Date: 1751
"This, and to see a succession of Humble Servants buzzing about a Mother, who took too much pride in addresses of that kind, what a beginning, what an example, to a constitution of tinder, so prepared to receive the spark struck from the steely forehead, and flinty heart, of such a Libertine, as ...
preview | full record— Richardson, Samuel (bap. 1689, d. 1761)
Date: 1761
"But now Adversity's refining fire / Melts down the base alloy of earthly passions, / And purifies the temper of the heart."
preview | full record— Cumberland, Richard (1732-1811)
Date: 1788
"Or, if where savage habit steels / The vulgar mind, one bosom feels / The sacred claim of helpless woe-- / If Pity in that soil can grow; / Pity! whose tender impulse darts / With keenest force on nobler hearts; / As flames that purest essence boast, / Rise highest when they tremble most."
preview | full record— Williams, Helen Maria (1759-1827)
Date: 1791
"In the rich realms of polished taste, / Where judgment penetrates to find / The treasures of the unwrought mind, / Where conversation's ardent spirit / Refines from dross the ore of merit, / Where emulation aids the flame / And stamps the sterling bust of fame."
preview | full record— West, Jane (1758-1852)
Date: 1806
"Tho' party-zeal inflam'd his iron heart, / And prejudice sharp pointed ev'ry dart; / With glowing thoughts, his mind profusely teem'd."
preview | full record— Jerningham, Edward (1727-1812)
Date: 2000
"I glimpsed a molten core to consciousness, a protean heat where everything could be reshaped. Yes, a molten core, like the core of the earth, deeper than the deposits of civilisation, beyond the complacencies of archaeology."
preview | full record— Edward St. Aubyn (b. 1960)