Date: 1773
"But, when you come to the Grecian and Roman stories, I expect to find you deeply interested and highly entertained; and, of consequence, eager to treasure up in your memory those heroic actions and exalted characters by which a young mind is naturally so much animated and impressed."
preview | full record— Mulso [later Chapone], Hester (1727-1801)
Date: 1773
"In those dark ages, you will find no single character so interesting as that of Mahomet; that bold impostor, who extended his usurped dominion equally over the minds and properties of men, and propagated a new religion, whilst he founded a new empire, over a large portion of the globe."
preview | full record— Mulso [later Chapone], Hester (1727-1801)
Date: w. 1774-6, 1921
"As to the brutes it [whipping] inflicts no wound on their mind, whose Natures seem made to bear it, and whose sufferings are not attended with shame or pain beyond the present moment."
preview | full record— Schaw, Janet (c. 1731-c. 1801)
Date: w. August 30, 1783, printed 1788
"I advised our Miss H--- to the same remedy, but have a notion her mind is haunted by one particular image; if so, nothing will cure her; for if the heart be broken 'tis broken like a looking-glass, and the smallest piece will for ever preserve and reflect the same figure till 'tis again ground d...
preview | full record— Piozzi, [née Salusbury; other married name Thrale] Hester Lynch (1741-1821)
Date: 1790, 1794
"You, my dear friend, who have felt the tender attachments of love and friendship, and the painful anxieties which absence occasions, even amidst scenes of variety and pleasure; who understand the value at which tidings from those we love is computed in the arithmetic of the heart."
preview | full record— Williams, Helen Maria (1759-1827)
Date: 1790, 1794
He was allowed to do so, and read it till every word was imprinted on his memory; and after enjoying the sad luxury of holding it that night on his bosom, was forced the next morning to relinquish his treasure."
preview | full record— Williams, Helen Maria (1759-1827)
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)
Date: 1790, 1794
"Their turn of expression is a dress that hangs so gracefully on gay ideas, that you are apt to suppose that wit, a quality parsimoniously distributed in other countries, is in France as common as the gift of speech."
preview | full record— Williams, Helen Maria (1759-1827)
Date: 1793
"Of all bondage, mental bondage is surely the most fatal; the absurd despotism which has hitherto, with more than gothic barbarity, enslaved the female mind, the enervating and degrading system of manners by which the understandings of women have been chained down to frivolity and trifles, have i...
preview | full record— Hays, Mary (1760-1843)