Date: 1769
"That we are generally tyrannical, I am obliged to own; but such of us as know how to be happy, willingly give up the harsh title of master, for the more tender and endearing one of friend; men of sense abhor those customs which treat your sex as if created meerly for the happiness of the other; ...
preview | full record— Brooke [née Moore], Frances (bap. 1724, d. 1789)
Date: 1782
"All that pride could demand, and all to which ambition could aspire, all that happiness could cover or the most scrupulous delicacy exact, in her I found united; and while my heart was enslaved by her charms, my understanding exulted in its fetters."
preview | full record— Burney [married name D'Arblay], Frances (1752-1840)
Date: 1788
"Their minds were shackled with a set of notions concerning propriety, the fitness of things for the world's eye, trammels which always hamper weak people."
preview | full record— Wollstonecraft, Mary (1759-1797)
Date: 1788
"He had been the slave of beauty, the captive of sense; love he ne'er had felt; the mind never rivetted the chain, nor had the purity of it made the body appear lovely in his eyes."
preview | full record— Wollstonecraft, Mary (1759-1797)
Date: 1792
"My passions must be, ought to be, and therefore shall be, under my control; and, being conscious of the purity of my own intentions, I have never thought that the emanations of mind ought to be shackled by the dread of their being misinterpreted."
preview | full record— Holcroft, Thomas (1745-1809)
Date: 1794
"I would not shackle you with fetters of suspicion; I would have you governed by justice and reason."
preview | full record— Godwin, William (1756-1836)
Date: 1797
"Thus man, the giant who now held her in captivity, would shrink to the diminutiveness of a fairy; and she would experience, that his utmost force was unable to enchain her soul, or compel her to fear him, while he was destitute of virtue."
preview | full record— Radcliffe [née Ward], Ann (1764-1823)