Date: 1785

"I was delighted with this flash bursting from the cloud which hung upon his mind, closed my letter directly, and joined the company."

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)

Date: 1785

"Transient clouds darkened my imagination, and in those clouds I saw events from which I shrunk; but a sentence or two of the Rambler's conversation gave me firmness, and I considered that I was upon an expedition for which I had wished for years, and the recollection of which would be a treasure...

— Boswell, James (1740-1795)

Date: 1785

"From shadows thinner than the fleeting night / That floats along the vale, or haply seems / To wrap the mountain in its hazy vest, / (Which the first sun-beam dissipates in air.) / How dost thou conjure monsters which ne'er mov'd / But in the chaos of thy frenzied brain!"

— Pratt, Samuel Jackson [pseud. Courtney Melmoth] (1749-1814)

Date: w. 1782, 1786, 1816

"In the first ebullition of his fury, Vathek had resolved to rip open the body of Alboufaki and to stuff it with those of the negresses and of Carathis herself, but the remembrance of the Giaour, the palace of Istakar, the sabres, and the talismans, flashing before his imagination, with the simul...

— Beckford, William (1760-1844)

Date: 1787

"It is enough--my scruples are at an end--my prejudices, like clouds before the rising sun, vanish before the lights of your superior reason."

— Bickerstaff, Isaac (b. 1733, d. after 1808)

Date: January 23, 1787, 1788

"No storms of passion I desire."

— Arley [Miles Peter Andrews (1742- 814)?]

Date: 1787

"Fat is foul weather--dims the fancy's sight"

— Wolcot, John, pseud. Peter Pindar, (1738-1819)

Date: 1789?

The placid current of the mind may be bestorm'd so that "th' ideal billows, raging, rise"

— Williams, John [pseud. Anthony Pasquin] (1754-1818)

Date: 1786, 1787, 1788; 1789

"Like a snow-ball, the mind, fraught with peace in its prime, / Moves swiftly adown the steep shelvings of Time; / Accumulates filth from Society's sons, / And strengthens and hardens its coat as it runs; / Till habit on habit is negligent laid, / And the object appears motley, vile, and ill-made...

— Williams, John [pseud. Anthony Pasquin] (1754-1818)

Date: 1789

"Thus all things added to my pain, / While grief compell'd me to complain; / When sable clouds began to rise / My mind grew darker than the skies."

— Equiano, Olaudah [Gustavus Vasa] (c. 1745-1797)