work_id,theme,provenance,created_at,text,reviewed_on,id,comments,metaphor,dictionary,updated_at,context
3212,"","Searching ""haunt"" and ""mind"" in HDIS (Poetry)",2004-06-08 00:00:00 UTC,"Joyless I hail the solemn gloom,
Joyless I view the pillars vast and rude
Where erst the fool of Superstition trod,
In smoking blood imbrued
And rising from the tomb--
Mistaken homage to an unknown God.
Fancy, whither dost thou stray,
Whither dost thou wing thy way?
Check the rising wild delight--
Ah! what avails this awful sight?
Maria is no more!
Why, curst remembrance, wilt thou haunt my mind?
The blessings past are misery now;
Upon her lovely brow
Her lovelier soul she wore.
Soft as the evening gale
When breathing perfumes through the rose-hedged vale,
She was my joy, my happiness refined.
All hail, ye solemn horrors of this scene,
The blasted oak, the dusky green.
Ye dreary altars, by whose side
The druid-priest, in crimson dyed,
The solemn dirges sung,
And drove the golden knife
Into the palpitating seat of life,
When, rent with horrid shouts, the distant valleys rung.
The bleeding body bends,
The glowing purple stream ascends,
Whilst the troubled spirit near
Hovers in the steamy air;
Again the sacred dirge they sing,
Again the distant hill and coppice-valley ring.
Soul of my dear Maria, haste,
Whilst my languid spirits waste;
When from this my prison free,
Catch my soul, it flies to thee;
Death had doubly armed his dart,
In piercing thee, it pierced my heart.",,8441,"","""Why, curst remembrance, wilt thou haunt my mind?""","",2009-11-11 17:55:48 UTC,""
3289,"","Searching ""stamp"" and ""mind"" in HDIS (Poetry)",2005-04-07 00:00:00 UTC,"Observe the partner of thy future state:
If no strong vice is stamped upon her mind,
Take her; and let her ease thy amorous pain:
A little error proves her human-kind.
",,8551,"","A partner of one's ""future state"" should not have ""strong vice"" ""stamped upon her mind""","",2009-09-14 19:33:38 UTC,""
6270,"","Searching ""mind"" at Electronic Text Center at UVA Library",2005-08-11 00:00:00 UTC,"By the mind we understand that within us which feels and thinks, the seat of sensation and reason. Where it resides we cannot tell, nor can authoritatively pronounce, as the apostle says, relatively to a particular phenomenon, ""whether it is in the body, or out of the body."" Be it however where or what it may, it is this which constitutes the great essence of, and gives value to, our existence; and all the wonders of our microcosm would without it be a form only, destined immediately to perish, [page 8] and of no greater account than as a clod of the valley.
(pp. 7-8)",,16578,"","""By the mind we understand that within us which feels and thinks, the seat of sensation and reason""","",2009-09-14 19:47:20 UTC,Essay I. Of Body and Mind. The Prologue.
6270,"","Searching ""mind"" at Electronic Text Center at UVA Library",2005-08-11 00:00:00 UTC,"But what is of more importance in the temporary oblivion we are enabled to throw over the refuse of the body, it is thus we arrive at the majesty [page 14] of man. That sublimity of conception which renders the poet, and the man of great literary and original endowments ""in apprehension like a God,"" we could not have, if we were not privileged occasionally to cast away the slough and exuviæ of the body from incumbering and dishonouring us, even as Ulysses passed over his threshold, stripped of the rags that had obscured him, while Minerva enlarged his frame, and gave loftiness to his stature, added a youthful beauty and grace to his motions, and caused his eyes to flash with more than mortal fire. With what disdain, when I have been rapt in the loftiest moods of mind, do I look down upon my limbs, the house of clay that contains me, the gross flesh and blood of which my frame is composed, and wonder at a lodging, poorly fitted to entertain so divine a guest!
(pp. 13-14)",,16589,•I've included twice: Slough and Exuviae and Rags,"In poetry we are ""privileged occasionally to cast away the slough and exuviæ of the body from incumbering and dishonouring us, even as Ulysses passed over his threshold, stripped of the rags that had obscured him, while Minerva enlarged his frame, and gave loftiness to his stature, added a youthful beauty and grace to his motions, and caused his eyes to flash with more than mortal fire""","",2009-09-14 19:47:22 UTC,Essay I. Of Body and Mind. The Prologue.
