Works By Letitia Elizabeth Landon

"He asked no better revenge than a reply — and arrayed in his own mind a whole battalion of arguments, and a light-armed troop of sneers. Nothing is more imaginative than anger."

"Many failures only increase the satisfaction of final success."

"To hold our surprises in perfect subjection is one of the first lessons of society ;"

"[From Adelaide]: It is my misfortune, not my fault, that the felicity of the country is, to my mind, like the merriment of Christmas, more heard of than seen."

"A woman's love is essentially lonely and spiritual in its nature — feeding on fancy, rather than hope — or like that fairy flower of the East, which floats in, and lives upon, the air. Her attachment is the heathenism of the heart : she has herself created the glory and beauty with which the idol of her altar stands invested."

"[From Mr Spenser]: Great power is almost always a great evil."

"[From Lord Mandeville]: Secondly, I lean rather to giving practical than scientific knowledge. I would distribute books on farming, gardening, and a cheap, simple cookery would be a valuable present: for works of mere amusement, travels plainly written, especially such as, in the wants and miseries of other countries, teach us to value the comforts and advantages of our own ; —"

"[From Lord Mandeville]: From religion, and that only, can they learn the inherent nature of good and evil. In the sorrows that have afflicted, in the judgments that have befallen, the highest and mightiest, they will learn the only true lesson of equality — the conviction that our destinies are not in our own hands ; they will see that no situation in life is without its share of suffering ; — and this perpetual reference to a higher power ought equally to teach the rich humility, and the poor devotion."

"[From Lord Mandeville]: Knowledge, when only the possession of a few, has almost always been turned to iniquitous purposes."

"[From Lord Mandeville]: Satiety and mortification are the extremes of vanity, and both are equally attended by envy, hatred, malice, and all uncharitableness. If the human mind were like a pond, and could be filled at once, knowledge, like the water, would be its own balance ; but as it must be done gradually, it ought to be done carefully — not one part filled to overflowing, while a second is left dry, or a third to stagnate."

"[From Lord Mandeville]: In diffusing knowledge, there are two dangers against which we should endeavour to guard — that it be not turned to a wrong use, or made subservient to mere display. The last is the worst ; — discontent is the shadow of display, and display is the characteristic of our age. Take one of its humblest instances. Our young people go to their divers amusements, not for the purpose of enjoyment, but of display ; they require not entertainment, but compliment."

"[From Mr Spenser]: We see how they scaled the mountain, and immediately give ourselves credit for being able to go and do likewise. We forget that a great man does not leave behind him his genius, but its traces. Now, there is no disappointment so bitter as that whose cause is in ourselves."

"[From Mr Spenser]: .... I doubt the great advantage of the biographies of eminent men, who have arisen by their own efforts, being sedulously held up as examples to the lower classes. If great talents really exist, these very instances prove that example was not necessary to call them into action ; and if they do not, the apparent ease and the high success which attended those objects of their emulation, are calculated rather to cause delusive hopes than a beneficial effect."

"There are many gentlemen who never drink any but sample wines, and never go beyond their first order to a wine-merchant. This would be a very excellent plan to pursue in love affairs ; for the beginning is their best part — its only fault is, that it is impossible."

"Once upon a time a lady died much regretted ; for she was as kind-hearted an individual as ever gave birth-day presents in her life, or left legacies at her death. When they heard the intelligence, the whole of a married daughter's family were in great distress, — the mother cried bitterly, so did her two eldest daughters, as fitting and proper to do. The youngest child of all, a little creature who could not in the least recollect its grandmother, nevertheless retired into a corner, and threw its pinafore over its face. "Poor dear feeling little creature ! " said the nurse, "don't you cry too." "I'm not crying," replied the child ; "I only pretend." Regret and enjoyment are much the same; people are like the child, — they only pretend."

