Date: 1790

"Suspicion is like a mist, which renders the object it shades so uncertain, that the figure must be finished by imagination; and, when distrust takes the pencil, the strokes are generally so dark, that the disappointed heart sickens at the picture."

— Williams, Helen Maria (1759-1827)

Date: 1790

"His mind resembled a finetoned instrument, whose extensive compass was capable of producing the most sublime and elevating sounds; but a fatal pressure relaxed the strings, and sunk its powerful harmony."

— Williams, Helen Maria (1759-1827)

Date: 1790

"Her mind was in a state of uncontroulable agitation; and, though music has power to sooth a gentle, or even a deep and settled melancholy, the torments of jealousy, the agonies of suspence, raise a tempest in the soul, which no harmony can lull to repose."

— Williams, Helen Maria (1759-1827)

Date: 1790

"Such services, when weighed in the scale of reason, may prove rigorously just, but, in the balance of love, they will be found wanting. The head may understand the general theory of kindness, but the heart only can practise the detail; as the sculptor can give to marble an expression of human fe...

— Williams, Helen Maria (1759-1827)

Date: 1790

"Alas! when an impassioned mind, wounded by indifference, attempts recrimination, it is like a naked and bleeding Indian attacking a man arrayed in complete armour, whose fortified bosom no stroke can penetrate, while every blow which indignant anguish rashly aims, recoils on the unguarded heart."

— Williams, Helen Maria (1759-1827)

Date: 1790

"Let those who possess the talents, or the virtues, by which he was distinguished, avoid similar wretchedness, by guarding their minds against the influence of passion; since, if it be once suffered to acquire an undue ascendency over reason, we shall in vain attempt to controul its power: we mig...

— Williams, Helen Maria (1759-1827)

Date: 1790

"In vain we may lament the loss of our tranquillity; for peace, like the wandering dove, has forsaken its habitation in the bosom, and will return no more."

— Williams, Helen Maria (1759-1827)

Date: 1791

"Fancy paints with hues unreal,/ Smile of bliss, and sorrow's mood."

— Radcliffe [née Ward], Ann (1764-1823)

Date: 1791, 1794

"But Charlotte had made too great an impression on his mind to be easily eradicated."

— Rowson, Susanna (1762-1828)

Date: 1791, 1794

"When fancy paints to me the good old man stooping to raise the weeping penitent, while every tear from her eye is numbered by drops from his bleeding heart, my bosom glows with honest indignation, and I wish for power to extirpate those monsters of seduction from the earth."

— Rowson, Susanna (1762-1828)