6270,"","Searching ""mind"" at Electronic Text Center at UVA Library",2005-08-11 00:00:00 UTC,"What a contrast does this species of instruction exhibit, to the ordinary course of scholastic education! There, every lesson that is prescribed, is a source of indirect warfare between the instructor and the pupil, the one professing to aim at the advancement of him that is taught, in the career of knowledge, and the other contemplating the effect that is intended to be produced upon him with aversion, and longing to be engaged in any thing else, rather than in that which is pressed upon his foremost attention. In this sense a numerous school is, to a degree that can scarcely be adequately described, the slaughter-house of mind. It is like the undertaking, related by Livy, of Accius Navius, the augur, to cut a whetstone with a razor -- with this difference, that our modern schoolmasters are not [page 46] endowed with the gift of working miracles, and, when the experiment falls into their hands, the result of their efforts is a pitiful miscarriage. Knowledge is scarcely in any degree imparted. But, as they are inured to a dogged assiduity, and persist in their unavailing attempts, though the shell of science, so to speak, is scarcely in the smallest measure penetrated, yet that inestimable gift of the author of our being, the sharpness of human faculties, is so blunted and destroyed, that it can scarcely ever be usefully employed even for those purposes which it was originally best qualified to effect.
(pp. 45-6)",,16595,"","Teaching in a crowded school is ""like the undertaking, related by Livy, of Accius Navius, the augur, to cut a whetstone with a razor ... the sharpness of human faculties, is so blunted and destroyed""","",2009-09-14 19:47:23 UTC,Essay II. Of The Distribution of Talents.
6270,"","Searching ""mind"" at Electronic Text Center at UVA Library",2005-08-11 00:00:00 UTC,"To this let it be added, that the wisest man that ever existed, never yet knew himself, especially in the morning of life. The person, who ultimately stamped his history with the most heroic achievements, was far perhaps even from suspecting, in the dawn of his existence, that he should realise the miracles that mark its maturity. He might be ready to exclaim, with Hazael in the Scriptures, ""Is thy servant more than man, that he should do this great thing?"" The sublimest poet that ever sung, was peradventure, while a stripling, unconscious of the treasures which formed a part of the fabric of his mind, and unsuspicious of the high destiny that in the sequel awaited him. What wonder then, that, awaking from the insensibility and torpor which precede the activity of the soul, some men should believe in a fortune that shall never be theirs, and anticipate a glory they are fated never to sustain! And for the same reason, when unanticipated failure becomes their lot, they are unwilling at first to be discouraged, and find a certain gallantry in persevering, and ""against hope believing in hope.""
(p. 58)",,16597,"","""The sublimest poet that ever sung, was peradventure, while a stripling, unconscious of the treasures which formed a part of the fabric of his mind, and unsuspicious of the high destiny that in the sequel awaited him.""","",2009-09-14 19:47:23 UTC,Essay III. Of Intellectual Abortion
6270,Enlightenment,"Searching ""mind"" at Electronic Text Center at UVA Library",2005-08-11 00:00:00 UTC," It has been a vulgar error to imagine, that the mind of man, so far as relates to its active and inventive powers, was sunk into a profound sleep, from which it gradually recovered itself at the period [page 79] when Constantinople was taken by the Turks, and the books and the teachers of the ancient Greek language were dispersed through Europe. The epoch from which modern invention took its rise, commenced much earlier. The feudal system, one of the most interesting contrivances of man in society, was introduced in the ninth century; and chivalry, the offspring of that system, an institution to which we are mainly indebted for refinement of sentiment, and humane and generous demeanour, in the eleventh. Out of these grew the originality and the poetry of romance.
(pp. 78-9)",,16604,"","At a period in history the mind of man may be imagined ""sunk into a profound sleep""","",2009-09-14 19:47:25 UTC,Essay IV. Of the Durability of Human Achievements and Productions
6475,"",Reading,2009-01-21 00:00:00 UTC,"Monticello, March 14, 1820. Dear Sir, A continuation of poor health makes me an irregular correspondent. I am, therefore, your debtor for the two letters of January 20th and February 21st. It was after you left Europe that Dugald Stewart, concerning whom you inquire, and Lord Dare, second son of the Marquis of Lansdowne, came to Paris. They brought me a letter from Lord Wycombe, whom you knew. I became immediately intimate with Stewart, calling mutually on each other and almost daily, during their stay at Paris, which was of some months. Lord Dare was a young man of imagination, with occasional flashes indicating deep penetration, but of much caprice, and little judgment. He has been long dead, and the family title is now, I believe, in the third son, who has shown in Parliament talents of a superior order. Stewart is a great man, and among the most honest living. I have heard nothing of his dying at top, as you suppose. Mr. Ticknor, however, can give you the best information on that subject, as he must have heard particularly of him when in Edinburgh, although I believe he did not see him. I have understood he was then in London superintending the publication of a new work. I consider him and Tracy as the ablest metaphysicians living; by which I mean investigators of the thinking faculty of man. Stewart seems to have given its natural history from facts and observations; Tracy its modes of action and deduction, which he calls Logic and Ideology; and