Date: 1719-1720, 1725
"Oh, Melliora! didst thou but know the thousandth Part of what this Moment I endure, the strong Convulsions of my warring Thoughts, thy Heart, steel'd as it is, and frosted round with Virtue, wou'd burst its icy Shield, and melt in Tears of Blood, to pity me."
preview | full record— Haywood [née Fowler], Eliza (1693?-1756)
Date: 1725
"I will give you the saddest Account you have ever yet been entertain'd with; but you must wrap your Heart in a Case of Adamant, or it will melt away in the hearing of it."
preview | full record— Davys, Mary (1674-1732)
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."
preview | full record— Johnson, Samuel (1709-1784)
Date: Published serially, 1765-1770
"O, my Sister, I would to Heaven that he had now been present, as I have been present, to have his Soul melted and minted as mine has been"
preview | full record— Brooke, Henry (c. 1703-1783)
Date: Published serially, 1765-1770
"I was melted down and minted anew, as it were, by the unaffected Warmth and Innocence of your Caresses"
preview | full record— Brooke, Henry (c. 1703-1783)
Date: 1970
"Words came without volition, sinking very slowly through his mind like pebbles."
preview | full record— Murdoch, Iris (191-1999)
Date: 1992
"Only behind a waterfall of brutal and pleasurable sensations, thought Patrick, accepting the leather-clad menu without bothering to glance up, could he hide from the bloodhounds of his conscience. . There, in the cool recess of the rock, behind that heavy white veil, he would hear them yelping a...
preview | full record— Edward St. Aubyn (b. 1960)
Date: 1992
"Or--he must stop thinking about it--or [his consciousness seemed] like a solution of saturated copper sulphate under the microscope, when it suddenly transforms and crystals break out everywhere on its surface."
preview | full record— Edward St. Aubyn (b. 1960)