Date: 1790

"The high importance of the moment, the solemnity of the ceremony, the sacred glooms which surrounded me, and the chilling silence that prevailed when I uttered the irrevocable vow--all conspired to impress my imagination, and to raise my views to heaven."

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

Date: 1790

"When I knelt at the altar, the sacred flame of pure devotion glowed in my heart, and elevated my soul to sublimity."

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

Date: 1790

"I had but one crime to deplore, and that was the too tender remembrance of him for whom I mourned, and whose idea impressed upon my heart, made it a blemished offering to God."

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

Date: 1790

"When the search was over, and he became convinced she was fled; the deep workings of his disappointed passions fermented into rage which exceeded all bounds."

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

Date: 1790

"Yet the banditti had steadily persisted in affirming that he was not concealed in their recesses; and this circumstance, which threw a deeper shade over the fears of Hippolitus, imparted a glimmering of hope to the mind of Julia."

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

Date: 1790

"The marquis, meanwhile, whose indefatigable search after Julia failed of success, was successively the slave of alternate passions, and he poured forth the spleen of disappointment on his unhappy domestics."

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

Date: 1790

"But a new affliction was preparing for the marquis, which attacked him where he was most vulnerable; and the veil which had so long overshadowed his reason was now to be removed."

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

Date: 1790

"This information lighted up the wildest passions of his nature; his former sufferings faded away before the stronger influence of the present misfortune, and it seemed as if he had never tasted misery till now."

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

Date: 1790

"His mind was not yet sufficiently hardened by guilt to repel the arrows of conscience, and his imagination responded to her power."

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

Date: 1790

"His last words struck with the force of lightning upon the mind of Ferdinand; they seemed to say that his mother might yet exist."

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