Date: 1747-8

"She set even my heart into a palpitation--Thump, thump, thump, like a precipitated pendulum in a clock-case"

— Richardson, Samuel (bap. 1689, d. 1761)

Date: 1747-8

"Which, by recording the principal circumstances of past facts, and laying them close together, in a continued narration, kept the mind from languishing, and gave constant exercise to its reflections."

— Richardson, Samuel (bap. 1689, d. 1761)

Date: 1747-8

"And that the Whole would be thereby deprived of that Variety, which is deemed the Soul of a Feast, whether mensal or mental."

— Richardson, Samuel (bap. 1689, d. 1761)

Date: 1747-8

"If in look, if in speech, a girl waves way to undue levity, depend upon it, the devil has got one of his cloven feet in her heart already."

— Richardson, Samuel (bap. 1689, d. 1761)

Date: 1747-8

"To send a man and horse on purpose; as I did! My imagination chained to the belly of the beast, in order to keep pace with him!"

— Richardson, Samuel (bap. 1689, d. 1761)

Date: 1747-8

"Yet her charming body is not equally organized. The unequal partners pull two ways; and the divinity within her tears her silken frame."

— Richardson, Samuel (bap. 1689, d. 1761)

Date: 1747-8

"So now, Belford, as thou hast said, I am a machine at last, and no free agent."

— Richardson, Samuel (bap. 1689, d. 1761)

Date: 1747-8

"[W]hen I heard her sentiments on two or three subjects, and took notice of that searching eye, darting into the very inmost cells of our frothy brains, by my faith, it made me look about me."

— Richardson, Samuel (bap. 1689, d. 1761)

Date: 1749

Nature "corresponding with her sweet assailant," may invade "in the heart of [a woman's] capital," and carry it by storm, while she lays "at the mercy of the proud conqueror, who had made his entry triumphantly, and completely"

— Cleland, John (bap. 1710, d. 1789)

Date: 1749

One may give and take "with a gust inexpressible, a kiss of welcome, that my heart rising to my lips, stamp'd with its warmest impression"

— Cleland, John (bap. 1710, d. 1789)