Date: 1791, 1794

"Such were the dreadful images that haunted her distracted mind, and nature was sinking fast under the dreadful malady which medicine had no power to remove."

— Rowson, Susanna (1762-1828)

Date: 1799

"Hitherto distress had been contemplated at a distance, and through the medium of fancy delighting to be startled by the wonderful, or transported by sublimity."

— Brown, Charles Brockden (1771-1810)

Date: 1800

One's thoughts may be visible to another

— Brown, Charles Brockden (1771-1810)

Date: 1850

"My imagination was a tarnished mirror. It would not reflect, or only with miserable dimness, the figures with which I did my best to people it."

— Hawthorne, Nathaniel (1804-1864)

Date: 1873

"There thou sittest in thy wonted corner / Lone and awful in thy darkened mind."

— Lowell, James Russell (1819-1891)

Date: 1922

"I plucked my soul out of its secret place, / And held it to the mirror of my eye, / To see it like a star against the sky, / A twitching body quivering in space, / A spark of passion shining on my face."

— McKay, Claude (1889-1948)

Date: 1963

"Words dimly familiar but twisted all awry, like faces in a funhouse mirror, fled past, leaving no impression on the glassy surface of my brain."

— Plath, Sylvia (1932-1963)

Date: 1963, 1965

"This is the light of the mind, cold and planetary."

— Plath, Sylvia (1932-1963)

Date: 1979

"The picture which holds traditional philosophy captive is that of the mind as a great mirror, containing various representations--some accurate, some not--and capable of being studied by pure, non-empirical methods."

— Rorty, Richard (1931-2007)

Date: 1980

"And here we find our greatest affinity with water, for like reflections on water our thoughts will suffer no changing shock, no permanent displacement."

— Robinson, Marilynne (b. 1943)