Date: February 15, 1776

"George, steel your heart, steel your heart, you Rogue."

— Cowley [née Parkhouse], Hannah (1743-1809)

Date: 1777

"Pale-eyed Affright, his heart of silver hue, / In vain essayed her bosom to acale."

— Chatterton, Thomas (1752-1770)

Date: 1779

"Then steel your mind, to bear the story's horror."

— Cowley [née Parkhouse], Hannah (1743-1809)

Date: 1784

"No, Edwitha--you have a native dignity of mind incapable of degradation or alloy."

— Holcroft, Thomas (1745-1809)

Date: 1784

" I am form'd horribly robust, as thou art, without a grain of sensibility--a heart of stone, and nerves of cast iron"

— Andrews, Miles Peter (1742-1814)

Date: 1785

"While in high life our hearts the fashions steel, / Too gay to listen, and too fine to feel--"

— Cumberland, Richard (1732-1811)

Date: 1793

"Tears from our sex are not always the result of grief; they are frequently no more than little sympathetic tributes which we pay to our fellow-beings, while the mind and the heart are steeled against the weakness which our eyes indicate"

— Inchbald [née Simpson], Elizabeth (1753-1821)

Date: 1793

"Can you say, your mind and heart are so steeled?"

— Inchbald [née Simpson], Elizabeth (1753-1821)

Date: 1795

"Lady Ruby is the loadstone that draws away every particle of steel that shou'd fortify my heart, and leaves it weaker than a woman's tear."

— Cumberland, Richard (1732-1811)

Date: 1795

"You should not soften, but steel my heart!"

— Holcroft, Thomas (1745-1809)