Date: 1809

"Could my ideas flow as fast as the rain in the store-closet it would be charming."

— Austen, Jane (1775-1817)

Date: 1810

"Bid Rowe, bid Otway's magic softness rise, / Steal o'er his form, and languish in his eyes; / Melt in his voice, till Memory hints no more / The woes unreal; but, with forfeit power, / Resigns her empire o'er the yielding soul / To sighs and tears she ceases to controul."

— Seward, Anna (1742-1809)

Date: 1810

"Environ'd as she is by every ill, / To her heart's first impression faithful still,"

— Seward, Anna (1742-1809)

Date: 1810

An idea "too oft survey'd, / Beneath the ardent beam of Thought shall fade"

— Seward, Anna (1742-1809)

Date: 1810

"For the mark'd lines that Memory's tints display / In contemplation's fire will melt away,"

— Seward, Anna (1742-1809)

Date: 1810

"No picture, be it ever so well painted, can vie with the memory in that exactness, with which she presents, early in absence, the image of that form and face, whose lineaments are dear to us"

— Seward, Anna (1742-1809)

Date: 1810

"Therefore, actual pictures of beloved friends would not be so eagerly coveted, but that we render this darling, internal image indistinct, by recalling it too frequently; as that strength of line, which gives sharpness and spirit to a copper-plate, becomes injured after a certain number of impre...

— Seward, Anna (1742-1809)

Date: 1810

An internal image is like a copper plate: "By repeated use, the plate, if not retouched, will produce only a dim and shadowy mass, in which the features and countenance cannot be very distinctly discerned."

— Seward, Anna (1742-1809)

Date: 1810

"So it is with the memory, after continual recurrence, and pressure of the affections upon the image she presents, which, for a considerable period, she had presented with that perfect precision, to which no powers of the pencil can attain;--but, in time, the image becomes indistinct, not from an...

— Seward, Anna (1742-1809)

Date: 1810

"Yes, it is beneath the constant glow of ardent imagination, that the impression, given by memory, has faded. Then it is that a good, nay even an indifferent picture, or a paper-profile of a dear lost friend, strengthens our recollection, in the same manner that retouching a copper-plate restores...

— Seward, Anna (1742-1809)