Date: 1791, 1794

"[B]ut the poor girl by thoughtless passion led astray, who, in parting with her honour, has forfeited the esteem of the very man to whom she has sacrificed every thing dear and valuable in life, feels his indifference in the fruit of her own folly, and laments her want of power to recall his los...

— Rowson, Susanna (1762-1828)

Date: 1791, 1794

"For Charlotte, the soul melts with sympathy; for La Rue, it feels nothing but horror and contempt."

— Rowson, Susanna (1762-1828)

Date: w. c. 1800, 1805

"These sudden eruptions of the passions of the multitude, spread, like the lava of a volcano, throughout all France, nor could men of correct judgment, who aimed only at reform of abuses, and a renovation in all the departments, check the fury of the torrent."

— Warren, Mercy Otis (1728-1814)

Date: 1890

"Have you got a brook in your little heart, / Where bashful flowers blow, / And blushing birds go down to drink, / And shadows tremble so?"

— Dickinson, Emily (1830-1886)

Date: 1890

"The wizard-fingers never rest, / The purple brook within the breast / Still chafes its narrow bed."

— Dickinson, Emily (1830-1886)

Date: 1914

"I think with all his purity Emerson had within him the turbid stream of passion and desire; for all his hard-cut granite features he knew the instincts of the weakling and the slave; and for all his sweetness, he had the tiger and the jackal in his soul."

— de Cleyre, Voltairine (1866-1912)

Date: 1921

"I know what my heart is like / Since your love died: / It is like a hollow ledge / Holding a little pool / Left there by the tide, / A little tepid pool, / Drying inward from the edge."

— Millay, Edna St. Vincent (1892-1950)

Date: 1946

"Icebergs behoove the soul / (both being self-made from elements least visible) / to see them so: fleshed, fair, erected indivisible."

— Bishop, Elizabeth (1911-1979)

Date: 1980

"What is thought after all, what is dreaming, but swim and flow, and the images they seem to animate?"

— Robinson, Marilynne (b. 1943)

Date: 1980

"And here we find our greatest affinity with water, for like reflections on water our thoughts will suffer no changing shock, no permanent displacement."

— Robinson, Marilynne (b. 1943)