Letitia Elizabeth Landon Quotes

Clara:
Neighbours, dear friends, ye dream, ye dream : awake!
Gaze not on me with sadly wondering eyes,
I only bid you to your actual wish.
My voice is but the voice of your own hearts.

In sad truth, half our forebodings of our neighbours are but our own wishes, which we are ashamed to utter in any other form.

The poor child, as Charles Lamb so touchingly expresses it, is not brought, but "dragged out," and if the wits are sharpened, so, too, is the soft, round cheek. The crippled limb and broken constitution attest the effects of the over-early struggle with penury; but the child of rich parents suffers, though in another way; there is the heart that is crippled, by the selfishness of indulgence and the habit of relying upon others. It takes years of harsh contact with the realities of life to undo the enervating work of a spoilt and over aided childhood. We cannot too soon learn the strong and useful lessons of exertion and self-dependance.

Great Heaven ! what vain beliefs
Have stirred the pulse and led the hopes of man !
As if that honour could be bought by blood,
And that the fierce right hand was better worth
Than the fine mind, and high and generous heart !—

Oh, glory of the morning!
Oh, ye gifted, young, and brave!
What end have ye, but midnight;
What find ye but the grave ?

Glorious Bard ! to whom belong
Wreaths not often claimed by song,
Those hung round the warrior's shield—
Laurels from the blood-red field.

He fell as other thousands do,
Trampled down where they fall,
While on a single name is heap'd
The glory gain'd by all.
Yet even he whose common grave
Lies in the open fields,
Died not without a thought of all
The joy that glory yields.

Now, a fancy ball is bad enough in London, where milliners are many, and where theatres have costumes that may be borrowed or copied ; but in the country, where people are left to their own devices—truly to them may be applied the old poet's account of murderers, "their fancies are all frightful.”

...that worst bump developed that can adorn the head of a bore--viz., long-story-tellativeness.

For my spirit hath left her earthly home
And found a nobler dwelling,
Where the music of light is that of life,
And the starry harps are swelling.

It is a humbling thing to human pride to observe that strength of mind does not preserve its possessor from indulging any favourite delusion; but that this very strength gives its own force to the belief.

Alas! alas! how plague-spot like will sin
Spread over the wrung heart it enters in!

Cecil Forrester was heir to many misfortunes, being handsome, rich, high-born, and clever.

[From Ernest von Hermanstadt]; Action—action in the sunshine—passion—but little feeling, and less thought: such was meant to be our existence. But we refine—we sadden and we subdue—we call up the hidden and evil spirits of the inner world—we wake from their dark repose those who will madden us. The heart is like the wood on yonder flickering hearth: green and fresh, haunted by a thousand sweet odours, bathed in the warm air, and gladdened by the summer sunshine—so grew it at first upon its native soil. But nature submitteth to art, and man has appointed for it another destiny: it is gathered, and cast into the fire. It seems, then, as if its life had but just begun. A new spirit has crept into the kindled veins—a brilliant light dances around it—it is bright—it is beautiful—and it is consumed! What remains?—A warmth on the atmosphere soon passing away, and a heap of blackened ashes! What more will remain of the heart?

... oh! love will last
When all that made it happiness is past,—
When all its hopes are as the glittering toys
Time present offers, time to come destroys,—