Works By Letitia Elizabeth Landon

"During the quadrille they progressed as rapidly as an American settlement."

"Perhaps, had not Emily's judgment been a little blinded by the diamond-dust which vanity flings in the eyes, Mr. Boyne Sillery might not have appeared such a very nice young man."

"How many gastronomes, with mouths never meant but for mutton and mashed potatoes, dilate learnedly on the merits of salmis and sautés — but far less as matter of taste than flavour!"

"We would liken music to Aladdin’s lamp — worthless in itself, not so for the spirits which obey its call. We love it for the buried hopes, the garnered memories, the tender feelings, it can summon with a touch."

"[From Lord Etheringhame]: "Every other species of talent carries with it its eternity ; we enjoy the work of the poet, the painter, the sculptor, only as thousands will do after us ; but the actor — his memory is with his generation, and that passes away.""

"What a foundation mortified vanity is for philosophy !"

"… : the Society for the Diffusion of Useful Knowledge does not depend more on its encyclopædia, Mr. Brougham — the new tragedy on Macready — the balance of Europe on the Duke — none of these are so utterly dependent as a young lady on her chaperone."

"We have heard of the solitude of the wide ocean, of the sandy desert, of the pathless forest; but, for a real, thorough, and entire knowledge, far beyond Zimmerman’s, of the pleasures of solitude, commend us to a young damsel doomed to a sofa and female society, while quadrille after quadrille is formed in her sight, and the waltzes go round like stars with whose motions we have nothing to do."

"But we are patriotic people, and write treatises for the Society of Useful Knowledge."

"[By the bye,] what a barbarous, what an uncharitable act it is, of some people to furnish their rooms as they do, against all laws of humanity as well as taste ! We have actually seen rooms fitted up with sea-green, and an indigo-coloured paper: what complexion could stand it? The most proper of becoming blushes would be utterly wasted, and perhaps at the most critical moment."

"In his mind the imagination was as yet the most prominent feature; it made him impetuous — for the unknown is ever coloured by the most attractive hues ; it made him versatile— for those very hues, from their falsehood, are fleeting, and pass easily from one object to another; it made him melancholy— for the imagination, which lives on excitement, most powerfully exaggerates the reaction; but, like a fairy gift, it threw its own nameless charm over all he did— and a touch, as it were, of poetry, spiritualised all the common-places of life."

"[But,] Alas, for the vanity of human enjoyment ! we grow weary of even our own perfection."

"Successful daring makes its own way; …"

"{Of a forest} [It was swept, but not bowed, by] a mighty wind, now loud as mountain thunder, and now low with that peculiar whisper which haunts the leaf of the pine — such as might have suited the oracles of old — an articulate though unknown language."

"[A few moments saw] the little vessel [gallantly scudding through the waters,] dashing before her a shower of foam like sudden snow — and leaving behind a silver tracks like a shining serpent, called by some strange spell from its emerald palace, and yet bright with the mysterious light of its birthplace."

"The questions of curiosity are few to those of politeness."

"Now came one of those audible pauses, the tickings of the death-watch of English conversation."

"[From Lady Alicia]: "[… ;] marriage is like money— seem to want it, and you never get it.""

"How much we give to thoughts and things our tone-painting, And judge of others' feelings by our own!"

"[… and] Emily, her head like a kaleidoscope, full of colours, with not a little disdain, put on the blue silk she had thought bleu céleste, at least in the country. What a march does a woman's intellect, i.e. taste, take in the streets of London !"

"Shopping, true feminine felicity !"

"In the midst of a brilliant public career, he had little time to discover whether his household divinity was very like those of old — a statue."

"Lord Etheringhame’s opinions were as hereditary as his halls ; innovation was moral rebellion ; the change of a fashion, a symptom of degeneracy ; he would as soon have destroyed his pedigree as his pigtail ; and looked on every new patent, whether for a peerage or a pie-dish, as another step to ruin ; in short, he held just the reverse of the poet’s opinion — with him, not whatever is, but whatever had been, was right."

"… [for after all,] vanity is like those chemical essences whose only existence is when called into being by the action of some opposite influence."

"… and French and Italian were, it must be owned, somewhat unnecessary to one who considered her own language an unnecessary fatigue."

"— morning, that breaker of spells and sleep."

"Adventures never happen now-a-days; there are neither knights nor highwaymen ; no lonely heaths, with gibbets, for finger-posts ; no hope of even a dangerous rut, or a steep hill ; romance and roads are alike macadamised; no young ladies are either run away with, or run over ; —"

"There is something very amusing in the misfortunes of others."

