Letitia Elizabeth Landon Quotes

Alas! the praise given to the ear
Ne'er was nor e'er can be sincere—
And does but waste away the mind
On which it preys:—in vain
Would they in whom its poison lurks
A worthier state attain.

Difficulty is as needful to appreciation as labour is to existence.

Hope is a timid thing,
Fearful, and weak, and born in suffering;
At least, such Hope as human life can bring.

Can loveliness lose its power ? Ah, yes ! when love can lose its truth. Weak and impetuous, yielding to temptation, but trembling to enjoy the reward of the committed crime ; such is the man of whom my heart made its divinity, — for whose sake I would have toiled as a slave; ay, and do ; but with far other aim now. Let us but once meet again, Jehanghire, and thou art mine ! but I — I can never be thine again. Life, throne, fortunes, we will yet share together ; but my heart, never, never more !

True love is timid, as it knew its worth,
And that such happiness is scarce for earth.

But the knowledge of the library is not that of the world; a youth of solitude is bad preparation for a manhood of action; from the earliest age we need to mingle with our kind; the child corrects and instructs the child more than their masters; our equals are the tools wherewith experience works out its lessons; and the play-ground, with its rival interests, its injustices, its necessity for the ready wit and the curbed temper is both miniature and prophesy of the world, which will but bring back the old struggles only with a sterner aspect, and the same successes, but with more than half their enjoyment departed.

The heart hath its mystery, and who may reveal it,
Or who ever read in the depths of their own? —
How much, we never may speak of, yet feel it,
But, even in feeling it, know it unknown!

It is not in the calm and measured paths of to day that we see the more bold and pronounced characters, whose outlines have been rough-hewn by the strong hand of necessity ; yet to such troubled times often belong the development of our noblest and best qualities — the stormy gulf of Ormus throws up the finest pearls. It is not in the season of tranquility that we know aught of the generous devotion, the fertility of resource, and the forgetfulness of self often shown in the hour of trial. When the French revolution broke out, how many, only accustomed to indolence, luxury, and custom, showed that "there was iron in the rose ;" and, whether at the call of duty or of affection, were prepared to bear even to the uttermost, and to exert a fortitude till then undreamed of.

Do any thing but love ; or if thou lovest
And art a Woman, hide thy love from him
Who thou dost worship ; never let him know
How dear he is ; flit like a bird before him, — Lead him from tree to tree, from flower to flower ;
But be not won, or thou wilt, like that bird,
When caught and caged, be left to pine neglected,
And perish in forgetfulness.

The shade fell darker from the clustering vine,
Whose green boughs twined the lattice like a wreath ;
The lark had ceased the musical glad laugh
With which he hails the morning; note by note
The matin song had died upon the wind;
The dew which hung upon the cypresses
Had turned to sunshine on the waving leaves;—

He said it was fearful to see them stand,
Nor the living nor yet the dead,
And the light glared strange in the glassy eyes
Whose human look was fled.
For frost had done one half life's part,
And kept them from decay ;
Those they loved had mouldered, but these
Look'd the dead of yesterday.

The favourite volume whose reading we commend, is inevitably connected with ourselves — it must bring to our image those lonely hours when the recurrence of an image has such influence — it invests that image with the associations of poetry and fiction, and thus redeems it from the common-place of ordinary life. There is also the sympathy of taste — and how much may be inferred from a passage pencilled originally for no other eyes but our own. Then, too, a book is the prettiest stepping stone to a correspondence ; it seems such a simple thing to write a note of thanks, and so natural to add some slight remark on the author ; and how often is the criticism of an author's sentiments but the expression of our own !

Youth suffers but for a season; the bowed but unbroken spirit resumes its elasticity; the future, unknown and beautiful, wins the present to itself, and the past waits for that dark and overwhelming influence which sooner or later will darken our whole horizon.

Is there some nameless boding sent,
Like a noiseless voice from the tomb?—
A spirit note from the other world,
To warn of death and doom?

Weep for life, with its toil and care,
Its crime to shun, and its sorrow to bear ;
Let tears and the sign of tears be shed
Over the living, not over the dead !