Date: 1748

"But my heart was so steel'd against her charms by pride and resentment, which were two chief ingredients in my disposition, that I remain'd insensible to all her arts"

— Smollett, Tobias (1721-1777)

Date: 1747-8

"But the over-refinement of Platonic sentiments always sinks into the dross and feces of that Passion"

— Richardson, Samuel (bap. 1689, d. 1761)

Date: 1749

"For such was the Compassion which inhabited Mr. Allworthy's Mind, that nothing but the Steel of Justice could ever subdue it. "

— Fielding, Henry (1707-1754)

Date: 1749

Plato, Aristotle, and other Greek authors "elevate the Mind, and steel and harden it against the capricious Invasions of Fortune."

— Fielding, Henry (1707-1754)

Date: 1749

"Philosophy elevates and steels the Mind, Christianity softens and sweetens it."

— Fielding, Henry (1707-1754)

Date: 1751

"[M]y mother's arguments had steeled his heart"

— Lennox, née Ramsay, (Barbara) Charlotte (1730/1?-1804)

Date: 1751

"This, and to see a succession of Humble Servants buzzing about a Mother, who took too much pride in addresses of that kind, what a beginning, what an example, to a constitution of tinder, so prepared to receive the spark struck from the steely forehead, and flinty heart, of such a Libertine, as ...

— Richardson, Samuel (bap. 1689, d. 1761)

Date: 1751

"[H]is heart was shod with a metal much harder than iron, which he was afraid nothing but hell-fire would be able to melt."

— Smollett, Tobias (1721-1777)

Date: 1751

"My breast, by wary maxims steel'd, / Not all those charms shall force to yield"

— Smollett, Tobias (1721-1777)

Date: 1752

"His Mind was formed of those firm Materials, of which Nature formerly hammered out the Stoic, and upon which the Sorrows of no Man living could make an Impression. "

— Fielding, Henry (1707-1754)