Date: May 10, 1704

"As the face of nature never produces rain but when it is overcast and disturbed, so human understanding, seated in the brain, must be troubled and overspread by vapours ascending from the lower faculties to water the invention, and render it fruitful."

— Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)

Date: May 10, 1704

"Thus far, I suppose, will easily be granted me; and then it will follow that as the face of Nature never produces rain but when it is overcast and disturbed, so human understanding seated in the brain must be troubled and overspread by vapours ascending from the lower faculties to water the inve...

— Swift, Jonathan (1667-1745)

Date: 1719

"Pray note, all this was the Fruit of a disturb'd Mind, an impatient Temper, made as it were desperate, by the long Continuance of my Troubles, and the Disappointments I had met in the Wreck I had been on Board of, and where I had been so near the obtaining what I so earnestly long'd for, viz. so...

— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)

Date: 1771

"I am inclined to think, no mind was ever wholly exempt from envy; which, perhaps, may have been implanted, as an instinct essential to our nature"

— Smollett, Tobias (1721-1777)