work_id,theme,provenance,created_at,text,reviewed_on,id,comments,metaphor,dictionary,updated_at,context 5767,"",Reading,2005-09-19 00:00:00 UTC,"We cannot tell the precise moment when friendship is formed. As in filling a vessel drop by dy drop, there is at last a drop which makes it run over; so in a series of kindesses there is at last one which makes the heart run over. We must not divide objects of our attention into minute parts, and think separately of each part. It is by contemplating a large mass of human existence, that a man, while he sets a just value on his own life, does not think of his death as annihilating all that is great and pleasing in this world, as it actually contained in his mind, according to Berkeley's reverie. If his imagination be not sickly and feeble, it ""wings its distant way"" far beyond himself, and views the world in unceasing activity of every sort. It must be acknowledged, however, that Pope's plaintive reflection, that all things would be as gay as ever, on the day of his death, is natural and common. We are apt to transfer to all around us our own gloom, without considering that at any given point of time there is, perhaps, as much youth and gaiety in the world as at another. Before I came into this life, in which I have had so many pleasant scenes, have not thousands and ten thousands of deaths and funerals happened, and have not families been in grief for their nearest relation?[...]
(p. 747)",,15369,"","""As in filling a vessel drop by dy drop, there is at last a drop which makes it run over; so in a series of kindesses there is at last one which makes the heart run over. ""","",2011-03-24 20:12:55 UTC,"A.D. 1777, Aetat. 68"