Date: 1691
"However chast his Body may be, his Mind is extreamly prolifick; his thoughts are a perfect Seraglio, and he, like a great Turk, begets thousands of little Infants--Remarks, Fancys, Fantasticks, Crochets and Whirligigs, on his wandring Intellect, and when once begot, they must be bred--so out he ...
preview | full record— Dunton, John (1659–1732)
Date: 1691
"So that here by a dear-bought Experience, I found, that the wandering Fancy of Man (nay, that even Life it self) is a it were but a meer Ramble or Fegary after the drag of something that doth itchifie our Senses, which when we have hunted home, we find nothing but a meer delusion."
preview | full record— Dunton, John (1659–1732)
Date: 1760-7
"That had said glass been there set up, nothing more would have been wanting, in order to have taken a man's character, but to have taken a chair and gone softly, as you would to a dioptrical bee-hive, and look'd in,--view'd the soul stark naked;--observ'd all her motions,--her machinations;--tra...
preview | full record— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)
Date: 1779, 1781
"When Horace says of Pindar, that he pours his violence and rapidity of verse, as a river swoln with rain rushes from the mountain; or of himself, that his genius wanders in quest of poetical decorations, as the bee wanders to collect honey; he, in either case, produces a simile; the mind is impr...
preview | full record— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)