Date: 1790

"The gay powers of wit and fancy are like those brilliant phaenomena which sometimes glow in the sky, and dazzle the eye of the beholder by their luminous and uncommon appearances; while sweetness of temper has a resemblance to that gentle star, whose benign influence gilds alike the morning and...

— Williams, Helen Maria (1759-1827)

Date: 1790

"The idle crowd in fashion's train, / Their trifling comment, pert reply, / Who talk so much, yet talk in vain, / How pleas'd for thee, Oh nymph, I fly! / For thine is all the wealth of mind, / Thine the unborrow'd gems of thought, / The flash of light, by souls refin'd, / From heav'n's empyreal ...

— Williams, Helen Maria (1759-1827)

Date: 1790

"His disturbed mind resembled a tempestuous flood, whose waves arise dark and turbulent, except where the sun-beam throws a line of trembling radiance across their agitated surface."

— Williams, Helen Maria (1759-1827)

Date: 1790

"She lamented that Mr. Seymour's character, which appeared open, liberal, and elevated, should so ill bear a close inspection; and that his mind resembled one of those pictures which must be viewed by the dim light of a taper; since their coarse and glaring colours, which attract the eye in the d...

— Williams, Helen Maria (1759-1827)

Date: 1794

"For you, my young friend, may the sun always shine as brightly as at this moment; may your own conduct always give you the sunshine of benevolence and reason united!"

— Radcliffe [née Ward], Ann (1764-1823)

Date: 1794

"The gloom of these shades, their solitary silence, except when the breeze swept over their summits, the tremendous precipices of the mountains, that came partially to the eye, each assisted to raise the solemnity of Emily's feelings into awe; she saw only images of gloomy grandeur, or of dreadfu...

— Radcliffe [née Ward], Ann (1764-1823)

Date: 1794

"A superstitious dread stole over her; she stood listening, for some moments, in trembling expectation, and then endeavoured to recollect her thoughts, and to reason herself into composure; but human reason cannot establish her laws on subjects, lost in the obscurity of imagination, any more than...

— Radcliffe [née Ward], Ann (1764-1823)

Date: 1797

"This place, perhaps, infests my mind with congenial gloom, for I find that, at this moment, there is scarcely a superstition too dark for my credulity."

— Radcliffe [née Ward], Ann (1764-1823)

Date: 1797

"In the eagerness of conversation, and, yielding to the satisfaction which the mind receives from exercising ideas that have long slept in dusky indolence, and to the pleasure of admitting new ones, the Abbot and a few of the brothers sat with Vivaldi to a late hour."

— Radcliffe [née Ward], Ann (1764-1823)

Date: 1797

"Mortified, exasperated by her conduct, I begun to suspect that some other emotion than resentment occasioned this disdain; and last of all jealousy--jealousy came to crown my misery--to light up all my passions into madness!"

— Radcliffe [née Ward], Ann (1764-1823)