Date: 1796

"I should love you, I should doat on you! my bosom would become the prey of desires, which honour and my profession forbid me to gratify."

— Lewis, Matthew Gregory (1775-1818)

Date: 1796

"The woman reigns in my bosom, and I am become a prey to the wildest of passions."

— Lewis, Matthew Gregory (1775-1818)

Date: 1796

"Theodore perceived well enough that something preyed upon my mind; but as I concealed the cause of my grief even from him, respect would not permit him to pry into my secrets."

— Lewis, Matthew Gregory (1775-1818)

Date: 1796

"Amidst the horror and disgust to which his soul was a prey, pity for his victim still held a place in it."

— Lewis, Matthew Gregory (1775-1818)

Date: 1796

"Her passion continued to prey upon her heart in secret, and she had almost determined to confess her sentiments to her mother, when accident once more threw their object in her way."

— Lewis, Matthew Gregory (1775-1818)

Date: 1797

"His numerous avocations and interests, however, seemed to prevent such anxiety from preying upon his mind; and, having dismissed persons in search of Vivaldi, he passed his time in the usual routine of company and the court."

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

Date: 1799

Insinuations "breed suspicion" in the mind

— Brown, Charles Brockden (1771-1810)

Date: 1799

"My unfledged fancy had not hitherto soared to this pitch."

— Brown, Charles Brockden (1771-1810)

Date: 1814

"His powers of apprehension were so uncommonly quick as almost to resemble intuition, and the chief care of his preceptor was to prevent him, as a sportsman would phrase it, from over-running his game — that is, from acquiring his knowledge in a slight, flimsy, and inadequate manner."

— Scott, Sir Walter (1771-1832)

Date: 1854

"Thomas Gradgrind took no heed of these trivialities of course, but passed on as a practical man ought to pass on, either brushing the noisy insects from his thoughts, or consigning them to the House of Correction."

— Dickens, Charles (1812-1870)