Poets From England

""Well," I said, "I'm sorry if cheerfulness is so impracticable. It would be new, at any rate, and novelty is said to be a great thing." "Not in songs," replied Alf. "They don't want anything new in songs except the tune. They've all got to be about the same things for ever and ever.”"

"It is when one reads counsels of something more than perfection — counsels of pedantic priggishness, shall we say — to natural, healthy children, that one realises how necessary compromise is to daily life and how far removed perfection is from the natural human being."

"We have to remember that children, as creatures of delight, are of comparatively recent discovery....A few poets had praised the young very gaily — Prior and Ambrose Phillips, for example — but rather as courtiers than human beings: it was left for Blake first to see that the child was not merely the young of man but a separate creature, filled with fugitive and exquisite charm."

"I had thought of a second-hand bookshop as being off the main stream of human frailty and temptation; and behold it was the resort of the most abandoned! Is there no natural honesty? I wished that Mr. Bemerton would return and liberate me to walk upstairs out of life again and get on with my make-believe."

"After my experiences I know that it is not the disposal of books that presents the greatest difficulty to a bookseller, but the acquisition of them."

"The art of life...is to show your hand. There is no diplomacy like candour. You may lose by it now and then, but it will be a loss well gained if you do. Nothing is so boring as having to keep up a deception."

"It was a dull day for English readers (I think) when the description of the person was first considered unnecessary. We rarely get it now."

"A second-hand bookseller, I found, may read much in his time, but he cannot read continuously."

"Life is strangely suspicious and impatient of youth and candour and innocence and naïveté. Hardly does it perceive these exquisite qualities to exist than it rubs away their bloom with a rough finger. How often one longs for an arrested progress — for a little girl to go on being a little girl a little longer; for the perpetual kitten of our dreams! But no; the Creator is not that kind of artist."

""What I always wonder about Dickens," he said, "is how on earth did the man correct his proofs?" Because, as he went on to point out, between the time of writing and the time of correcting he must have thought of so many new descriptive touches, so many new creatures to add, so many new and adorable fantastic comments on life. How could he deny himself the joy of putting these in? — for there can be no pleasure like that of creation.”"

"I asked him how he kept his temper when customers were unreasonable. "Oh, that's all in the day's work," he said. "I know they don't mean it. It's not the gentlemen who are snappish, it's their empty stomachs...." "It is not the gentlemen," he went on, "that break a waiter's heart; it's the kitchen. That's where our trouble is. It's cooks that ruin eating-houses. A cook who has a grudge against a head-waiter can cost his governor pounds and pounds a day. It's all in his hands; he can spoil things, or he can keep them back till the customers bang out in a fury.... Gentlemen who blame waiters for being slow don't remember that the food has got to be cooked and served up, and that the waiter doesn't do either. "But there;" Mr. Duckie said, "an empty stomach can't remember everything. I often think this would be a better-tempered and happier world if we ate a little all the time instead of saving up our appetites for real meals. But speaking as a waiter, I can see it's best as it is.""

"It came to me this morning all unexpectedly, being the payment of a debt which I had long since given up hope of ever receiving. In other words, it is sheer profit, like all repaid loans."

"The art of life...is to be thought odd. Everything will then be permitted to you."

"The crying need for the moment in this country, as in America, is a gospel of poverty to cope with the gospel of riches that is vitiating society."

"His mind...with all its vigour and acumen, though naturally inclined to justice and courage, is about as capable of impartiality as a prize-fighter is capable of metaphysics."

"The true Londoner cares no straw for sanitation. He thrives on ill conditions."

"It was Henri Taine, I think, who said that there was no volume he could not compress into a chapter, and no chapter that would not go into a sentence. Dr. Giles has carried out Taine's thrasonical brag. There is no Chinese lifetime, however crowded and illustrious, that he cannot pack into a paragraph or a page."

"It is all as it should be if they were really friends once, for friends, in fact, belong to periods rather than to all time, although sentiment would have it otherwise. One is always changing a little, although of radical change there is almost none, and new friends are found in tune with each stage."

"Cynicism and self-esteem run through everything. Christian of course we never were, and never shall be, not even in adversity; but we are no longer in the least afraid of God."

"It was almost impossible for a book to carry no association for that swooping, pouncing brain. He either knew it, or knew of it, or had always wanted to know it."

"The time for second-hand book-shops...is after one's work, not during one's work."

"Unhappily in England just now,...the type of journalist who seems to have most readers is permitted to be the least sagacious and the least independent."

"I see that the pigeon-holes of Fleet Street must be full of these anticipatory articles which only need occasional revision to date to be all ready when the scythe is finally sharpened. To meet an editor must be for a thoughtful celebrity as chilling as the spectacle of the mummy at the Egyptian banquet."

"To Naomi's serene, sane mind the world has to be accepted as it is, and therefore she is always the same. Not that she considers everything perfect, but she has an instinctive realisation of the inevitability of imperfection which keeps her contented — or at any rate prevents querulous discontent."

"I have come to the conclusion that the golfing temperament is essentially aristocratic— a feudal inheritance — the property exclusively of those who can see nothing absurd or even degrading in the spectacle of powerful frivolous men being followed by boys of burden."

