Date: 1785

"Such rapture filled Lactilla's vacant soul, / When the bright Moralist, in softness dressed, / Opes all the glories of the mental world, / Deigns to direct the infant thought, to prune / The budding sentiment, uprear the stalk / Of feeble fancy, bid idea live, / Woo the abstracted spirit form i...

— Yearsley, Ann (bap. 1753, d. 1806)

Date: 1788

"Mary could not help thinking that in his company her mind expanded, as he always went below the surface. She increased her stock of ideas, and her taste was improved."

— Wollstonecraft, Mary (1759-1797)

Date: 1788

"Her mind was unhinged, and passion unperceived filled her whole soul."

— Wollstonecraft, Mary (1759-1797)

Date: 1788

"Whenever she did, or said, any thing she thought Henry would have approved of--she could not avoid thinking with anguish, of the rapture his approbation ever conveyed to her heart--a heart in which there was a void, that even benevolence and religion could not fill."

— Wollstonecraft, Mary (1759-1797)

Date: 1786, 1787, 1788; 1789

"So poignant a mind in a vulgariz'd shell,/ Resembles a bucket of gold in a well; / 'Tis like Ceylon's best spice in a rude-fashion'd jar, / Or Comedy coop'd in a Dutch man of war."

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