At last America is in my view; a dreary waste of white barren sand, and melancholy, nodding pines. In the course of many miles, no cheerful cottage has blest my eyes. All seems dreary, savage and desert; and was it for this such sums of money, such streams of British blood have been lavished away? Oh, thou dear land, how dearly hast thou purchased this habitation for bears and wolves. Dearly has it been purchased, and at a price far dearer still it will be kept. My heart dies within me, while I view it.

-Schaw,Janet   b.c.1730
c.1776  On her first sight of the country around Cape Fear. Journal of a Lady of Quality; BeingtheNarrative of aJourney from Scotland to theWest Indies, North Carolina, and Portugal, in the years1774 to1776.

I readilyadmit that I am often more serious than I should be at my age or in my present circumstances, yet I know from experiencethat Iamnever lessgiventomelancholy thanwhen I am keenlyapplying the feeble powers of my fallen to be the laughing stock of children.

-Sidney, Sir Philip
  The Defence of Poetry.

Her melancholy seems to be fortified With a strange disdain.

-Webster,John
  The Duchess of Malfi, act 4, sc.1.

   Gentleness, docility, and a spaniel-like affection are, on this ground, consistently recommended as the cardinal virtues of the sex; and, disregarding the arbitrary economy of nature, one writer has declared that it is masculine for a woman to be melancholy. She was created to be the toy of man, his rattle, and it must jingle in his ears, whenever, dismissing reason, he chooses to be amused.

-Wollstonecraft, Mary also known as Mrs Godwin
  AVindication of the Rights ofWoman, pt.1, ch.2.