Date: 1810

"Therefore, actual pictures of beloved friends would not be so eagerly coveted, but that we render this darling, internal image indistinct, by recalling it too frequently; as that strength of line, which gives sharpness and spirit to a copper-plate, becomes injured after a certain number of impre...

— Seward, Anna (1742-1809)

Date: 1810

An internal image is like a copper plate: "By repeated use, the plate, if not retouched, will produce only a dim and shadowy mass, in which the features and countenance cannot be very distinctly discerned."

— Seward, Anna (1742-1809)

Date: 1810

"So it is with the memory, after continual recurrence, and pressure of the affections upon the image she presents, which, for a considerable period, she had presented with that perfect precision, to which no powers of the pencil can attain;--but, in time, the image becomes indistinct, not from an...

— Seward, Anna (1742-1809)

Date: 1810

"Yes, it is beneath the constant glow of ardent imagination, that the impression, given by memory, has faded. Then it is that a good, nay even an indifferent picture, or a paper-profile of a dear lost friend, strengthens our recollection, in the same manner that retouching a copper-plate restores...

— Seward, Anna (1742-1809)

Date: 1810

We desire a "penciled remembrance of those we love" in order to "refresh that ideal image which intense and perpetual contemplation had rendered evanescent"

— Seward, Anna (1742-1809)

Date: 1810

Two cause produce the vanishing of internal images; "viz. the mind not having dwelt upon the originals of those its pictures often enough to make their image strong and vivid after long absence; --and, its too frequently casting upon such inshrined resemblances, the dazzling light of fervent med...

— Seward, Anna (1742-1809)

Date: 1810

"And let thy rage, with fancied wrongs insane, / Steel every thought with Delia's proud disdain"

— Seward, Anna (1742-1809)

Date: 1810

"They form a picture, delicate of trait, / Soft as the scene now mirror'd in thy breast"

— Seward, Anna (1742-1809)

Date: 1810

"And, sexual pride subdued, at length disown / The Salique Law for Wit and Fancy's throne!"

— Seward, Anna (1742-1809)

Date: 1810

"This is Mr Brydone's own simile, and beyond any other which could have been chosen, brings to the mind's eye these peculiar effects of vision"

— Seward, Anna (1742-1809)