Date: 1796

"Good sense like cloth, the ground-work place, / And then sow on your Wit and lace."

— Courtenay, John Lees (1775?-1794)

Date: 1797

"Thus on the golden thread that Fancy weaves / Buoyant, as Hope's illusive flattery breathes, / The young and visionary Poet leaves / Life's dull realities, while sevenfold wreaths / Of rainbow light around his head revolve."

— 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: 1799

"[W]hat knowledge they [women] have gotten stands out as it were above the very surface of their minds, like the appliquée of the embroiderer, instead of having been interwoven with the growth of the piece, so as to have become a part of the stuff. They did not, like men, acquire what they...

— More, Hannah (1745-1833)

Date: 1800

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

— Brown, Charles Brockden (1771-1810)

Date: 1805

"Your Worth and Talents will unfold, / Richer than Needlework of Gold; / The native treasures of the soul, / True--as the Needle to the Pole."

— Pratt, Samuel Jackson [pseud. Courtney Melmoth] (1749-1814)

Date: 1814, 1816, 1896

"Imagination wildly weaves / Her golden labours o'er those glorious leaves, / While Judgment manages the lights and shades / Which Fancy figures, on her bold brocades."

— Woodhouse, James (bap. 1735, d. 1820)

Date: 1817, 1818

"Yet in my hollow looks and withered mien / The likeness of a shape for which was braided / The brightest woof of genius, still was seen."

— Shelley, Percy Bysshe (1792-1822)

Date: 1831

"The sublimest poet that ever sung, was peradventure, while a stripling, unconscious of the treasures which formed a part of the fabric of his mind, and unsuspicious of the high destiny that in the sequel awaited him."

— Godwin, William (1756-1836)

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)