Date: 1747-8

"Because a woman's heart may be at one time adamant, at another wax."

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

Date: 1747-8

"Rot me if it be not my full persuasion, that if he had, her heart would have been found to be either iron or marble"

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

Date: 1747-8

"'This, says he, I will for ever remember against her, in order to steel my own heart, that I may cut thro' a rock of ice to hers"

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

Date: 1747-8

"Then will I steel my heart with these remembrances"

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

Date: 1747-8

"But I have now once more steeled my heart."

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

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: 1748

"the Persian Bands / In fearful Wonder ask; What God unseen / Such Pow'r bestow'd, and steel'd a Woman's Heart"

— Warton, Thomas, the elder (1688-1745)

Date: 1748

"These be now my Cares, / To leave the Muse for Virtue [...] but chief my Soul to steel / With adamantine Honour"

— Warton, Thomas, the elder (1688-1745)

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: 1748

"But should some swain more skillful than the rest, / his name on this cold marble breast, / Not rolling ages could deface that name."

— Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley [née Lady Mary Pierrepont] (1689-1762)