Date: 1789

"For of calamity so long the prey, / Imagination now has lost her powers, / Nor will her fairy loom again essay / To dress affliction in a robe of flowers."

— Smith, Charlotte (1749-1806)

Date: 1789

"Thou spectre of terrific mien, / Lord of the hopeless heart and hollow eye, / In whose fierce train each form is sees / That drives sick Reason to insanity!"

— Smith, Charlotte (1749-1806)

Date: 1789

"Ah! hide for ever from my sight / The faithless flatterer Hope--whose pencil, gay, / Portrays some vision of delight, / Then bids the fairy tablet fade away; / While in dire contrast, to mine eyes / Thy phantoms, yet more hideous, rise, / And Memory draws, from Pleasure's wither'd flower, / Corr...

— Smith, Charlotte (1749-1806)

Date: 1789

"I bid the traitor Love, adieu! / Who to this fond, believing bosom came, / A guest insidious and untrue, / With Pity's soothing voice--in Friendship's name."

— Smith, Charlotte (1749-1806)

Date: 1789

"Alas! these joys are mine in dreams alone, / When cruel Reason abdicates her throne!"

— Smith, Charlotte (1749-1806)

Date: 1790

"A shadowy sequestered dell appeared buried deep among the rocks, and in the bottom was seen a lake, whose clear bosom reflected the impending cliffs, and the beautiful luxuriance of the overhanging shades."

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

Date: 1790

"Still through the deep'ning gloom of bow'ry shades / To Fancy's eye fantastic forms appear"

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

Date: 1790, 1806

"Proud may he be who nobly acts his part, / Who boasts the empire of each subject's heart."

— Robinson [Née Darby], Mary [Perdita] (1758-1800)

Date: 1790?

"Be careful, greatly careful, my dear child, that familiarity with the sight, does not make you grow indifferent to the consequences of such actions, and so tempt you to partake of the guilt: but let the advice contained in the following sheets sink deep into your mind, and be a shield to defend ...

— Kilner, Dorothy (1755-1836)

Date: 1790?

"That you, my young friend, may be enabled, by the Grace of God, to preserve your heart pure and unsullied, as at the moment of quitting your parents roof, through every temptation which may beset you; and that it may, like metal purified in the furnace, shine forth so much the brighter from triu...

— Kilner, Dorothy (1755-1836)