Date: 1696

"My Lord, said that charming Maid, were I to behold a Man Masculine, yet Beautiful, Great, yet truly Brave; A Prince whose Virtues, brighter than his Diadems, appear; one more glorious than boundless Fancy can to the thinking Mind depaint; and, not convinc'd by signal proofs, his heart inclin'd, ...

— Pix, Mary (c.1666-1720)

Date: 1736

"Philosophy was incapable of affording her any Relief, and all her Reason served only to paint the Unhappiness of her Condition in the stronger Colours."

— Haywood [née Fowler], Eliza (1693?-1756)

Date: 1744

"[T]he charming image of a city's brightest ornament" may be engraven on the heart by "the god of love ... in characters too indelible ever to be erased"

— Haywood [née Fowler], Eliza (1693?-1756)

Date: 1763

"My tears streamed afresh when I beheld him, when I remembered the sweet hours we had passed together, the gay scenes which hope had painted to our hearts; I wept over the friend I had so loved, I pressed his cold hand to my lips."

— Brooke [née Moore], Frances (bap. 1724, d. 1789)

Date: 1778, 1779

"Your impatience to fly to a place which your imagination has painted to you in colours so attractive, surprizes me not; I have only to hope that the liveliness of your fancy may not deceive you: to refuse, would be to raise it still higher."

— Burney [married name D'Arblay], Frances (1752-1840)

Date: 1778, 1779

"but it was not time, it was not the knowledge of his worth, obtained your regard; your new comrade had not patience to wait any trial; her glowing pencil, dipt in the vivid colours of her creative ideas, painted to you, at the moment of your first acquaintance, all the excellencies, all the good...

— Burney [married name D'Arblay], Frances (1752-1840)

Date: 1782

"In following her extraordinary director, her imagination had painted to her a scene such as she had so lately quitted, and prepared her to behold some family in distress, some helpless creature in sickness, or some children in want."

— Burney [married name D'Arblay], Frances (1752-1840)

Date: 1782

"[A]cquainted ere you meet that you were to meet him no more, your heart would be all softness and grief, and at the very moment when tenderness should be banished from your intercourse, it would bear down all opposition of judgment, spirit, and dignity: you would hang upon every word, because ev...

— Burney [married name D'Arblay], Frances (1752-1840)

Date: 1788

"The same turn of mind which leads me to adore the Author of all Perfection--which leads me to conclude that he only can fill my soul; forces me to admire the faint image--the shadows of his attributes here below; and my imagination gives still bolder strokes to them."

— Wollstonecraft, Mary (1759-1797)

Date: 1788

"Emmeline, at the picture her imagination drew of their united powers of desolation, shuddered involuntarily and sighed."

— Smith, Charlotte (1749-1806)