Date: 1777, 1780

"[T]he name of Sir Philip Harclay shall be engraven upon my heart, next to my Lord and his family, for ever"

— Reeve, Clara (1729-1807)

Date: 1788

"'Father of Mercies, compose this troubled spirit: do I indeed wish it to be composed---to forget my Henry?' the 'my', the pen was directly drawn across in an agony."

— Wollstonecraft, Mary (1759-1797)

Date: 1788

"When Rochely got home, he set about examining the state of his heart exactly as he would have examined the check book of one of his customers."

— Smith, Charlotte (1749-1806)

Date: 1788

"My Lord, my present concern is of a very different nature; and I do assure and protest to your Lordship that no time nor intreaties nor persuasion will erase and obliterate and wipe away from my mind, the injury and prejudice the parties have done me, by thus."

— Smith, Charlotte (1749-1806)

Date: 1790

"But her efforts to erase him from her remembrance were ineffectual."

— Radcliffe [née Ward], Ann (1764-1823)

Date: 1794

"The intelligent eyes of Emily seemed to read what passed in the mind of her father, and she fixed them on his face, with an expression of such tender pity, as recalled his thoughts from every desultory object of regret, and he remembered only, that he must leave his daughter without protection."

— Radcliffe [née Ward], Ann (1764-1823)

Date: 1794

"Emily observed these written characters of his thoughts with deep interest, and not without some degree of awe, when she considered that she was entirely in his power; but forbore even to hint her fears, or her observations, to Madame Montoni, who discerned nothing in her husband, at these times...

— Radcliffe [née Ward], Ann (1764-1823)

Date: 1796

"The mind of a young woman lady should be clear and unsullied, like a sheet of white paper, or her own fairer face"

— Hays, Mary (1760-1843)

Date: 1797

"An habitual gloom and severity prevailed over the deep lines of his countenance; and his eyes were so piercing that they seemed to penetrate, at a single glance, into the hearts of men, and to read their most secret thoughts; few persons could support their scrutiny, or even endure to meet them ...

— Radcliffe [née Ward], Ann (1764-1823)

Date: 1800

"The pen is a pacifyer. It checks the mind's career; it circumscribes her wanderings."

— Brown, Charles Brockden (1771-1810)