Date: 1719

"It would take up a larger Volume than this whole Work is intended to be, to set down all the Contrivances I hatch'd, or rather brooded upon in my Thought."

— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)

Date: 1722

"His Words I must confess fir'd my Blood; all my Spirits flew about my Heart, and put me into Disorder enough."

— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)

Date: 1724

"Those Reflections began to prey upon my Comforts, and lessen the Sweets of my other Enjoyments: They might be said to have gnaw'd a Hole in my Heart before; but now they made a Hole quite thro' it; now they eat into all my pleasant things; made bitter every Sweet, and mix'd my Sighs with every S...

— Defoe, Daniel (1660?-1731)

Date: 1736

"Dreams were the only Work of a disturb'd Fancy, and were as far from Truth, as the Glow-Worm's dim Shine from Light and Heat; the Creatures of the drowsy Brain."

— Chetwood, William Rufus (d. 1766)

Date: 1741 [1740]; continued in 1741

"Don't your Heart ake for me? --I am sure mine flutter'd about like a Bird in a Cage new caught."

— Richardson, Samuel (bap. 1689, d. 1761)

Date: 1741 [1740]; continued in 1741

The soul "like a Mole in Earth, busy and blind, / Works all her Folly up, and casts it outward / To the World's open View"

— Richardson, Samuel (bap. 1689, d. 1761)

Date: 1742

"[A]nd when they perceive him so different from what he hath been described, all Gentleness, Softness, Kindness, Tenderness, Fondness, their dreadful Apprehensions vanish in a moment; and now (it being usual with the human Mind to skip from one Extreme to its Opposite, as easily, and almost as su...

— Fielding, Henry (1707-1754)

Date: 1747-8

Imaginations may be "un-reined"

— Richardson, Samuel (bap. 1689, d. 1761)

Date: 1747-8

"Then how my heart began again to play its pug's tricks!"

— Richardson, Samuel (bap. 1689, d. 1761)

Date: 1747-8

"The window was open. Away the troublesome bosom-visiter [Conscience], the intruder, is flown."

— Richardson, Samuel (bap. 1689, d. 1761)