text,updated_at,metaphor,created_at,context,theme,reviewed_on,dictionary,comments,provenance,id,work_id
"[...] Like the lightning's flash are many recollections; one idea assimilating and explaining another, with astonishing rapidity. I do not now allude to taht quick perception of truth, which is so intuitive that it baffles research, and makes us at a loss to determine whether it is reminiscence or ratiocination, lost sight of in its celerity, that opens the dark cloud. Over those instantaneous associations we have little power; for when the mind is once enlarged by excursive flights, or profound reflection, the raw materials will, in some degree, arrange themselves. The understanding, it is true, may keep us from going out of drawing when we group our thoughts, or transcribe from the imagination and warm sketches of fancy; but the animal spirits, the individual character, give the colouring. Over this subtile electric fluid, how little power do we possess, and over it how little power can reason obtain. These fine intractable spirits appear to be the essence of genius, and beaming its eagle eye, produce in the most eminent degree the happy energy of associating thoughts that surprise, delight, and instruct. These are the glowing minds that concentrate pictures for their fellow creatures; forcing them to view with interest the objects reflected from the impassioned imagination, which they passed over in nature.
(p. 113-114)",2012-01-23 16:57:32 UTC,"""The understanding, it is true, may keep us from going out of drawing when we group our thoughts, or transcribe from the imagination and warm sketches of fancy; but the animal spirits, the individual character, give the colouring.""",2009-09-14 19:43:33 UTC,Chapter VI,"",,"","",Reading,15402,5775
"Yet, when I exclaim against novels, I mean when contrasted with those works which exercise the understanding and regulate the imagination. For any kind of reading, I think better than leaving a blank still blank, because the mind must receive a degree of enlargement and obtain a little strength by a slight exertion of its thinking powers; besides, even the productions that are only addressed to the imagination, raise the reader a little above the gross gratification of appetites, to which the mind has not given a shade of delicacy.
(p. 191; cf. p. 427 in 1792 ed.)",2014-10-05 16:34:02 UTC,"""For any kind of reading, I think better than leaving a blank still blank, because the mind must receive a degree of enlargement and obtain a little strength by a slight exertion of its thinking powers.""",2009-09-14 19:43:35 UTC,"",Blank Slate,2003-10-23,Writing,"",Reading,15416,5775
"You come, the successor of a Viceroy, whose name may serve as a date in the margin of Irish history, but will never once be noticed in its page. Public, without being known; little heard of, though often seen; he sat at the council board a listless automaton, or galloped through the city, the terror of old women, and the envy of school-boys. When made Master of the Horse, he has fulfilled his destiny, and arrived at that point of animal perfection, for which alone nature and education had designed him. Yet, my Lord, you will perhaps experience with one or two of you predecessors, that the best qualifications for a continuance in the Lieutenancy of Ireland are those of a negative kind. A soft sponginess of character that will easily acquire any hue, or any stain; a tabula rasa of intellect; a spirit invulnerable to insult; that (for example) after vain endeavors to disunite and discourage the Catholics of Ireland, could condescend to [end page 2] truck and chaffer, for the official transmission of their address; and then submit to be passed by with a contemptuous neglect, equally degrading to the honour of the man, and the dignity of the station:--such are the qualities best suited to complete the lustrum of an Irish Lord Lieutenancy.
(pp. 2-3)",2009-09-14 19:44:06 UTC,"""A soft sponginess of character that will easily acquire any hue, or any stain; a tabula rasa of intellect; a spirit invulnerable to insult; that (for example) after vain endeavors to disunite and discourage the Catholics of Ireland, could condescend to [end page 2] truck and chaffer, for the official transmission of their address; and then submit to be passed by with a contemptuous neglect, equally degrading to the honour of the man, and the dignity of the station:--such are the qualities best suited to complete the lustrum of an Irish Lord Lieutenancy.""",2006-10-14 00:00:00 UTC,"",Blank Slate,,Writing,"•Drennan was a friend of Francis Hutcheson. Irish radical. First to call Ireland the ""emerald isle.""","Searching ""tabula rasa"" in ECCO",15607,5868
"In young persons it is otherwise. Theirs is the tear, in many instances at least, ""forgot as soon as shed."" Their minds are like a sheet of white paper, which takes any impression that it is proposed to make upon it. Their pleasures are, to a degree, pure and unadulterated. This is a circumstance considerably enviable.
(p. 70)",2009-09-14 19:44:17 UTC,"""Their [young persons'] minds are like a sheet of white paper, which takes any impression that it is proposed to make upon it.""",2005-07-14 00:00:00 UTC,Part I. Of the Happiness of Youth,Blank Slate,2005-10-26,Writing,"•Pinker actually quotes ""children are a sort of raw material put into our hands [their minds are] like a sheet of white paper."" Is this actually a differenct use of the same metaphor. REVISIT and follow citation. ",Reading Steven Pinker's The Blank Slate (11). Full citation found in ECCO.,15668,5901
"While I am writing this there are accidentally before me some proposals for a declaration of rights by the Marquis de la Fayette (I ask his pardon for using his former address, and do it only for distinction's sake) to the National Assembly, on the 11th of July, 1789, three days before the taking of the Bastille, and I cannot but remark with astonishment how opposite the sources are from which that gentleman and Mr. Burke draw their principles. Instead of referring to musty records and mouldy parchments to prove that the rights of the living are lost, ""renounced and abdicated for ever,"" by those who are now no more, as Mr. Burke has done, M. de la Fayette applies to the living world, and emphatically says: ""Call to mind the sentiments which nature has engraved on the heart of every citizen, and which take a new force when they are solemnly recognised by all:--For a nation to love liberty, it is sufficient that she knows it; and to be free, it is sufficient that she wills it."" How dry, barren, and obscure is the source from which Mr. Burke labours! and how ineffectual, though gay with flowers, are all his declamation and his arguments compared with these clear, concise, and soul-animating sentiments! Few and short as they are, they lead on to a vast field of generous and manly thinking, and do not finish, like Mr. Burke's periods, with music in the ear, and nothing in the heart.
(p. 207)",2011-05-19 20:08:06 UTC,"""Call to mind the sentiments which nature has engraved on the heart of every citizen, and which take a new force when they are solemnly recognised by all.""",2011-05-19 20:07:58 UTC,Part One,"",,Writing,"",Reading,18432,6855
"You, my dear friend, who have felt the tender attachments of love and friendship, and the painful anxieties which absence occasions, even amidst scenes of variety and pleasure; who understand the value at which tidings from those we love is computed in the arithmetic of the heart; who have heard with almost uncontroulable emotion the postman's rap at the door; have trembling seen the well-known hand which excited sensations that almost deprived you of power to break the seal which seemed the talisman of happiness; you can judge of the feelings of Mons. du F when he received, by means of the same friend who had conveyed his letter, an answer from his wife. But the person who brought the letter to his dungeon, dreading the risk of a discovery, insisted, that, after having read it, he should return it to him immediately. Mons. du F-- pressed the letter to his heart, bathed it with his tears, and implored the indulgence of keeping it at least till the next morning. He was allowed to do so, and read it till every word was imprinted on his memory; and after enjoying the sad luxury of holding it that night on his bosom, was forced the next morning to relinquish his treasure.
(Letter XX, p. 163-4; p. 129 in Broadview ed.)",2013-07-12 14:59:04 UTC,"He was allowed to do so, and read it till every word was imprinted on his memory; and after enjoying the sad luxury of holding it that night on his bosom, was forced the next morning to relinquish his treasure.""",2013-07-12 14:59:04 UTC,"","",,Impressions and Writing,"",Reading; text from Google Books,21701,7542