"There are many odd things in society ; but its amusements are the oddest of all. Take any crowded party you will, and I doubt if there are ten persons in the room who are really pleased. To do as others do, is the mania of the day."

"I own that life is very wearisome — that we are most miserable creatures — that we go on through disappointments, cares, and sorrows, enough for a dozen of poems ; still, it has pleasant passages — for example, when one is young, pretty, and a little in love. What a pity that we cannot remain at fifteen and five and twenty ! Or, second thoughts are best — I dare say then we should sink under the ennui of enjoyment, or be obliged to commit suicide in self-defence."

"[From Edward Lorraine]: A frivolous employment ! This comes of well-sounding morality shining in a sentence."

"[From Edward Lorraine]: Dress ought to be part of female education ; her eye for colouring, her taste for drapery, should be cultivated by intense study. [Let her approach the mirror as she would her harp or her grammar, aware that she has a task before her, whose fulfilment, not whose fulfilling, is matter of vanity. Above all, let her eschew the impertinence of invention ; let her leave genius to her milliner. In schools, there are the drawing, French, and dancing days ; there should also be dressing days. From sandal to ringlet should undergo strict investigation ; and a prize should be given to the best dressed. We should not then have our eyesight affronted by yellows and pinks, greens and blues, mingled together ; we should be spared the rigidity of form too often attendant on a new dress ; and no longer behold shawls hung on shoulders as if they were two pegs in a passage.]"

"[From Edward Lorraine]: … ; for our English grumbling is equally distributed between the weather and politics, and the case would be desperate when confined to the last."

"[From Edward Lorraine]: … : a Frenchman throws his discontent into an epigram, and is happy — an Englishman vents his on the weather, and is satisfied."

"[From Edward Lorraine]: Utility is fast annihilating the empire of the sigh or the sword : a hero is pronounced to be dangerous, or, worse, useless — and Alexanders and Richelieus are equally out of keeping with our time."

"It is a wise law of nature, that we only hear at second-hand what is said of us, when, at least, we can comfort ourselves with disbelief. [His Satanic majesty did not know how to tempt Job ; instead of making him hear his friends talk to him — though that was bad enough — he should have made him hear them talk of him ; and if that did not drive him out of all patience, I know not what would.]"

"To know that the love which once seemed eternal can have an end, destroys its immortality ; and, thus brought to a level with the beginnings and endings — the chances and changes of life's common-place employments and pleasures — and, alas! from the sublime to the ridiculous there is but a step — our divinity turns out an idol — we are grown too wise, too worldly, for our former faith — and we laugh at what we wept before : such laughter is more bitter — a thousand times more bitter — than tears."

"[On love] Like the maiden of the fairy tale, we destroy our spell when we open it to examine in what characters it is written. In its ignorance is its happiness; there is none of the anxiety that is the fever of hope — no fears, for there is no calculation — no selfishness, for it asks for nothing — no disappointment, for nothing is expected : it is like the deep quiet enjoyment of basking in the bright sun shine, without thinking of either how the glad warmth will ripen our fruits and flowers, or how the dark clouds in the distance forebode a storm."

"... there is no look so suspicious as a downcast one."

"Always be as witty as you can with your parting bow — your last speech is the one remembered."

"[From Edward Lorraine]: There is always a certain capital of opinion to which men deem it proper to subscribe — our education from the first cultivates credulity — we are taught to agree, not to examine, and our judgment is formed long before our comprehension."

"[From Mr Morland]: … : philosophy, like charity, begins at home ; but also, like charity, I should wish it to extend, and become the more beneficial the more it expands."

"[From Mr Morland]: .... no one sees things exactly as they are, but as varied and modified by their own method of viewing. Bid a botanist and a poet describe a rose-tree — the one will dwell upon its roots, fibres, petals, &c., and his abstract view will be of its medicinal properties ; the poet will dwell upon its beauty, and associate it with the ideas of love and summer, or catch somewhat of melancholy from its futurity of fading — no fear of want of variety."

