Date: 1785

"O, Montagu! forgive me, if I sing / red with the milder ray / Of soft humanity, and kindness bland: / So wide its influence, that the bright beams / Reach the low vale where mists of ignorance lodge, / Strike on the innate spark which lay immersed, / Thick-clogged, and almost quenched in total n...

— Yearsley, Ann (bap. 1753, d. 1806)

Date: 1786

"Remember (continued he) that the solitary mortal is certainly luxurious, probably superstitious, and possibly mad: the mind stagnates for want of employment, grows morbid, and is extinguished like a candle in foul air."

— Piozzi, [née Salusbury; other married name Thrale] Hester Lynch (1741-1821)

Date: 1786

"So o'er my soul short rays of reason fly, / Then fade:--and leave me, to despair and die!"

— Smith, Charlotte (1749-1806)

Date: 1786

"But when thy envied sanction crowns my lays, / A ray of pleasure lights my languid mind, / For well I know the value of thy praise."

— Smith, Charlotte (1749-1806)

Date: 1787

"This was a ray of intelligence which pointed out to the discerning parent the path prescribed by nature."

— Louise Florence Pétronille Tardieu d'Ésclavelles Épinay (marquise d') (1726-1783)

Date: 1788

"Since there is no convexity in MIND, / Why are thy genial beams to parts confined?"

— More, Hannah (1745-1833)

Date: 1788

"She could not write any more; she wished herself far distant from all human society; a thick gloom spread itself over her mind: but did not make her forget the very beings she wished to fly from."

— Wollstonecraft, Mary (1759-1797)

Date: 1788

"She could not write any more; she wished herself far distant from all human society; a thick gloom spread itself over her mind: but did not make her forget the very beings she wished to fly from."

— Wollstonecraft, Mary (1759-1797)

Date: 1788

"In moments of solitary sadness, a gleam of joy would dart across her mind."

— Wollstonecraft, Mary (1759-1797)

Date: 1788

"A ray of fire seemed to flash across the imagination of Delamere, and to inflame all his hopes."

— Smith, Charlotte (1749-1806)