Date: 1790
"Love comes to the bosom under the gentle forms of esteem, of sympathy, of confidence: we listen with dangerous pleasure to the seducing accents of his voice, till he lifts the fatal veil which concealed him from our view, and reigns a tyrant in the soul. Reason is then an oracle no longer consul...
preview | full record— Williams, Helen Maria (1759-1827)
Date: 1793
"Law may be supposed to have been constructed in the tranquil serenity of the soul, a suitable monitor to check the inflamed mind with which the recent memory of ills might induce us to proceed to the exercise of coercion"
preview | full record— Godwin, William (1756-1836)
Date: w. 1788-93, 1796 (rev. 1815, 1827, 1837, 1897)
"The dissipation of Blandford, and the disputes of Portsmouth, consumed the hours which were not employed in the field; and amid the perpetual hurry of an inn, a barrack, or a guard-room, all literary ideas were banished from my mind."
preview | full record— Gibbon, Edward (1737-1794)
Date: 1797
"'Behold, what is woman!' said he--'The slave of her passions, the dupe of her senses! When pride and revenge speak in her breast, she defies obstacles, and laughs at crimes!'" "Assail but her senses; let music, for instance, touch some feeble chord of her heart, and echo to her fancy, and lo! al...
preview | full record— Radcliffe [née Ward], Ann (1764-1823)