Date: 1778

"Ideas thus fixed by sensible objects, will be certain and definitive; and sinking deep into the mind, will not only be more just, but more lasting than those presented to you by precepts only: which will, always be fleeting, variable, and undetermined."

— Reynolds, Joshua (1723-1792)

Date: 1778, 1779

"I was totally spiritless and dejected; the idea of the approaching meeting,--and oh Sir, the idea of the approaching parting,--gave a heaviness to my heart, that I could neither conquer nor repress."

— Burney [married name D'Arblay], Frances (1752-1840)

Date: 1778, 1779

If "I may now judge of the time to come, by the present state of my mind, the calm will be succeeded by a storm, of which I dread the violence"

— Burney [married name D'Arblay], Frances (1752-1840)

Date: 1778, 1779

"I cannot write the scene that followed, though every word is engraven on my heart."

— Burney [married name D'Arblay], Frances (1752-1840)

Date: 1778, 1779

"Yes, my child, thy happiness is engraved, in golden characters, upon the tablets of my heart! and their impression is indelible; for, should the rude and deep-searching hand of Misfortune attempt to pluck them from their repository, the fleeting fabric of life would give way, and in tearing from...

— Burney [married name D'Arblay], Frances (1752-1840)

Date: 1778, 1779

"As soon would I discuss the effect of sound with the deaf, or the nature of colours with the blind, as aim at illuminating with conviction a mind so warped by prejudice, so much the slave of unruly and illiberal passions."

— Burney [married name D'Arblay], Frances (1752-1840)

Date: 1778, 1779

"I can write no more. The small share of serenity I have painfully acquired, will not bear the shock of the dreadful ideas that crowd upon me."

— Burney [married name D'Arblay], Frances (1752-1840)

Date: 1778, 1779

"I yield, therefore, to the necessity which compels my reluctant acquiescence, and shall now turn all my thoughts upon considering of such methods for the conducting this enterprize, as may be most conducive to the happiness of my child, and least liable to wound her sensibility."

— Burney [married name D'Arblay], Frances (1752-1840)

Date: 1778, 1779

"For, though Courage is one of the noblest virtues of this nether sphere, and though scarcely more requisite in the field of battle, to guard the fighting hero from disgrace, than in the private commerce of the world, to ward off that littleness of soul which leads by steps imperceptible, to all ...

— Burney [married name D'Arblay], Frances (1752-1840)

Date: 1778, 1779

"Let me, therefore, prepare for disappointment those who, in the perusal of these sheets, entertain the gentle expectation of being transported to the fantastic regions of Romance, where Fiction is coloured by all the gay tints of luxurious Imagination, where Reason is an outcast, and where the s...

— Burney [married name D'Arblay], Frances (1752-1840)