Date: 1769
"The first reverend sage who delivered himself on this mysterious subject, having stroked his grey beard, and hemmed thrice with great solemnity, declared that the soul was an animal; a second pronounced it to be the number three, or proportion; a third contended for the number seven, or harmony;...
preview | full record— Smollett, Tobias (1721-1777)
Date: 1755, 1771
"The' etherial soul that Heaven itself inspires / With all its virtues, and with all its fires, / Led by these sirens to some wild extreme, / Sets in a vapour when it ought to beam; / Like a Dutch sun that in the' autumnal sky / Looks through a fog, and rises but to die."
preview | full record— Cawthorn, James (1719-1761)
Date: 1773
"Yet of etherial temper are their souls, / And in their veins the tide of honour rolls; / And valour kindles there the hero's flame, / Contempt of death, and thirst of martial flame. / And pity melts the sympathizing breast, / Ah! fatal virtue!—for the brave distrest."
preview | full record— Day, Thomas (1748-1789)
Date: 1798 [1797?]
"Elf, we'll promote the cause of human weal, / To yon dissecting sage these truths reveal. / Show him what use the Renal Capsule serves, / The liquid Fire that floats along the nerves; / Give him the office of the Spleen to find, / And let him see the Nidus of the mind."
preview | full record— Jones, Jenkin [Captain] (fl. 1798)
Date: 1816
"Yet must I think less wildly:--I have thought / Too long and darkly, till my brain became, / In its own eddy boiling and o'erwrought, / A whirling gulf of phantasy and flame."
preview | full record— Byron, George Gordon Noel, sixth Baron Byron (1788-1824)
Date: August 1817
"Whenever any object takes such a hold on the mind as to make us dwell upon it, and brood over it, melting the heart in love, or kindling it to a sentiment of admiration;--whenever a movement of imagination or passion is impressed on the mind, by which it seeks to prolong and repeat the emotion, ...
preview | full record— Hazlitt, William (1778-1830)
Date: 2001
"Wind, ocean, fire: the things we like to liken our passions to don't break, can't stop."
preview | full record— Richardson, James (b. 1950)
Date: 2015
"And yes, mortal knells / in sleepless hours, hollow knocks of empty / boats against a dock but still the mind / is a meadow, the heart an ocean even though / it burns."
preview | full record— Young, Dean (b. 1955)