Letitia Elizabeth Landon quotes - page 18
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.
Letitia Elizabeth Landon
His cheek was pale as marble, and as cold;
But his lip trembled not, and his dark eyes
Glanced proudly round. But when they bared his breast
For the death-shot, and took a portrait thence,
He clenched his hands, and gasped, and one deep sob
Of agony burst from him; and he hid
His face awhile-his mother's look was there.
He could not steel his soul when he recalled
The bitterness of her despair. It passed-
That moment of wild anguish; he knelt down;
That sunbeam shed its glory over one,
Young, proud, and brave, nerved in deep energy;
The next fell over cold and bloody clay....
Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Down swept the gathered waters over rocks
Which broke at times the column's foaming line;
Darkening amid the snow-white froth, it swept
Like an all conquering army, and an arch
Of sparkling hues that in the sunbeams played
Seemed to unite it with the sky which hung
Above all calmness and repose :.
Letitia Elizabeth Landon
You said in our old ash-tree a bird had built its nest;
Perhaps this very linnet has there its place of rest.
Now who will keep his little ones when night begins to fall?
They have no other shelter, and they will perish all.
There'll be no more sweet singing within that lonely grove;
Now, Henry, free your prisoner, I pray you, for my love.
Our father is a soldier, and in some distant war
He too might be a prisoner in foreign lands afar.
Letitia Elizabeth Landon
It is Rome's secret charm to reconcile
Imagination with our long last sleep.
We are resign'd ourselves, and suffer less
For those we love. The people of the South
Paint closing life in hues less terrible
Than do the gloomy nations of the North :
The sun, like glory, even warms the grave.
Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Fiction is but moulding together the materials collected by every day, in real as well as imagined life; the highest order of excellence carries the impulse along with it. Nature and fortune have this earth for their place of contention, and the victory is too often with the latter.
Letitia Elizabeth Landon
There must be some deep-rooted anti-social principle in every man's nature, so dearly does he love aught that separates him from his kind; or is it but one of the many shapes taken by that mental kaleidoscope, vanity, the varying and the glittering, the desire of distinction, sinking into that of notice?
Letitia Elizabeth Landon