Letitia Elizabeth Landon Quotes

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Ah, tell me not that memory sheds gladness o'er the past, what is recalled by faded flowers, save that they did not last?

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Night came—the deep and purple time
Of summer in a southern clime.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
How deep, how merciless, the love represt,
That robs the silent midnight of its rest;
That sees in gather'd crowds but one alone;
That hears in mingled footsteps only one;
That turns the poet's page, to only find
Some mournful image for itself design'd;
That seeks in music, but the plaining tone
Which secret sorrow whispers is its own!

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
But preference, and its consequence, neglect, is the child's most cruel wrong. The bitter feeling of comparing our own lot with another's, will come quite soon enough without its being taught in infancy.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Your Dante ! Homer of the Christian age,
The sacred poet of Faith's mysteries—
Hero of thought—whose gloomy genius plunged
In Styx, and pierced to hell ; and whose deep soul
Was like the abyss it fathomed.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
How beautiful, how buoyant, and glad is morning! The first sunshine on the leaves: the first wind, laden with the first breath of the flowers-that deep sigh with which they seem to waken from sleep; the first dew, untouched even by the light foot of the early hare; the first chirping of the rousing birds, as if eager to begin song and flight; all is redolent of the strength given by rest, and the joy of conscious life.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Again he was thrown upon his resources; which have always appeared to me the very worst things on which an unfortunate individual can be thrown in the way of amusement.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Humor is of the heart, and has its tears; but wit is of the head, and has only smiles—and the majority of those are bitter.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
A London day requires to be well aired before it is ventured into.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
There can be neither politically nor morally a good which is not universal... we cannot reform for a time or for a class, but for all and for the whole, and our very interests will draw us together in one wide bond of sympathy.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
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.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
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.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Three armies might have been brought to combat with half the encouragement it took to bring the timid Matilda to the harp.

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

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
Beautiful language! Love's peculiar, own,
But only to the spring and summer known.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
She had always thought she would be like her father, and fancied a tall, dark, and handsome face.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
My heart is like the failing hearth
Now by my side,
One by one its bursts of flame
Have burnt and died.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
They say suppers are very unwholesome, our grandfathers and grandmothers never discovered it …

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Alas! vows are his after sign!—
We prop the tree in its decline—
The ghosts that haunt a parting hour,
With all of grief, and nought of power;
A chain half sunder'd in the making,—
The plighted vow's already breaking.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
We are ourselves the stumbling-blocks in the way of our happiness. Place a common individual — by common, I mean with the common share of stupidity, custom, and discontent — place him in the garden of Eden, and he would not find it out unless he were told, and when told, he would not believe it.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
AND the muffled drum rolled on the air,
Warriors with stately step were there;
On every arm was the black crape bound,
Every carbine was turned to the ground:
Solemn the sound of their measured tread,
As silent and slow they followed the dead.
The riderless horse was led in the rear,
There were white plumes waving over the bier:
Helmet and sword were laid on the pall,
For it was a soldier's funeral.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
The woman raised her languid head,
And said, "My child was weak
He knew no one amid the dead
His daily food to seek !
My husband was a hunter good
As ever arrows bore :
I know my child will now have food,
Therefore I weep no more.
I sit and think upon the past,
And sing my mournful strain :
I know that we shall meet at last,
And never part again."

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
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
A small clear fountain, with green willow trees;
Girdling it round, there is one single spot
Where you may sit and rest, its only bank;

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
[After]
Burnt to the dust, an ashy heap
Was every cottage round;—
I listened, but I could not hear
One single human sound:

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
The generality labour under the delusion, that when they have lighted and filled their rooms, they have done their all. They never were more in error. Lighting is much—crowding is much also—but there lacks something more exquisite still. This something the countess possessed in its perfection. Any can assemble a crowd, but few can make it mingle.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
He was an enthusiast—enthusiasm is needed for action; calculation never acts—it is a passive principle.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Love has no power to look forward — the delicious consciousness of the present, a faint but delightful shadow of the past, form its eternity.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon
Egmont:
Love is not
A bird of prey, to pay the hunter's toil —
He is best won by those who seek him not.

Letitia Elizabeth Landon