“I begin almost to shudder at my own presumption, and should be much more anxiously occupied in searching for any outlet of escape than in attempting to overcome the difficulties before me.”

Capturing an author's anxiety when ambition meets public judgement · Letter to H. H. Milman, 16 October 1821

• Art
• Despair
• Hope

“I bear being long shut up in the house about as ill as a gipsy or an Arab would.”

Expressing her strong need for movement, open air and the natural world · Letter fragment, familiar correspondence

• Nature
• Solitude

“Most of them were written before I consider my mind and feelings quite to have awakened — had they slept on, perhaps it would have been happier for me.”

Looking back on artistic awakening as a source of both insight and pain · Letter fragment on her early writings

• Art
• Despair
• Poetry