"Bachelors have many advantages, but they are all minor. Perhaps the greatest advantage they enjoy is that of still being able to follow an impulse; but even this rarely seems to give them all the pleasure that it would give many a man who has tasted restriction. Feeding on impulses can become as distasteful as feeding on jam roll."

"Virtue we still consider the best goal for others: but for ourselves, success. Success is the new god, and will be, I suppose, for some time yet, so zealously is the altar flame guarded."

"So long as there are advertisements there cannot be absolutely free speech. It is not humanly possible."

""What was that?" said Grandmamma, who is not really deaf, but when in a tight place likes to gain time by this harmless imposition."

"Libraries...he does not much esteem. People should own their books, he holds ; but that, of course, is a counsel of perfection, or would be were it not for the multitude of reprints that are now to be had at the price of a cigar."

"Not the least remarkable thing in this wonderful world in which we grope and have our being, is the amazing differences that can exist in the children of the same parents."

"Venice indeed imposes laziness. Even Americans doing Europe approach restfulness there. There is no hurrying a gondolier."

"The condition of the working classes, physically, morally, and mentally, having of late begun to attract that degree of attention which it ought long ago to have done, I conceived that, at this particular crisis, some good might be rendered to the country — some advancement made towards the Truth — by an actual survey of the present condition of such labouring persons. I determined therefore, on taking a series of perambulations amongst them, for the purpose of noting down their real state and condition, and of making it known through the public press of the country."

"It is matter of history, that whilst the laurels were yet cool on the brows of our victorious soldiers on their second occupation of Paris, the elements of convulsion were at work amongst the masses of our labouring population; and that a series of disturbances commenced with the introduction of the , and continued, with short intervals, until the close of the year 1816. In London and riots ensued, and were continued for several days, whilst the bill was discussed; at , there were riots on account of the high price of bread; at there were similar disturbances to prevent the exportation of grain; at , by the unemployed, to destroy machinery; at , not suppressed without bloodshed ..."

"Easter was a more important holiday time at . On Good Friday, children took little baskets neatly trimmed with moss, and went "," and received at some places eggs, at some places , and at others , which they carried home to their mothers, who would feel proud that their children had been so much respected. On , companies of young men grotesquely dressed, led up by a fiddler, and with one or two in female attire, would go from house to house on the same errand of "peace-egging." At some places they would dance, at other they would recite quaint verses, and at the houses of the more sedate inhabitants, they would merely request a "peace-egg." Money or ale would in general be presented to them, which they afterwards divided and spent. Meantime, the holiday having fairly commenced, all work was abandoned, good eating, good drinking, and new clothing were the order of the day. Men thronged to the ale-houses, and there was much folly, intemperance, and quarreling, amidst the prevailing good humour."

"At the latter end of 1849 Mrs. Gaskell, the author of ', wrote to , asking for an introduction to Tennyson, in connection with Samuel Bamford, the Lancashire weaver, and author of Life of a Radical. Mrs. Gaskell wished, I believe, to enlist the poet's interest on behalf of Bamford, who was now old, and greatly desirous of having a copy of Tennyson's poems for himself. With his usual kindness of heart, the author of ' writes at once to Forster that he will, as soon as maybe, instruct (his publisher) to forward the books—adding that he reckoned Bamford's admiration as the highest honour he had ever received."

"A female mind like a rude fallow lies; No seed is sown, but weeds spontaneous rise. As well might we expect, in winter, spring, As land untilled a fruitful crop should bring."

"Are simple women only fit To dress, to darn, to flower, or knit, To mind the distaff, or the spit? Why are the needle and the pen Thought incompatible by men?"

"But, bold, unconcerned At thoughts of the pain, He calmly returned To his cottage again."

"And sadly reflecting, That a lover forsaken A new love may get, But a neck when once broken Can never be set."

"Of all the torments, all the cares, With which our lives are curst; Of all the plagues a lover bears, Sure rivals are the worst! By partners in each other kind Afflictions easier grow; In love alone we hate to find Companions of our woe."

"How great soe’er your rigours are, With them alone I’ll cope; I can endure my own despair, But not another’s hope."

"But, mad with his love, To a precipice goes, Where a leap from above Would soon finish his woes."

"This day relenting God Hath placed within my hand A wondrous thing; and God Be praised. At his command, Seeking His secret deeds With tears and toiling breath, I find thy cunning seeds, O million-murdering Death. I know this little thing A myriad men will save, O Death, where is thy sting? Thy victory, O Grave?"

"The Final Nightmare, For the Boys, Die Hard, Truly, Madly, Deeply."

"Her voice, her touch, might give th’ alarm— ’Twas both perhaps, or neither, In short, ’twas that provoking charm Of Caelia altogether."

"Yes, I’m in love, I feel it now, And Caelia has undone me, And yet I’ll swear I can’t tell how The pleasing plague stole on me."

"I love him not; but shew no reason can Wherefore, but this, I do not love the man."

"Honour’s a mistress all mankind pursue, Yet most mistake the false one for the true: Lur’d by the trappings, dazzled by the paint, We worship oft the idol for the saint."

"Why, praise is satire in these sinful days."