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Date: 1691

"Thus might I have e'ne gone on to Doomsday without their minding a word I said, for by this time the Fumes of the Liquor, which it seems they had been tunning in all that day, conquer'd that little Reason they had left, and threw 'em all into a bruitish sleep."

— Dunton, John (1659–1732)

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Date: 1691

"I was nothing but all Flame and Fire, and the red-hot Thoughts glared about my Brains at such a rate, and if visible, wou'd, I fancy, have made just such a dreadful Appearance as the Window of a Glass-house discovers in a dark Night--viz. a parcel of stragling fiery Globes marching about and hiz...

— Dunton, John (1659–1732)

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Date: 1708

"From whence he concluded, that the Spirit which actuated any Species was one and the same; only distributed among so many Hearts, as there were Individuals in that Species, so that if it were possible for all that Spirit, which is so divided among so many Hearts, to be Collected into one Recepta...

— Ockley, Simon (bap. 1679, d. 1720)

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Date: 1708

"For instance, suppose the same Water be pour'd out into different Vessels, that which is in this Vessel may possibly be something warmer than that which is in another, tho' 'tis the same Water still, and so every degree of Heat and Cold in this Water in the Several Vessels, will represent the Sp...

— Ockley, Simon (bap. 1679, d. 1720)

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Date: 1719

"These were the Subject of the first Night's Cogitation, after I was come home again, while the Apprehensions which had so over-run my Mind were fresh upon me, and my Head was full of Vapours, as above."

— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)

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Date: 1725

"I will give you the saddest Account you have ever yet been entertain'd with; but you must wrap your Heart in a Case of Adamant, or it will melt away in the hearing of it."

— Davys, Mary (1674-1732)

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Date: 1753

"The nymph, whose passions nature had filled to the brim, could not hear such a rhapsody unmoved"

— Smollett, Tobias (1721-1777)

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Date: 1760-7

The gifts and endowments of wit and judgment may "be poured down warm as each of us could bear it,--scum and sediment an' all; (for I would not have a drop lost) into these veral receptacles, cells, cellules, domiciles, dormitories, refectories, and spare places of our brains,--in such sort, that...

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)

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Date: 1778, 1779

"'Oh, Sir,' exclaimed I, 'that you could but read my heart!--that you could but see the filial tenderness and concern with which it overflows! you would not then talk thus,--you would not then banish me your presence, and exclude me from your affection!'"

— Burney [married name D'Arblay], Frances (1752-1840)

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Date: 1778, 1779

"Hasten, then, my love, to bless me with thy presence, and to receive the blessings with which my fond heart overflows!"

— Burney [married name D'Arblay], Frances (1752-1840)

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The Mind is a Metaphor is authored by Brad Pasanek, Assistant Professor of English, University of Virginia.