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Date: 1775

"BLEST Bard! to whom the Muses, grateful, gave / That pipe which erft their deareft Spenser won, / As once they found thee, pensive and alone, / Strewing sweet flow'rs upon his hallow'd grave; / Then bad thy fancy glow with sacred fire, / And softest airs thy rural verse inspire."

— Mulso [later Chapone], Hester (1727-1801)

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Date: 1777

"How cruel is it to extinguish by neglect or unkindness, the precious sensibility of an open temper, to chill the amiable glow of an ingenous soul, and to quench the bright flame of a noble and generous spirit!"

— More, Hannah (1745-1833)

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Date: 1777

"If I may be allowed to change the allusion so soon, I would say, that the passions also resemble fires, which are friendly and beneficial when under proper direction, but if suffered to blaze without restraint, they carry devastation along with them, and, if totally extinguished, leave the benig...

— More, Hannah (1745-1833)

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Date: 1777

"People do not always know what taste they have, till it is awakened by some corresponding object; nay, genius itself is a fire, which in many minds would never blaze, if not kindled by some external cause."

— More, Hannah (1745-1833)

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Date: 1778

The "pure flame" of virtue is planted "by an unerring rule" and glows in the heart

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

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Date: 1778, 1779

"'Leave me, Madam,' cried he, with quickness, "and take care of the poor child;--bid her not think me unkind,--tell her I would at this moment plunge a dagger in my heart to serve her,--but she has set my brain on fire, and I can see her no more!'"

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

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Date: 1779

"Ambition! thou whose hallow'd flame can live / Only in minds refin'd from the gross elements / Of which the herd of human kind are made!"

— Cowley [née Parkhouse], Hannah (1743-1809)

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Date: 1779

"If one spark of virtue / Yet hovers in his mind--Oh, grant me, Heaven! / To kindle it afresh, and be the flame immortal!"

— Cowley [née Parkhouse], Hannah (1743-1809)

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Date: 1780

"Inspir'd thus by the Priest's heroic charge, / seem'd to press to be the earliest victim; / Their souls on fire, were eager to depart / The earthly sphere, and seise on their immortal crowns."

— Cowley [née Parkhouse], Hannah (1743-1809)

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Date: 1780

"Oh, spare me then the horror of a sight / My fiery brain splits but to think on!"

— Cowley [née Parkhouse], Hannah (1743-1809)

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The Mind is a Metaphor is authored by Brad Pasanek, Assistant Professor of English, University of Virginia.