Date: 1741

"I [the mind] did but step out, on some weighty affairs, / To visit last night, my good friends in the stars, / When, before I was got half as high as the moon, / You despatched Pain and Languor to hurry me down; / Vi & Armis they seized me, in midst of my flight, / And shut me in caverns as dark...

— Carter, Elizabeth (1717-1806)

Date: 1748

"Thus on the sands of Afric's burning plains, / However deeply made, no long impress remains; / The lightest leaf can leave its figure there; / The strongest form is scattered by the air. / So yielding the warm temper of your mind,"

— Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley [née Lady Mary Pierrepont] (1689-1762)

Date: 1748

The mind or heart may be like rock: "So numerous herds are driven o'er the rock, / No print is left of all the passing flock; / So sings the wind around the solid stone, / So vainly beat the waves with fruitless moan"

— Montagu, Lady Mary Wortley [née Lady Mary Pierrepont] (1689-1762)

Date: 1762

"Thus thro' each diff'rent Track my Thoughts pursue, / Thy lov'd Idea ever meets my View."

— Carter, Elizabeth (1717-1806)

Date: 1762

"If by the Day's illusive Scenes misled, / My erring Soul from Virtue’s Path has stray'd; / Snar'd by example, or by Passion warm'd, / Some false Delight my giddy Sense has charm'd, / My calmer Thoughts the wretched Choice reprove, / And my best Hopes are center'd in thy Love."

— Carter, Elizabeth (1717-1806)

Date: 1776

"Besides, my Lucy is a perfect Columbus in the terra incognita of lovers hearts, and discovered her faithful Stanley's fond attachment in his speaking eyes, for many months before his tongue revealed it."

— Griffith, Elizabeth (1720-1793)

Date: 1776

"Not that I wou'd encourage the modern philosophy, which reduces all virtue to self-interest; for if I may hazard an unborrowed simile, the liberal mind may be compared to the Nile, which enriches the soil, from its own abundance, without requiring any return."

— Griffith, Elizabeth (1720-1793)

Date: 1776

"Would it were passed, and that like Aetna, though my bosom flamed, my head was crowned with snow."

— Griffith, Elizabeth (1720-1793)

Date: 1778, 1779

"How rapid was then my Evelina's progress through those regions of fancy and passion whither her new guide conducted her!"

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

Date: 1782

"Mean while Cecilia, disturbed from the calm of soft serenity to which she had yielded every avenue of her soul, now looked forward with distrust and uneasiness, even to the completion of the views which but a few minutes before had comprised all her notions of felicity."

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