Date: May 10, 1704
"Now it usually happens that these active spirits, getting possession of the brain, resemble those that haunt other waste and empty dwellings, which for want of business either vanish and carry away a piece of the house, or else stay at home and fling it all out of the windows."
preview | full record— Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)
Date: 1760-7
"Whether they were above my uncle Toby's reason,--or contrary to it,-- or that his brain was like wet tinder, and no spark could possibly take hold,--or that it was so full of saps, mines, blinds, curtins, and such military disqualifications to his seeing clearly into Prignitz and Scroderus's doc...
preview | full record— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)
Date: 1774, rev. 1787, 1779 in English
"And yet I wish--Oh! my friend, 'tis like drawing a curtain before my heart--only to taste this felicity, and die and expiate my crimes.--My crimes!"
preview | full record— Goethe, Johann Wolfgang (1749-1832)
Date: 1800
"Every sense was an inlet of pleasure, because it was an avenue to knowledge; and my soul brooded over the world of ideas, and glowed with exultation at the grandeur and beauty of its own creations"
preview | full record— Brown, Charles Brockden (1771-1810)