Date: 1777, 1780

"While he prayed, he felt an enlargement of heart beyond what he had ever experienced before; all idle fears were dispersed, and his heart glowed with divine love and affiance: He seemed raised above the world and all its pursuits."

— Reeve, Clara (1729-1807)

Date: 1777, 1780

"I buried my resentment deep in my heart, and outwardly appeared to rejoice at his success; I made a merit of resigning my pretensions to him, but I could not bear to be present at his nuptials."

— Reeve, Clara (1729-1807)

Date: 1777, 1780

"He asked an audience of his fair Mistress, and was permitted to declare the passion he had so long stifled in his own bosom."

— Reeve, Clara (1729-1807)

Date: 1784

"Ah! season of delight!--could aught be found / To soothe awhile the tortur'd bosom's pain, / Of Sorrow's rankling shaft to cure the wound, / And bring life's first delusions once again, / 'Twere surely met in thee!."

— Smith, Charlotte (1749-1806)

Date: 1786

"Oh thou! to save whose peace I now depart, / Will thy soft mind, thy poor lost friend deplore, / When worms shall feed on this devoted heart, / Where even thy image shall be found no more / Yet may thy pity mingle not with pain, / For then thy hapless lover--dies in vain!"

— Smith, Charlotte (1749-1806)

Date: 1788

"Mary could not help thinking that in his company her mind expanded, as he always went below the surface. She increased her stock of ideas, and her taste was improved."

— Wollstonecraft, Mary (1759-1797)

Date: 1788

"Her mind was unhinged, and passion unperceived filled her whole soul."

— Wollstonecraft, Mary (1759-1797)

Date: 1788

"Her moistened eyes were lifted up to heaven; a crowd of thoughts darted into her mind, and pressing her hand against her forehead, as if to bear the intellectual weight, she tried, but tried in vain, to arrange them."

— Wollstonecraft, Mary (1759-1797)

Date: 1788

"It is true, I have experienced the most rapturous emotions--short-lived delight!--ethereal beam, which only serves to shew my present misery--yet lie still, my throbbing heart, or burst; and my brain--why dost thou whirl about at such a terrifying rate?why do thoughts so rapidly rush into my min...

— Wollstonecraft, Mary (1759-1797)

Date: 1788

"He had been the slave of beauty, the captive of sense; love he ne'er had felt; the mind never rivetted the chain, nor had the purity of it made the body appear lovely in his eyes."

— Wollstonecraft, Mary (1759-1797)