Cabanis, in his Physique et Morale de l'Homme, has investigated anatomically, and most ingeniously, the particular organs in the human structure which may most probably exercise that faculty. And they ask why may not the mode of action called thought, have been given to a material organ of peculiar structure, as that of magnetism is to the needle, or of elasticity to the spring by a particular manipulation of the steel. They observe that on ignition of the needle or spring, their magnetism and elasticity cease. So on dissolution of the material organ by death, its action of thought may cease also, and that nobody supposes that the magnetism or elasticity retire to hold a substantive and distinct existence. These were qualities only of particular conformations of matter; change the conformation, and its qualities change also. Mr. Locke, you know, and other materialists, have charged with blasphemy the spiritualists who have denied the Creator the power of endowing certain forms of matter with the faculty of thought. These, however, are speculations and subtleties in which, for my own part, I have little indulged myself. When I meet with a proposition beyond finite comprehension, I abandon it as I do a weight which human strength cannot lift, and I think ignorance, in these cases, is truly the softest pillow on which I can lay my head. Were it necessary, however, to form an opinion, I confess I should, with Mr. Locke, prefer swallowing one incomprehensibility rather than two. It requires one effort only to admit the single incomprehensibility of matter endowed with thought, and two to believe, first that of an existence called spirit, of which we have neither evidence nor idea, and then secondly how that spirit, which has neither extension nor solidity, can put material organs into motion. These are things which you and I may perhaps know ere long. We have so lived as to fear neither horn of the dilemma. We have, willingly, done injury to no man; and have done for our country the good which has fallen in our way, so far as commensurate with the faculties given us. That we have not done more than we could, cannot be imputed to us as a crime before any tribunal. I look, therefore, to the crisis, as I am sure you also do, as one ""qui summum nec metuit diem nec optat."" In the meantime be our last as cordial as were our first affections.",,17213,"","""When I meet with a proposition beyond finite comprehension, I abandon it as I do a weight which human strength cannot lift, and I think ignorance, in these cases, is truly the softest pillow on which I can lay my head.""","",2009-09-14 19:49:25 UTC,""
6496,Pineal Gland,Reading,2009-03-05 00:00:00 UTC,"Hervenis, harping on the hackneyed text,
By disquisitions is so sore perplexed,
He stammers,--instantaneously is drawn
A bordered piece of inspiration-lawn,
Which being thrice unto his nose applied,
Into his pineal gland the vapours glide;
And now again we hear the doctor roar
On subjects he dissected thrice before.
I own at church I very seldom pray,
For vicars, strangers to devotion, bray.
Sermons, though flowing from the sacred lawn,
Are flimsy wires from reason's ingot drawn;
And, to confess the truth, another cause
My every prayer and adoration draws:
In all the glaring tinctures of the bow,
The ladies front me in celestial row.
(Though, when black melancholy damps my joys,
I call them nature's trifles, airy toys;
Yet when the goddess Reason guides the strain,
I think them, what they are, a heavenly train.)
The amorous rolling, the black sparkling eye,
The gentle hazel, and the optic sly;
The easy shape, the panting semi-globes,
The frankness which each latent charm disrobes;
The melting passions, and the sweet severe,
The easy amble, the majestic air;
The tapering waist, the silver-mantled arms,
All is one vast variety of charms.
Say, who but sages stretched beyond their span,
Italian singers, or an unmanned man,
Can see Elysium spread upon their brow,
And to a drowsy curate's sermon bow?
",,17275,Pineal Gland. Interesting passage.,"""He stammers,--instantaneously is drawn /
A bordered piece of inspiration-lawn, / Which being thrice unto his nose applied, / Into his pineal gland the vapours glide; / And now again we hear the doctor roar / On subjects he dissected thrice before.""","",2009-09-14 19:49:38 UTC,""
6496,"",Reading,2009-03-05 00:00:00 UTC,"Hervenis, harping on the hackneyed text,
By disquisitions is so sore perplexed,
He stammers,--instantaneously is drawn
A bordered piece of inspiration-lawn,
Which being thrice unto his nose applied,
Into his pineal gland the vapours glide;
And now again we hear the doctor roar
On subjects he dissected thrice before.
I own at church I very seldom pray,
For vicars, strangers to devotion, bray.
Sermons, though flowing from the sacred lawn,
Are flimsy wires from reason's ingot drawn;
And, to confess the truth, another cause
My every prayer and adoration draws:
In all the glaring tinctures of the bow,
The ladies front me in celestial row.
(Though, when black melancholy damps my joys,
I call them nature's trifles, airy toys;
Yet when the goddess Reason guides the strain,
I think them, what they are, a heavenly train.)
The amorous rolling, the black sparkling eye,
The gentle hazel, and the optic sly;
The easy shape, the panting semi-globes,
The frankness which each latent charm disrobes;
The melting passions, and the sweet severe,
The easy amble, the majestic air;
The tapering waist, the silver-mantled arms,
All is one vast variety of charms.
Say, who but sages stretched beyond their span,
Italian singers, or an unmanned man,
Can see Elysium spread upon their brow,
And to a drowsy curate's sermon bow?
",,17277,"","""Though, when black melancholy damps my joys, /
I call them nature's trifles, airy toys; / Yet when the goddess Reason guides the strain, / I think them, what they are, a heavenly train.""","",2009-09-14 19:49:38 UTC,""