Date: 1815

The wavering motions of the mind are like "quivering light" reflected off a confined "crystal flood" in a brass cistern

— Cowper, William (1731-1800)

Date: February, 1821

"Standard productions of this kind are links in the chain of our conscious being. They bind together the different scattered divisions of our personal identity."

— Hazlitt, William (1778-1830)

Date: February, 1821

"The reliance on solid worth which it inculcates, the preference of sober truth to gaudy tinsel, hangs like a mill-stone round the neck of the imagination—-'a load to sink a navy'--impedes our progress, and blocks up every prospect in life."

— Hazlitt, William (1778-1830)

Date: February, 1821

"This is the only true ideal--the heavenly tints of Fancy reflected in the bubbles that float upon the spring-tide of human life."

— Hazlitt, William (1778-1830)

Date: February, 1821

"I said to myself, 'This is true eloquence: this is a man pouring out his mind on paper.'"

— Hazlitt, William (1778-1830)

Date: 1832

"Yet distant countries / Not then, as now, communication held / By beaten tracks, and all the luxuries / Of easy transit, while the missive charge / Of the pen's register'd mirror of the mind / Was slow and interrupted"

— Brydges, Sir Samuel Egerton (1762-1837)