"A white handkerchief is a signal of distress always answered: …"

"Affection is more matter of habit than sentiment, more so than we like to admit [; and she was leaving both habits and affections behind.]"

"A great change in life is like a cold bath in winter — we all hesitate at the first plunge."

"[This, however, the uncle would not admit ; and] youth, if not selfish, is at least thoughtless; …"

"[Now this was a most disinterested act ; for] the member had recovered, and taken that step of all others which insures existence, purchased a life annuity; and it is a well-known fact in physiology, that annuitants and old women never die."

"Snow-dropped, crocused, and violeted Spring, in the country, was beginning to consider about making her will, and leaving her legacies of full-blown flowers and green fruit to Summer, …"

"He need only not have been a politician (the very name was a stumbling-block to a young lady's romance), and he would have been erected into a hero fit for a modern novel."

"But sentiment, like salt, is so universal an ingredient in our composition, that even Mr. Delawarr, years and years ago, had looked at a rainbow to dream of a cheek, had gathered violets with the dew on them, and thought them less bright than the eyes to which they were offerings, had rhymed to one beloved name, and had felt one fair cousin to be the fairest of created things."

"That intuitive awe which all little people at least must have experienced ― the feeling which fixes the eye and chains the lip, on finding ourselves for the first time in the presence of some great man, hitherto to us an historical portrait, one whose thoughts are of the destinies of nations, whose part seems in the annals of England, and not in its society."

"The impetuosity of youth becomes energy in manhood."

"His lady was one of those thousand-and-one women who wore dark silk dresses and lace caps ― who, after a fashion of their own, have made most exemplary wives; that is to say, they took to duties instead of accomplishments, and gave up music when they married―who spent the mornings in the housekeeper's room, and the evenings at the tea-table, waiting for the guests who came not ― who rose after the first glass of wine―whose bills and calls were paid punctually, and whose dinners were a credit to them."

"Her father had been the youngest brother, and, like many other younger brothers, both unnecessary and imprudent."

"The course of life is like the child's game – “here we go round by the rule of contrary” -- and youth, above all others, is the season of united opposites, with all its freshness and buoyancy. At no period of our existence is depression of the spirit more common or more painful. As we advance in life our duties become defined ; we act more from necessity and less from impulse ; custom takes the place of energy, and feelings, no longer powerfully excited, are proportionably quiet in re-action. But youth, balancing itself upon hope, is for ever in extremes; its expectations are continually aroused only to be baffled ; and disappointment, like a summer shower, is violent in proportion to its brevity."

"Young she was―but nineteen, that pleasantest of ages, just past the blushing, bridling, bewildering coming out, when a courtesy and a compliment are equally embarrassing; when one half the evening is spent in thinking what to do and say, and the other half in repenting what has been said and done."

"O for some German philosopher, with the perseverance of the African travellers, who seem to make a point of conscience to die on their travels, not, though, till the said travels are properly interred in quartos — with their perseverance, and the imagination of a poet to examine into the doctrine of sympathies ! And to begin with letters, in what consists the mysterious attraction no one will deny they possess ? Why, when we neither expect, hope, nor even wish for one, and yet when they are brought, who does not feel disappointed to find there are none for them? and why, when opening the epistle would set the question at rest, do we persevere in looking at the direction, the seal, the shape, as if from them alone we could guess the contents? What a love of mystery and of vague expectance there is in the human heart !"

"[From Lady Mandeville]: … we over-educate the memory, while the temper and the feelings are neglected, forgetting that the future will be governed much more by the affections than by the understanding."

"[From Mr Morland]: … our present mode of education has too much of the forcing system in it. The forward child grows into the dogmatic youth, and it takes ten years of disappointment and mortification to undo the work of twenty. Nothing leads to such a false idea of self-importance as display. I dislike those railroads to information, because the labour of acquiring knowledge is even more valuable than the knowledge acquired. It is a great misfortune to children to be made of too much consequence."

"Spring and Morning are ladies that owe half their charms to their portrait-painters."

"… the country owes much of its merit to being unknown."

"… indifference is but another of the illusions of youth : …"

"How irksome, how wearying, to be doomed always to the society of those who are like people speaking different languages! It resembles travelling through the East, with a few phrases of lingua franca — just enough for the ordinary purposes of life — enow of words to communicate a want, but not to communicate a thought !"

"Ah ! money is the true Aladdin's lamp ; and I have often thought the Bank of England is the mysterious roc's egg, whose movements are forbidden to mortal eye."