Date: 1791, 1794

"Sometimes a gleam of hope would play about her heart when she thought of her parents--'They cannot surely,' she would say, 'refuse to forgive me; or should they deny their pardon to me, they win not hate my innocent infant on account of its mother's errors.'"

— Rowson, Susanna (1762-1828)

Date: 1791, 1794

"Pardon me, ye dear spirits of benevolence, whose benign smiles and chearful-giving hand have strewed sweet flowers on many a thorny path through which my way-ward fate forced me to pass; think not, that, in condemning the unfeeling texture of the human heart, I forget the spring from whence flow...

— Rowson, Susanna (1762-1828)

Date: 1791, 1794

"A gleam of joy breaks in on my benighted soul while I reflect that you cannot, will not refuse your protection to the heart-broken."

— Rowson, Susanna (1762-1828)

Date: 1792

"The business of education in this case, is only to conduct the shooting tendrils to a proper pole; yet after laying precept upon precept, without allowing a child to acquire judgement itself, parents expect them to act in the same manner by this borrowed fallacious light, as if they had illumina...

— Wollstonecraft, Mary (1759-1797)

Date: 1792

"These are the glowing minds that concentrate pictures for their fellow creatures; forcing them to view with interest the objects reflected from the impassioned imagination, which they passed over in nature."

— Wollstonecraft, Mary (1759-1797)

Date: 1793, 1806

"'Twas Instinct rushing thro' her beating breast! / Instinct, the lamp divine that lights the soul"

— Robinson [Née Darby], Mary [Perdita] (1758-1800)

Date: 1793, 1806

"The noblest passions, and the living pow'rs / Of intellectual light, the soul's pure lamp, / All, all extinguish'd! "

— Robinson [Née Darby], Mary [Perdita] (1758-1800)

Date: 1793

"Nothing is more luxuriant to a thinking mind than self approbation: It is a sun which dispels the clouds of solicitude and anxiety."

— Anonymous [By an American Lady]

Date: 1794

"For you, my young friend, may the sun always shine as brightly as at this moment; may your own conduct always give you the sunshine of benevolence and reason united!"

— Radcliffe [née Ward], Ann (1764-1823)

Date: 1794

"The gloom of these shades, their solitary silence, except when the breeze swept over their summits, the tremendous precipices of the mountains, that came partially to the eye, each assisted to raise the solemnity of Emily's feelings into awe; she saw only images of gloomy grandeur, or of dreadfu...

— Radcliffe [née Ward], Ann (1764-1823)