Date: 1776

"I am provoked at this natural incapacity of conveying my sentiments to you; words are but a cloak, or rather a clog, to our ideas; there should be no curtain before the hearts of friends; and the longing I have ever felt for an intuitive converse, is to me a strong argument for a future state."

— Griffith, Elizabeth (1720-1793)

Date: 1788

"Emmeline would then have taken him; but she said no; and sitting down on the ground, held him in her lap, till Barret who had seen her from a window, came out and took him from her; to which, as to a thing usual, she consented, and then walked calmly home with Emmeline, who, extremely discompose...

— Smith, Charlotte (1749-1806)

Date: 1799

"I reflected with amazement on the slightness of that thread by which human passions are led from their true direction."

— Brown, Charles Brockden (1771-1810)

Date: 1800

"A few incoherent motions and screams, that rent the soul, were followed by a deep swoon."

— Brown, Charles Brockden (1771-1810)

Date: 1860

"The stricken man lay for some time with his eyes fixed on the letter, as if he were trying to knit up his thoughts by its help."

— Eliot, George (1819-1880)

Date: 1992

"Patrick had tried to sleep, but tattered rags of speed still trailed through his consciousness and kept him charging forward."

— Edward St. Aubyn (b. 1960)

Date: 2011

"His mind unwinding like a spool of loose thread."

— Nadzam, Bonnie