Date: May 10, 1704

"As the face of nature never produces rain but when it is overcast and disturbed, so human understanding, seated in the brain, must be troubled and overspread by vapours ascending from the lower faculties to water the invention, and render it fruitful."

— Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)

Date: May 10, 1704

"Thus far, I suppose, will easily be granted me; and then it will follow that, as the face of nature never produces rain but when it is overcast and disturbed, so human understanding, seated in the brain, must be troubled and overspread by vapours ascending from the lower faculties to water the ...

— Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)

Date: May 10, 1704

"For the upper region of man is furnished like the middle region of the air, the materials are formed from causes of the widest difference, yet produce at last the same substance and effect. Mists arise from the earth, steams from dunghills, exhalations from the sea, and smoke from fire; yet all ...

— Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)

Date: May 10, 1704

"Thus far, I suppose, will easily be granted me; and then it will follow that as the face of Nature never produces rain but when it is overcast and disturbed, so human understanding seated in the brain must be troubled and overspread by vapours ascending from the lower faculties to water the inve...

— Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)

Date: 1719

"In the midst of the greatest Composures of my Mind, this would break out upon me like a Storm, and make me wring my Hands, and weep like a Child."

— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)

Date: 1719

"I was not so much surpriz'd with the Lightning, as I was with a Thought which darted into my Mind as swift as the Lightning it self: O my Powder!"

— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)

Date: 1741 [1740]; continued in 1741

The "stormy Tumults" of a "disturbed Mind" may "be hush'd."

— Richardson, Samuel (bap. 1689, d. 1761)

Date: 1741 [1740]; continued in 1741

We wonder at our mischief we have done in passion just as "After a Tempest, when the Winds are laid, /The calm Sea wonders at the Wrecks it made"

— Richardson, Samuel (bap. 1689, d. 1761)

Date: 1741 [1740]; continued in 1741

"For, let me tell my sweet Girl, that, after having been long tost by the boisterous Winds of a more culpable Passion, I have now conquer'd it, and am not so much the Victim of your Love, all charming as you are, as of your Virtue."

— Richardson, Samuel (bap. 1689, d. 1761)

Date: 1741 [1740]; continued in 1741

Mr. B's "Presence, like the Sun, has dissipated the Mists that hung upon my Mind"

— Richardson, Samuel (bap. 1689, d. 1761)