Date: 1752

"But these golden Ideas presently vanished"

— Fielding, Henry (1707-1754)

Date: 1752

"In this Chapter there are some Passages that may serve as a Kind of Touchstone, by which a young Lady may examine the Heart of her Lover/"

— Fielding, Henry (1707-1754)

Date: 1754

"How often has that tender bosom, whose glory it would have been to melt at another's woe, and to rejoice in acts of kindness and benevolence to her fellow-creatures, been armed by herself ... not with defensive, but offensive, steel"

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

Date: 1759

"Their grief, however, like their joy, was transient; every thing floated in their mind unconnected with the past or future, so that one desire easily gave way to another, as a second stone cast into the water effaces and confounds the circles of the first."

— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)

Date: 1762

"He therefore had been little used to any woman but his sober and sensible grand-mother's two cousins who were pretty enough, but had no great charms of understanding; a sister rather silly, and the incomparable Harriot, whose wit was as sound as her judgment solid and sterling, free from affecta...

— Scott [née Robinson], Sarah (1720-1795)

Date: 1766

"[I]t was a truth her reason could more easily perceive, than her heart feel, for it was steeled by habit"

— Scott [née Robinson], Sarah (1720-1795)

Date: 1769

"To the arts of the libertine, however fair, my heart had always been steeled."

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

Date: 1777, 1780

"Every succeeding idea was happiness without allay; and his mind was not idle a moment till the morning sun awakened him."

— Reeve, Clara (1729-1807)

Date: 1788

"The same warmth which determined her will make her repent; and sorrow, the rust of the mind, will never have a chance of being rubbed off by sensible conversation, or new-born affections of the heart."

— Wollstonecraft, Mary (1759-1797)

Date: 1788

"In a state of bliss, it will be the society of beings we can love, without the alloy that earthly infirmities mix with our best affections, that will constitute great part of our happiness."

— Wollstonecraft, Mary (1759-1797)