Date: 1760-7

"That had said glass been there set up, nothing more would have been wanting, in order to have taken a man's character, but to have taken a chair and gone softly, as you would to a dioptrical bee-hive, and look'd in,--view'd the soul stark naked;--observ'd all her motions,--her machinations;--tra...

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)

Date: 1760-7

"Figuratively speaking, dear Toby, it may, for aught I know, said my father; but the spring I am speaking of, is that great and elastic power within us of counterbalancing evil, which like a secret spring in a well-ordered machine, though it can't prevent the shock--at least it imposes upon our s...

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)

Date: 1760-7

"Though man is of all others the most curious vehicle, said my father, yet at the same time 'tis of so slight a frame and so totteringly put together, that the sudden jerks and hard jostlings it unavoidably meets with in this rugged journey, would overset and tear it to pieces a dozen times a day...

— Sterne, Laurence (1713-1768)

Date: 1763

"After all, are we not a little in the machine style, not to be able to withdraw our love when our esteem is at an end?"

— Brooke [née Moore], Frances (bap. 1724, d. 1789)

Date: 1777

"Col. Dormer, though he knew the human heart, had never yet thought of taking his nieces in more active scenes of life: he had fallen into the common mistake of people past the meridian of their days, who, feeling tranquillity their greatest good, do not sufficiently reflect that it is insipid at...

— Brooke [née Moore], Frances (bap. 1724, d. 1789)

Date: 1777

"She saw something like just drawing in the dark shades of his pencil, though the lines seemed a good deal exaggerated: she reflected, she doubted; but, after settling a balance in her mind, the found her own scale preponderate."

— Brooke [née Moore], Frances (bap. 1724, d. 1789)

Date: 1784

"Thy piercing thought / Unaided saw each movement of the mind, / As skilful artists view the small machine, / The secret springs and nice dependencies, / And to thy mimic scenes, by fancy wrought / To such a wond'rous shape, th'impassion'd breast / In floods of grief, or peals of laughter bow'd, ...

— Jago, Richard (1715-1781)

Date: 1788

"With horns, and tail, and hoofs that make folks start; / And in my breast a millstone for a heart!"

— Wolcot, John, pseud. Peter Pindar, (1738-1819)

Date: 1795

"Still to be serious, Pitt, before we part: / Let Mercy melt the mill-stone of thy heart."

— Wolcot, John, pseud. Peter Pindar, (1738-1819)

Date: 1800

"Piece of the nether millstone is his heart / Who marks ill-pleas'd the frolic of the child, / Or views the rural festival unmov'd."

— Hurdis, James (1763-1801)