"A woman always, whether she shows it or not, takes a general assertion to herself, not from vanity, but from the intense individuality of her nature ; …"

"[From Edward Lorraine}: When opinions have lost the support of the grounds on which they were originally formed, they become prejudices ; but in proportion as they lose their foundation, they tighten their hold : for though a man may give up his opinion he holds to his prejudice as a drowning wretch who has lost his boat grasps his oar."

"[From Edward Lorraine]: Like the veins of a mine, the materials of fiction are soon worked out."

"[From Mr. Morland]: Mrs. Robinson, Mrs. Smith, and Mrs. Radcliffe ruled the Europe, Asia, and Africa of the novel-writing world — America was not then discovered."

"It is quite wonderful what privileges are accorded to single gentlemen of a certain age and a certain fortune, — these are the people who may be rude with more than impunity, even reward. Whether the old ladies, either for themselves or their daughters, hope it is not quite too late for these said single gentlemen to marry, — whether the masculine part of the creation with that attention to business, their great moral duty, calculate on pecuniary futurities, either in the shape of legacy or loan, we know not ; but assuredly the magna charta of social life accords much to this privileged class."

"Some authors, in discussing love's divers places of vantage ground, are eloquent in praise of a dinner-table — others eulogise supper : for my part I lean to the breakfast, — the complexion and the feelings are alike fresh — the cares, business, and sorrows of the day, have not yet merged in prudence and fatigue — the imaginativeness of the morning dream is yet floating on the mind — the courtesies of coffee and chocolate are more familiar than those of soup and fish. As they say in education, nothing like an early commencement — our first impressions are always most vivid, and the simplicity of the morning gives an idea of nature piquant from probable contrast. Perhaps one's rule of three for action might run thus : be naive at breakfast, brilliant at dinner, but romantic at supper. The visions prepared for midnight should always be a little exalted : but if only one meal be at your choice, prefer the breakfast."

"[From Edward Lorraine]: ... I think hearts are very much like glasses — if they do not break with the first ring, they usually last a considerable time."

"[From Edward Lorraine]: ... a novelist will soon be as necessary a part of a modern establishment as the minstrel was in former times."

"[From Edward Lorraine]: It is certainly in the destiny of some individuals to be the idols of the circulating library."

"[From Edward Lorraine]: A respectable man passes six days behind his counter, and the seventh in a one-horse chaise — imagines that his own and his country's constitution equally depend on roast-beef — pays his debts regularly, and gives away half-pence in charity."

"[From Edward Lorraine]: There is an ingenuity, an originality, which makes one lament over so much unappreciated genius."

"[From Mr Delawarr]: ... indifference is as fabulous as invulnerability."

"[From Mr Delawarr]: ... plain truth is like a plain face — not very attractive. There is no moral Styx ; and in politics as in every thing else, censure is more bitter than praise is sweet."

"[From Lady Alicia]: Oh, I have heard all this a hundred times : one hears things till one forgets them."

"There is nothing so easy as to be wise for others ; a species of prodigality, by the by — for such wisdom is wholly wasted."

"Truly the history of most lives may be soon comprehended under three heads — our follies, our faults, and our misfortunes."

"[From Lord Etheringhame]: We do not kill each other quite so much, but we cheat each other more : mortifications are more frequent than wants : and it does appear to me, that, in this change of rude into civilised life, we only exchange bodily evils for mental ones."

"[From Edward Lorraine]: Instead of asking of what import is an individual, let us rather ask, what is there an individual may not do ?"

"[From Lord Etheringhame]: — I see thousands and thousands rushing to every goal to which human desires can tend — and what matters it if one individual loiter on the way? I see, too, thousands and thousands daily swept off, and their places filled up, leaving not a memory to say that they have been — and again I ask, of what import is an individual ?"

"[From Edward Lorraine]: — the evil with which we are familiar seems scarce an evil : …"