There are always an ample sufficiency of compassionate neighbours ready to console one who, by common consent, is styled "the disconsolate widower.” - Letitia Elizabeth Landon
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There are always an ample sufficiency of compassionate neighbours ready to console one who, by common consent, is styled "the disconsolate widower.”
English
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Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Letitia Elizabeth Landon (August 14, 1802 – October 15, 1838) was an English poet and novelist, better known by her initials L. E. L. She was one of the richest sources of epigrams in the early nineteenth century and one reviewer compared her to Rochefoucauld. Sometimes she adopts an adversarial role, giving contradictory viewpoints. Some of her thoughts recur, either developed or refined, but over time she also threw out differing opinions on some subjects; changeability, she argues, is one of our principal traits and, as she has one character remark, truth is like the philosopher's stone, a thing not to be discovered.
They say that, hung in ancient halls, At midnight from the silent lute A melancholy music falls From chords which were by daylight mute. And so the human heart by night Is touched by some inspired tone, Harmonious in the deep delight, By day it knew not was its own.
I can conceive no punishment so dreadful as keeping perpetual watch on our words, lest they betray what they mean to conceal ; to know no unguarded moment — no careless gaiety — to pine for the confidence which yet we dare not bestow — to tremble, lest that some hidden meaning lurk in a phrase which only our own sickly fancy could torture into bearing such — to have suspicion become a second nature — and to shrink every morning from the glad sunshine, for we know not what a day may bring forth : the wheel of Ixion were a tender mercy compared to such a state.
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Oh, who—reposed on some fond breast, Love's own delicious place of rest— Reading faith in the watching eyes, Feeling the heart beat with its sighs, Could know regrets, or doubts, or cares, That we had bound our fate with theirs!
