Date: 1798

"Women have a frame of body more delicate and susceptible of impression than men, and, in proportion as they receive a less intellectual education, are more unreservedly under the empire of feeling."

— Godwin, William (1756-1836)

Date: 1798

"Wounded affection, wounded pride, all those principles which hold absolute empire in the purest and loftiest minds, urged her to still further experiments to recover her influence, and to a still more poignant desparation, long after reason would have directed her to desist, and resolutely call ...

— Godwin, William (1756-1836)

Date: 1798

"Add to this, Mary had fixed her heart upon this chosen friend; and one of the last impressions a worthy mind can submit to receive, is that of the worthlessness of the person upon whom it has fixed all its esteem."

— Godwin, William (1756-1836)

Date: 1798

"But a connection more memorable originated about this time, between Mary and a person of her own sex, for whom she contracted a friendship so fervent, as for years to have constituted the ruling passion of her mind."

— Godwin, William (1756-1836)

Date: 1798

"I believe it may be admitted as a maxim, that no person of a well furnished mind, that has shaken off the implicit subjection of youth, and is not the zealous partizan of a sect, can bring himself to conform to the public and regular routine of sermons and prayers."

— Godwin, William (1756-1836)

Date: 1798

"She had also suffered a disappointment, which preyed upon her mind."

— Godwin, William (1756-1836)

Date: 1798

"Her heart was the seat of every benevolent feeling; and accordingly, in all her intercourse with children, it was kindness and sympathy alone that prompted her conduct."

— Godwin, William (1756-1836)

Date: 1798

"The original plan of Mary, respecting her residence in France, had no precise limits in the article of duration; the single purpose she had in view being that of an endeavour to heal her distempered mind."

— Godwin, William (1756-1836)

Date: 1798

"The gloominess of her mind communicated its own colour to the objects she saw; and in this temper she began a series of Letters on the Present Character of the French Nation, one of which she forwarded to her publisher, and which appears in the collection of her posthumous works."

— Godwin, William (1756-1836)

Date: 1798

"Finally, when she indulged a romantic affection for Mr. Fuseli, and fondly imagined that she should find in it the solace of her cares, she perceived too late, that, by continually impressing on her mind fruitless images of unreserved affection and domestic felicity, it only served to give new p...

— Godwin, William (1756-1836)