Date: 1759
Imitators of Nature are "Searchers into the inmost Labyrinths of the human Mind"
preview | full record— Fielding, Sarah (1710-1768)
Date: 1759
"[A]nd her Mind, at that time, might be likened to a Theatre, on which the Tragedy of a glittering Cross, and a Pair of Diamond Ear-rings, was acting, with much more Propriety than the envious Critic called Othello The Tragedy of the Handkerchief."
preview | full record— Fielding, Sarah (1710-1768)
Date: 1759
"He shewed, with great strength of sentiment, and variety of illustration, that human nature is degraded and debased, when the lower faculties predominate over the higher; that when fancy, the parent of passion, usurps the dominion of the mind, nothing ensues but the natural effect of unlawful go...
preview | full record— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)
Date: 1765 [1764]
"No, Isabella, said the princess, I should not deserve this incomparable parent, if the inmost recesses of my soul harboured a thought without her permission."
preview | full record— Walpole, Horatio [Horace], fourth earl of Orford (1717-1797)
Date: 1770-1
"The method that Mrs. Ruby-nose used to dismiss her anger, was to clap herself into an arm-chair with such a whang, that it shook the hot vapours from her brain, and sent them in a hurry down into a capacious store-room called her victualling-office."
preview | full record— Bridges, Thomas (b. 1710?, d. in or after 1775)
Date: 1770-1
"By this time the choleric vapours, which madam had jogged downwards when she let her broad bottom salute the chair with such a whack, growing warm amongst the hodg-potch they found in her store-room, which we may properly stile a hot-house, began to ascend, and take possession of their former te...
preview | full record— Bridges, Thomas (b. 1710?, d. in or after 1775)
Date: 1782
"What Addison has said of the Ways of Heaven, may with much more propriety & accuracy be applied to the the 'Mind of Man which indeed, is Dark & Intricate, Filled with wild Mazes, & perplexed with Error.''"
preview | full record— Burney [married name D'Arblay], Frances (1752-1840)
Date: 1782
"The life I led at the cottage was the life of a savage; no intercourse with society, no consolation from books; my mind locked up, every source dried of intellectual delight, and no enjoyment in my power but from sleep and from food."
preview | full record— Burney [married name D'Arblay], Frances (1752-1840)
Date: 1782
"Here tranquility once more made its abode the heart of Cecilia; that heart so long torn with anguish, suspense and horrour!"
preview | full record— Burney [married name D'Arblay], Frances (1752-1840)
Date: 1788
"She knew none of the inhabitants of the vast city to which she was going: the mass of buildings appeared to her a huge body without an informing soul."
preview | full record— Wollstonecraft, Mary (1759-1797)