Date: 1755

"So eager and intangled was our Hidalgo in this kind of history, that he would often read from morning to night, and from night to morning again, without interruption; till at last, the moisture of his brain being quite exhausted with indefatigable watching and study, he fairly lost his wits."

— Cervantes Saavedra, Miguel de (1547-1616); Smollett, Tobias (1721-1771)

Date: 1761

"Your sorrow is of the calmer, mine of the more passionate kind, yet though the affection of the mind be the same, it takes its colour in each from the different channels through which it runs; and indeed it is but natural, that the greatest misfortunes should produce the most disquieting anxieti...

— Rousseau, Jean-Jacques (1712-1778); Kenrick, William (1729/30-1779)

Date: 1774, rev. 1787, 1779 in English

"His repeated promises confirm her hopes; his fondness encreases her passion; her whole soul is lost and drowned in pleasure; her heart is all rapture: At length she stretches out her arms to embrace the object of her vows--All is vanished away; her lover forsakes her."

— Goethe, Johann Wolfgang (1749-1832)