Date: 1794, 1797

"If you have reduced me to the necessity of again debating the same painful and gloomy question, if you cannot give that elasticity to my mind which will animate it to despise difficulty and steel it against injustice, however good your intentions may have been, I fear you have but imposed misery...

— Holcroft, Thomas (1745-1809)

Date: 1795

"You should not soften, but steel my heart!"

— Holcroft, Thomas (1745-1809)

Date: 1798

"Begone, iron-hearted wretch!"

— Holcroft, Thomas (1745-1809)

Date: 1800-1803

"And these are the gems of the Human Soul"

— Blake, William (1757-1827)

Date: 1800-1803

"The countless gold of the akeing heart"

— Blake, William (1757-1827)

Date: 1803

"Charms with soft words, and sooths with amorous wiles, / Her iron-hearted Lord,--and Pluto smiles."

— Darwin, Erasmus (1731-1802)

Date: c. 1804-1811, 1818

"For every human heart has gates of brass & bars of adamant, / Which few dare unbar because dread Og & Anak guard the gates"

— Blake, William (1757-1827)

Date: 1804

"The Spectre is the Reasoning Power in Man; & when separated / From Imagination, and closing itself as in steel, in a Ratio / Of the Things of Memory"

— Blake, William (1757-1827)

Date: 1806

"I'll hear no tales, listen to none of the charities of life: my heart is steeled"

— Holcroft, Thomas (1745-1809)

Date: w. 1797-1807, published 1893

"With tears of sorrow incessant she labourd the food of Orc / Compelld by the iron hearted sisters Daughters of Urizen"

— Blake, William (1757-1827)