Date: 1793

"I must consider what's to be done--and in this room my thoughts are too confined to reflect."

— Inchbald [née Simpson], Elizabeth (1753-1821)

Date: 1795

One may have a heart of the noblest stamp

— Holcroft, Thomas (1745-1809)

Date: 1795

"You should not soften, but steel my heart!"

— Holcroft, Thomas (1745-1809)

Date: 1795

"My brain was a broker's shop; the little good furniture it contained all hid by lumber!"

— Holcroft, Thomas (1745-1809)

Date: 1796, 1806

"A dread coincidence of time and act / Drew me from Reason's empire to Despair!"

— Robinson [Née Darby], Mary [Perdita] (1758-1800)

Date: 1796, 1806

"O! blessings on thee!--soft, this ray of hope / Dazzles my aching senses, and I start / As from a dream of horror, where the brain, / Stampt with the semblance of some phantom dire / Reflects it, waking, to the fearful gaze!"

— Robinson [Née Darby], Mary [Perdita] (1758-1800)

Date: 1796, 1806

"Ambition!--not that emulative zeal Which wings the tow'ring souls of godlike men! / But bold, oppressive, self-created pow'r, / That, trampling o'er the barrier of the laws, / And scattering wide the tender shoots of pity, / Strikes at the root of reason, and confines / Nature itself in bondage!"

— Robinson [Née Darby], Mary [Perdita] (1758-1800)

Date: 1798

"Begone, iron-hearted wretch!"

— Holcroft, Thomas (1745-1809)

Date: 1806

"I'll hear no tales, listen to none of the charities of life: my heart is steeled"

— Holcroft, Thomas (1745-1809)

Date: 1820

"Thus a number of writers possess the form, whilst they want the spirit of those whom, it is alleged, they imitate; because the former is the endowment of the age in which they live, and the latter must be the uncommunicated lightning of their own mind."

— Shelley, Percy Bysshe (1792-1822)