Date: 1788
"Still, however, the sense of her own incurable unhappiness, her own irretrievable unworthiness, and the disgrace of having sullied the honour of her family, and given pain to such a brother, overwhelmed her with grief and confusion; while her reason, as it at intervals returned, served only to s...
preview | full record— Smith, Charlotte (1749-1806)
Date: w. January 24, 1789
"Your dear idea reigns, and reigns alone; / Each thought intoxicated homage yields, / And riots wanton in forbidden fields."
preview | full record— Burns, Robert (1759-1796)
Date: 1790, 1794, 1795, 1818, 1827
"When I came home; on the abyss of the five senses, where a flat sided steep frowns over the present world. I saw a mighty Devil folded in black clouds, hovering on the sides of the rock, with corroding fires he wrote the following sentence now percieved by the minds of men, & read by them on earth"
preview | full record— Blake, William (1757-1827)
Date: 1790, 1794, 1795, 1818, 1827
"For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro' narrow chinks of his cavern."
preview | full record— Blake, William (1757-1827)
Date: 1790
"But, the region of passion is a land of despotism, where reason exercises but a mock jurisdiction; and is continually forced to submit to an arbitrary tyrant, who, rejecting her fixed and temperate laws, is guided only by the dangerous impulse of his own violent and uncontroulable wishes."
preview | full record— Williams, Helen Maria (1759-1827)
Date: 1791, 1806
"Oh! horrid Night! / Thou prying Monitor confest! / Whose key unlocks the human breast, / And bares each avenue to mental sight!"
preview | full record— Robinson [Née Darby], Mary [Perdita] (1758-1800)
Date: 1793
Corporal punishment closes all "wholsome avenues of mind ... and on every side we see them guarded with a train of disgraceful passions, hatred, revenge, despotism, cruelty, hypocrisy, conspiracy and cowardice."
preview | full record— Godwin, William (1756-1836)
Date: 1797
"Light of the world, whose cheering ray / Illumes the realms of mind"
preview | full record— Barbauld, Anna Letitia [née Aikin] (1743-1825)