Date: 1789

"In no state of society can a practice, involving in it circumstances of such atrocious and enormous guilt, be considered as defensible by any person whose understanding is not darkened by the turpitude of his heart; in whom not only the feelings of the moral sense are extinguished, but, in this ...

— Belsham, William (1752-1827)

Date: 1790

"All the splendour of the highest prosperity can never enlighten the gloom with which so dreadful an idea must necessarily over-shadow the imagination; nor, in a wise and virtuous man, can all the sorrow of the most afflicting adversity ever dry up the joy which necessarily springs from the habit...

— Smith, Adam (1723-1790)

Date: 1790

"Men are caught indeed by the effusions of a brilliant fancy and bright imagination; but its refulgence and flashes, like the coruscations of the diamond, serve only to sparkle in the eye of the beholder, and to dazzle his sight, without further use or advantage to any one: whereas practical good...

— Moore, Charles (fl. 1785-90)

Date: 1790

"It is not the warmth and elevations of fancy, or the quick and bright assemblage of ideas, which irradiate the paths of beneficial truth; since none are more liable to error than they, who conduct themselves by the wild and dancing light of imagination alone."

— Moore, Charles (fl. 1785-90)

Date: 1790

"It is the province of the familiar, to diffuse chearfulness and ease--to open the heart of man to man, and to beam a temperate sunshine upon the mind."

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

Date: 1790

"Julia retired from the scene with regret. She was enchanted with the new world that was now exhibited to her, and she was not cool enough to distinguish the vivid glow of imagination from the colours of real bliss."

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

Date: 1790

"Meanwhile Hippolitus, who had passed the night in a state of sleepless anxiety, watched with busy impatience, an opportunity of more fully disclosing to Julia, the passion which glowed in his heart."

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

Date: 1790

"The airy schemes he once formed of future felicity, resulting from the union of two persons so justly dear to him--with the gay visions of past happiness--floated upon his fancy, and the lustre they reflected, served only to heighten by contrast, the obscurity and gloom of his present views."

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

Date: 1790

"When I knelt at the altar, the sacred flame of pure devotion glowed in my heart, and elevated my soul to sublimity."

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

Date: 1790

"Yet the banditti had steadily persisted in affirming that he was not concealed in their recesses; and this circumstance, which threw a deeper shade over the fears of Hippolitus, imparted a glimmering of hope to the mind of Julia."

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