Date: 1754
"I found I had given a loose to a passion which had no other end but to make me frantic, and consequently miserable; and yet insupportable as my life was, and altho' the alteration of Eustace had taken from me the gratification of this whirlwind of passion, yet was I caught in such a snare...
preview | full record— Fielding, Sarah (1710-1768) and Jane Collier (bap. 1715, d. 1755)
Date: 1762
"One only hope remains, that you, my first and dearest friend, will not abandon me; that whatever cloud of melancholy may hang over my mind, yet you will still bear with me, and remove your abode to a place where I may have the consolation of your company."
preview | full record— Scott [née Robinson], Sarah (1720-1795)
Date: 1763
"The once smiling scene has a melancholy gloom, which strikes a damp through my inmost soul."
preview | full record— Brooke [née Moore], Frances (bap. 1724, d. 1789)
Date: 1767
"How transitory have been all my pleasures! the recollection of them dies on my memory, like the departing colours of the rainbow, which fades under the eye of the beholder, and leaves not a trace behind."
preview | full record— Sheridan [née Chamberlaine], Frances (1724-1766)
Date: 1776
"I really begin to think that his heart is 'soused in snow,' as Madame de l'Enclos says of Sevigné, which neither your bright eyes or mine can thaw."
preview | full record— Griffith, Elizabeth (1720-1793)
Date: 1778, 1779
If "I may now judge of the time to come, by the present state of my mind, the calm will be succeeded by a storm, of which I dread the violence"
preview | full record— Burney [married name D'Arblay], Frances (1752-1840)
Date: 1778, 1779
"He went, and presently returning, produced a great quantity of hair, in such a nasty condition, that I was amazed she would take it; and the man as he delivered it to her, found it impossible to keep his countenance; which she had no sooner observed, than all her stormy passions were again raised."
preview | full record— Burney [married name D'Arblay], Frances (1752-1840)
Date: 1778, 1779
"The first fortnight that I passed here, was so quiet, so serene, that it gave me reason to expect a settled calm during my stay; but if I may now judge of the time to come, by the present state of my mind, the calm will be succeeded by a storm, of which I dread the violence!"
preview | full record— Burney [married name D'Arblay], Frances (1752-1840)
Date: 1778, 1779
"Yet oh!--shall I not, in this last farewell, which thou wilt not read till every stormy passion is extinct,--and the kind grave has embosomed all my sorrows,--shall I not offer to the man once so dear to me, a ray of consolation to those afflictions he has in reserve?"
preview | full record— Burney [married name D'Arblay], Frances (1752-1840)
Date: 1782
"Passion not merely banished his justice, but clouded his reason, and I soon left the room, that at least I might not hear the aspersions he forbid me to answer."
preview | full record— Burney [married name D'Arblay], Frances (1752-1840)