Date: 1736

"As she was one day sitting alone in her Garden, ruminating on the last Words of her Father, and the strict Injunction laid on her concerning the Carcanet, Emotions, to which hitherto she had been a Stranger, began to diffuse themselves throughout her Mind."

— Haywood [née Fowler], Eliza (1693?-1756)

Date: August, September, and October, 1779

"Thus it happened with me on the present occasion; and I found my ideas suddenly drawn from the sermon in my hand and (in their vagabond way) hurrying over the birth, parentage, education, and situation of the reverend penman."

— Anonymous

Date: 1800

"The pen is a pacifyer. It checks the mind's career; it circumscribes her wanderings."

— Brown, Charles Brockden (1771-1810)