Date: 1713
"Away the Skilful Doctor comes / Of Recipes and Med'cines full, / To check the giddy Whirl of Nature's Fires, / If so th' unruly Case requires; / Or with his Cobweb-cleansing Brooms / To sweep and clear the over-crouded Scull, / If settl'd Spirits flag, and make the Patient dull."
preview | full record— Finch [née], Anne, Countess of Winchilsea (1666-1720)
Date: 1723, 1725
"Reflection was unhing'd; the noble Seat of Memory fill'd with Chimera's and disjointed Notions; wild and confus'd Ideas whirl'd in his distracted Brain; and all the Man, except the Form, was changed."
preview | full record— Haywood [née Fowler], Eliza (1693?-1756)
Date: 1753
"We often see that to reverse this boasted constancy is the work of but a single minute,--and then in vain their past professions recoil upon their minds;--in vain the idea of the forsaken fair haunts them in nightly visions."
preview | full record— Haywood [née Fowler], Eliza (1693?-1756)
Date: 1777
"But the heart, that natural seat of evil propensities, that little troublesome empire of the passions, is led to what is right by slow motions and imperceptible degrees."
preview | full record— More, Hannah (1745-1833)
Date: 1794
"Retired to her lonely cabin, her melancholy thoughts still hovered round the body of her deceased parent; and, when she sunk into a kind of slumber, the images of her waking mind still haunted her fancy."
preview | full record— Radcliffe [née Ward], Ann (1764-1823)
Date: 1794
"The scenes of the Illiad illapsed in glowing colours to her fancy--scenes, once the haunt of heroes--now lonely, and in ruins; but which still shone, in the poet's strain, in all their youthful splendor."
preview | full record— Radcliffe [née Ward], Ann (1764-1823)
Date: 1795
"Millions of chimeras floated on my imagination all were rejected in speedy succession ere they became old enough to take the colour of reason; yet fancy will be busy till we are no more."
preview | full record— Yearsley, Ann (bap. 1753, d. 1806)
Date: 1797
"The beauty of her countenance haunting his imagination, and the touching accents of her voice still vibrating on his heart, he descended to the shore below her residence, pleasing himself with the consciousness of being near her, though he could no longer behold her; and sometimes hoping that he...
preview | full record— Radcliffe [née Ward], Ann (1764-1823)
Date: 1797
"As they passed with silent steps along the winding rocks, the tranquillity of the landscape below afforded an affecting contrast with the tumult and alarm of their minds."
preview | full record— Radcliffe [née Ward], Ann (1764-1823)
Date: 1854
"The woman of large capacity can seldom rise beyond the absorption of ideas; her physical conditions refuse to support the energy required for spontaneous activity; the voltaic-pile is not strong enough to produce crystallizations; phantasms of great ideas float through her mind, but she has not ...
preview | full record— Eliot, George (1819-1880)