Date: 1782
"Here tranquility once more made its abode the heart of Cecilia; that heart so long torn with anguish, suspense and horrour!"
preview | full record— Burney [married name D'Arblay], Frances (1752-1840)
Date: 1784
"The hidden lead indents the murderer's brain; / With one demoniac glance, as down he fell, / The soul starts furious from its vital cell."
preview | full record— Seward, Anna (1742-1809)
Date: 1785
"Unwelcome is the first bright dawn of light / To the dark soul; impatient, she rejects, / And fain would push the heavenly stranger back; / She loathes the cranny which admits the day; / Confused, afraid of the intruding guest; / Disturbed, unwilling to receive the beam, / Which to herself her n...
preview | full record— Yearsley, Ann (bap. 1753, d. 1806)
Date: 1785
"The effort rude to quench the cheering flame / Was mine, and e'en on Stella could I gaze / With sullen envy, and admiring pride, / Till, doubly roused by Montagu, the pair / Conspire to clear my dull, imprisoned sense, / And chase the mists which dimmed my visual beam."
preview | full record— Yearsley, Ann (bap. 1753, d. 1806)
Date: 1785
"Oft as I trod my native wilds alone, / Strong gusts of thought would rise, but rise to die; / The portals of the swelling soul ne'er oped / By liberal converse, rude ideas strove / Awhile for vent, but found it not, and died."
preview | full record— Yearsley, Ann (bap. 1753, d. 1806)
Date: 1786
"'Tis thy pure spirit warms my Anna's mind. / Beams thro' the pensive softness of her form, / And holds its altar--on her spotless heart!"
preview | full record— Smith, Charlotte (1749-1806)
Date: 1788
"She knew none of the inhabitants of the vast city to which she was going: the mass of buildings appeared to her a huge body without an informing soul."
preview | full record— Wollstonecraft, Mary (1759-1797)
Date: 1788
"I am a wretch! and she heaved a sigh that almost broke her heart, while the big tears rolled down her burning cheeks; but still her exercised mind, accustomed to think, began to observe its operation, though the barrier of reason was almost carried away, and all the faculties not restrained by h...
preview | full record— Wollstonecraft, Mary (1759-1797)
Date: 1789
"While in Fancy's ear / As in the evening wind thy murmurs swell, / The Enthusiast of the Lyre, who wander'd here, / Seems yet to strike his visionary shell, / Of power to call forth Pity's tenderest tear / Or wake wild frenzy--from her hideous cell!"
preview | full record— Smith, Charlotte (1749-1806)
Date: 1790, 1794
"How many fine-spun threads of reasoning would my wandering thoughts have broken; and how difficult should I have found it to arrange arguments and inferences in the cells of my brain!"
preview | full record— Williams, Helen Maria (1759-1827)