Date: 1723, 1725
"Reflection was unhing'd; the noble Seat of Memory fill'd with Chimera's and disjointed Notions; wild and confus'd Ideas whirl'd in his distracted Brain; and all the Man, except the Form, was changed."
preview | full record— Haywood [née Fowler], Eliza (1693?-1756)
Date: 1753
"We often see that to reverse this boasted constancy is the work of but a single minute,--and then in vain their past professions recoil upon their minds;--in vain the idea of the forsaken fair haunts them in nightly visions."
preview | full record— Haywood [née Fowler], Eliza (1693?-1756)
Date: 1754
"At the early age of six years old I lost my father; yet his precepts were the principal foundation of all the instructions I afterwards received: for young as I was, he perceived (he said) the openings of a lively imagination; which, if directed into a right channel, would turn to my advantage, ...
preview | full record— Fielding, Sarah (1710-1768) and Jane Collier (bap. 1715, d. 1755)
Date: 1791, 1794
"My daily employment is to think of you and weep, to pray for your happiness and deplore my own folly: my nights are scarce more happy, for if by chance I close my weary eyes, and hope some small forgetfulness of sorrow, some little time to pass in sweet oblivion, fancy, still waking, wafts me ho...
preview | full record— Rowson, Susanna (1762-1828)
Date: 1794
"Retired to her lonely cabin, her melancholy thoughts still hovered round the body of her deceased parent; and, when she sunk into a kind of slumber, the images of her waking mind still haunted her fancy."
preview | full record— Radcliffe [née Ward], Ann (1764-1823)
Date: 1794
"The scenes of the Illiad illapsed in glowing colours to her fancy--scenes, once the haunt of heroes--now lonely, and in ruins; but which still shone, in the poet's strain, in all their youthful splendor."
preview | full record— Radcliffe [née Ward], Ann (1764-1823)
Date: 1795
"Millions of chimeras floated on my imagination all were rejected in speedy succession ere they became old enough to take the colour of reason; yet fancy will be busy till we are no more."
preview | full record— Yearsley, Ann (bap. 1753, d. 1806)
Date: 1797
"The beauty of her countenance haunting his imagination, and the touching accents of her voice still vibrating on his heart, he descended to the shore below her residence, pleasing himself with the consciousness of being near her, though he could no longer behold her; and sometimes hoping that he...
preview | full record— Radcliffe [née Ward], Ann (1764-1823)
Date: 1797
"As they passed with silent steps along the winding rocks, the tranquillity of the landscape below afforded an affecting contrast with the tumult and alarm of their minds."
preview | full record— Radcliffe [née Ward], Ann (1764-1823)
Date: 1871-2, 1874
"My mind is something like the ghost of an ancient, wandering about the world and trying mentally to construct it as it used to be, in spite of ruin and confusing changes."
preview | full record— Eliot, George (1819-1880)