Date: 1814

"The memory is sometimes so retentive, so serviceable, so obedient--at others, so bewildered and so weak--and at others again, so tyrannic, so beyond controul!"

— Austen, Jane (1775-1817)

Date: 1825

"One passion ruled despotic in her breast, / In every word, and look, and thought confest."

— Barbauld, Anna Letitia [née Aikin] (1743-1825)

Date: 1825

"Thus, when the fervid Passions cool, / And Judgement, late, begins to rule; / When Reason mounts her throne serene, / And social Friendship gilds the scene; / When man, of ripened powers possest, / Broods o'er the treasures of his breast; / Exults, in conscious worth elate, / Lord of himself--al...

— Barbauld, Anna Letitia [née Aikin] (1743-1825)

Date: 1842

Fancy keeps a "glow-worm court, / Where wearied wishes all resort, / Who mixing in her tinsell'd train / Still keep their title light and vain"

— Blamire, Susanna (1747-1794)

Date: 1890

"No rack can torture me, / My  soul's at liberty."

— Dickinson, Emily (1830-1886)

Date: 1892

"The  soul  unto itself / Is an imperial friend,— / Or the most agonizing spy / An enemy could send."

— Dickinson, Emily (1830-1886)

Date: 1892

Secure against its own, / No treason it can fear; / Itself its sovereign, of itself / The soul should stand in awe."

— Dickinson, Emily (1830-1886)

Date: 1905

"Those hidden bonds are twined about the heart, / So that the captive wanders unconfined, / And has no sovereign but o'er his mind!"

— Betham, Matilda (1776-1852)

Date: 1956

"There sits no higher court / Than man's red heart."

— Plath, Sylvia (1932-1963)

Date: 1957

"That lofty monarch, Monarch Mind, / Blue-blooded in coarse country reigned."

— Plath, Sylvia (1932-1963)