Pride awake,
To snatch the mirror from the soul, and break.
Aye, Pride can veil, and Courage brave it all--
All--all--before--beyond--the deadliest fall.
Each hath some fear, and he who least betrays,
The only hypocrite deserving praise:
Not the loud recreant wretch who boasts and flies;
But he who looks on Death--and silent dies:
So, steeled by pondering o'er his far career,
He half-way meets Him should He menace near!",,Searching in HDIS (Poetry)
7591,"",22193,"""But, the region of passion is a land of despotism, where reason exercises but a mock jurisdiction; and is continually forced to submit to an arbitrary tyrant, who, rejecting her fixed and temperate laws, is guided only by the dangerous impulse of his own violent and uncontroulable wishes.""",Empire,2013-08-16 06:14:56 UTC,2013-08-16 06:14:56 UTC,"Vol. II, Chap. xxi","","When Seymour reflected on what had past, he was not much displeased at the recollection of the cause of Julia's emotion at dinner; nor was he concerned at the information that she looked pale on the day of his marriage, and that her colour went and came during the last stage. Such is the selfishness, the inconsistency of passion, that Seymour, though he would chearfully have sacrificed his life to save Julia the slightest uneasiness, would yet willingly have excited in her mind those sensations which overwhelmed his own with anguish, and have been soothed by acquiring an influence over her heart, which, he well knew, would never, in the smallest degree, affect her conduct; and which, indeed, his own principles of honor, and a respect for her character, which amounted almost to idolatry, prevented him even from wishing it should. He might, therefore, have reflected, that any sensibility to his passion, could only serve to involve her in a degree of misery, which was almost insupportable to himself. But, the region of passion is a land of despotism, where reason exercises but a mock jurisdiction; and is continually forced to submit to an arbitrary tyrant, who, rejecting her fixed and temperate laws, is guided only by the dangerous impulse of his own violent and uncontroulable wishes.
(II.xxi, pp. 17-18)",,Searching in ECCO-TCP