Letitia Elizabeth Landon quotes - page 26
Youth's first acquaintance with sorrow is a terrible thing-before time has taught, what it will surely teach, that grief is our natural portion, at once transitory and eternal. But the first lesson is the severest-we have not then looked among our fellows, and seen that suffering is general ; and we feel as if marked out by fate for misery that has no parallel.
Letitia Elizabeth Landon
What a visionary thing is the independence of youth ! how full of projects, which take the shape of certainties ! How much of rugged and stern experience it requires to convince the young and the eager, that the efforts of an individual unaided by connexion or circumstance, are the true reading of the allegory of the Danaides : -industry and skill, alas, how often are they but water drawn with labour into a bucket full of holes !
Letitia Elizabeth Landon
[From Reginald Clinton]: I do not believe that the heart is turned from the Creator by enjoying his works. Of what avail is the sweet breath of the rose, the morning song of the lark ? The pleasure they impart is not matter of necessity, and yet we delight in both. The soul of the poet is as much His gift as the fragrance of the flower, or the lay of the bird ; and the page where inspired words record heroic deed, touching sorrow, or natural loveliness, is one of those pleasures for which we should be thankful. I, for my part, believe most devoutly in the Almighty mercy, when I see how much that is beautiful and gladdening has been scattered over our pilgrimage here.
Letitia Elizabeth Landon
[From Lee]: I believe that the mind may make its own immortality : thought is the spiritual part of existence ; and so long as my mind influences others, so long as my thoughts remain behind, so long shall my spirit be conscious and immortal. The body may perish-not so the essence which survives in the living and lasting page.
Letitia Elizabeth Landon
To make our story shorter than the miniature groom's, he learnt that his own property in himself was in danger; and that, if the patriot's definition of liberty be true -"it is like the air we breathe, without it we die"-his life was near its termination. A writ was issued against him; and, thanks to a douceur to his valet, two professional gentlemen, as he left his toilet, would deprive his friends at the Clarendon of his company.
Letitia Elizabeth Landon
O beauty of the midnight skies!
O mystery of each distant star !
O dreaming hours, whose magic lies
In rest and calm, with Day afar!
Thanks for the higher moods that wake
Our thoughtful and immortal part !-
Out on our life, could we not make
A spiritual temple of the heart ?
Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Many a head that down had lain,
Impatient with its twelve hours' pain,
And wishing that the bed it prest,
Were, as the grave's, a long last rest,
Has sprung again at morning's call,
Forgiving, or forgetting all;
Lighting the weary weight of thought
With colours from the day-break brought,
Reading new promise in the sky,
And hearing Hope, the lark on high.
Letitia Elizabeth Landon
She leant upon her harp, and thousands looked
On her in love and wonder-thousands knelt
And worshipp'd in her presence-burning tears,
And words that died in utterance, and a pause
Of breathless, agitated eagerness,
First gave the full heart's homage: then came forth
A shout that rose to heaven; and the hills,
The distant valleys, all rang with the name
Of the Æolian Sappho-every heart
Found in itself some echo to her song.
Letitia Elizabeth Landon