Date: 1790

"Suspicion is like a mist, which renders the object it shades so uncertain, that the figure must be finished by imagination; and, when distrust takes the pencil, the strokes are generally so dark, that the disappointed heart sickens at the picture."

— Williams, Helen Maria (1759-1827)

Date: 1790

"His mind resembled a finetoned instrument, whose extensive compass was capable of producing the most sublime and elevating sounds; but a fatal pressure relaxed the strings, and sunk its powerful harmony."

— Williams, Helen Maria (1759-1827)

Date: 1790

"Her mind was in a state of uncontroulable agitation; and, though music has power to sooth a gentle, or even a deep and settled melancholy, the torments of jealousy, the agonies of suspence, raise a tempest in the soul, which no harmony can lull to repose."

— Williams, Helen Maria (1759-1827)

Date: 1790

"Such services, when weighed in the scale of reason, may prove rigorously just, but, in the balance of love, they will be found wanting. The head may understand the general theory of kindness, but the heart only can practise the detail; as the sculptor can give to marble an expression of human fe...

— Williams, Helen Maria (1759-1827)

Date: 1790

"Alas! when an impassioned mind, wounded by indifference, attempts recrimination, it is like a naked and bleeding Indian attacking a man arrayed in complete armour, whose fortified bosom no stroke can penetrate, while every blow which indignant anguish rashly aims, recoils on the unguarded heart."

— Williams, Helen Maria (1759-1827)

Date: 1790

"Let those who possess the talents, or the virtues, by which he was distinguished, avoid similar wretchedness, by guarding their minds against the influence of passion; since, if it be once suffered to acquire an undue ascendency over reason, we shall in vain attempt to controul its power: we mig...

— Williams, Helen Maria (1759-1827)

Date: 1790

"In vain we may lament the loss of our tranquillity; for peace, like the wandering dove, has forsaken its habitation in the bosom, and will return no more."

— Williams, Helen Maria (1759-1827)

Date: 1790, 1794

"Their turn of expression is a dress that hangs so gracefully on gay ideas, that you are apt to suppose that wit, a quality parsimoniously distributed in other countries, is in France as common as the gift of speech."

— Williams, Helen Maria (1759-1827)

Date: 1791

"Each vice, to minds depraved by bondage known, / With sure contagion fastens on his own."

— Barbauld, Anna Letitia [née Aikin] (1743-1825)

Date: 1791

"[I]mpetuous Passion's flame" may be blown to rage

— Barbauld, Anna Letitia [née Aikin] (1743-1825)