Date: 1777

"There is a certain kind of trifling, in which a mind not much at ease can sometimes indulge itself. One feels an escape, as it were, from the heart, and is fain to take up with lighter company. It is like the theft of a truant boy, who goes to play for a few minutes while his master is asleep, a...

— Mackenzie, Henry (1745-1831)

Date: 1777

"His heart, for a moment, revolted at the idea of seduction; but he soon silenced the unwelcome monitor."

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

Date: 1778, 1779

"I can write no more. The small share of serenity I have painfully acquired, will not bear the shock of the dreadful ideas that crowd upon me."

— Burney [married name D'Arblay], Frances (1752-1840)

Date: 1778, 1779

"For, though Courage is one of the noblest virtues of this nether sphere, and though scarcely more requisite in the field of battle, to guard the fighting hero from disgrace, than in the private commerce of the world, to ward off that littleness of soul which leads by steps imperceptible, to all ...

— Burney [married name D'Arblay], Frances (1752-1840)

Date: 1778, 1779

"Let me, therefore, prepare for disappointment those who, in the perusal of these sheets, entertain the gentle expectation of being transported to the fantastic regions of Romance, where Fiction is coloured by all the gay tints of luxurious Imagination, where Reason is an outcast, and where the s...

— Burney [married name D'Arblay], Frances (1752-1840)

Date: 1778, 1779

"Young, animated, entirely off your guard, and thoughtless of consequences, imagination took the reins, and reason, slow-paced, though sure-footed, was unequal to a race with so eccentric and flighty a companion."

— Burney [married name D'Arblay], Frances (1752-1840)

Date: 1778, 1779

"I was myself almost equally disturbed, by the croud of confused ideas that occured to me."

— Burney [married name D'Arblay], Frances (1752-1840)

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: 1782

"Here tranquility once more made its abode the heart of Cecilia; that heart so long torn with anguish, suspense and horrour!"

— Burney [married name D'Arblay], Frances (1752-1840)

Date: w. 1782, 1786, 1816

"All the stories of malignant Dives and dismal Goules thronged into her memory: but, her curiosity was, notwithstanding, more predominant than her fears."

— Beckford, William (1760-1844)