Date: August, September, and October, 1779

"Thus it happened with me on the present occasion; and I found my ideas suddenly drawn from the sermon in my hand and (in their vagabond way) hurrying over the birth, parentage, education, and situation of the reverend penman."

— Anonymous

Date: 1782

"Here tranquility once more made its abode the heart of Cecilia; that heart so long torn with anguish, suspense and horrour!"

— Burney [married name D'Arblay], Frances (1752-1840)

Date: w. 1782, 1786, 1816

"All the stories of malignant Dives and dismal Goules thronged into her memory: but, her curiosity was, notwithstanding, more predominant than her fears."

— Beckford, William (1760-1844)

Date: 1788

"Such a crowd of thoughts all at once rushed into Mary's mind, that she in vain attempted to express the sentiments which were most predominant."

— Wollstonecraft, Mary (1759-1797)

Date: 1788

"Her heart longed to receive a new guest; there was a void in it: accustomed to have some one to love, she was alone, and comfortless, if not engrossed by a particular affection."

— Wollstonecraft, Mary (1759-1797)

Date: 1788

"Oh! reason, thou boasted guide, why desert me, like the world, when I most need thy assistance!"

— Wollstonecraft, Mary (1759-1797)

Date: 1788

"she hoped that absence and reflection, together with the conviction of it's being hopeless, would conquer this infant passion before it could gather strength wholly to ruin his repose."

— Smith, Charlotte (1749-1806)

Date: 1790

"It was not in the rapid intricacies of execution, that she excelled so much as in that delicacy of taste, and in those enchanting powers of expression, which seem to breathe a soul through the sound, and which take captive the heart of the hearer."

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

Date: 1790

"Deadly ideas crowded upon their imaginations, and inspired a terror which scarcely allowed them to breathe."

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

Date: 1790

"The ideas of the distance which would separate them, of the dangers she was going to encounter, with a train of wild and fearful anticipations, crowded upon her mind, tears sprang in her eyes, and it was with difficulty she avoided betraying her emotions."

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