Works By Letitia Elizabeth Landon

"What mockeries are our most firm resolves ! To will is ours, but not to execute. We map our future like some unknown coast, And say, " Here is an harbour, here a rock — The one we will attain, the other shun :" And we do neither."

"[PS to a Lady Marchmont letter]: Lord Marchmont, whenever he sees me writing, sends you a message of equal length and civility. Once named, it will do for always. You can keep it by you like a stock of frozen provision."

"Hard are life's early steps; and but that youth Is buoyant, confident, and strong in hope, Men would behold its threshold, and despair."

"A great sorrow forgets every thing but itself; but little sorrows exaggerate themselves and each other."

"[From Lady Mary Wortley Montague within Lady Marchmont’s letters]: All men are rascals to women, and all women rascals to each other."

"There is in life no blessing like affection : It soothes, it hallows, elevates, subdues, And bringeth down to earth its native heaven."

"It (London) is the most real place in the world ; you will inevitably be brought to your level."

"The first step towards establishing pretensions of any kind, is to believe firmly in them yourself: faith is very catching, and half the beauty-reputations of which I hear have originated with the possessors."

"... I have a respect for family pride. If it be a prejudice, it is prejudice in its most picturesque shape ; but I hold that it is connected with some of the noblest feelings in our nature."

"Wealth is to luxury what marble is to the palace—it must be there, as the first material ; but taste, and taste only, can direct its after use."

"[From Lady Mary Wortley Montague within Lady Marchmont’s letters]: Friendship is just an innocent delusion, to round a period in a moral essay."

"Vanity ! guiding power, 'tis thine to rule Statesman and vestryman—the knave or fool. The Macedonian crossed Hydaspes' wave, Fierce as the storm, and gloomy as the grave. Urged by the thought, what would Athenians say, When next they gathered on a market-day ? And the same spirit that induced his toil, Leads on the cook, to stew, and roast, and boil : Whether the spice be mixed—the flag unfurled— Each deems their task the glory of the world."

"[From Lady Marchmont’s Letters to Sir Jasper]: What a duty to one's self it is to be young, vain, and pretty ! but the middle quality is the most important. Vanity is a cloak that wraps us up comfortably, and a drapery which sets us off to the best advantage ; and its great merit is, that it suits itself to every sort of circumstance."

"Not in a close and bounded atmosphere Does life put forth its noblest and its best; 'Tis from the mountain's top that we look forth, And see how small the world is at our feet. There the free winds sweep with unfettered wing; There the sun rises first, and flings the last, The purple glories of the summer eve; There does the eagle build his mighty nest; And there the snow stains not its purity. When we descend, the vapour gathers round, And the path narrows : small and worthless things Obstruct our way; and, in ourselves, we feel The strong compulsion of their influence. We grow like those with whom we daily blend : To yield is to resemble."

"[From Lady Marchmont’s Letters to Sir Jasper]: Chloe believed that he had immortalised himself by a representation of the war of the Titans against the gods. Unfortunately, they were higher than even the room ; and Lord Marchmont refused to comply with the wishes of the artiste, and to take down his splendidly painted ceiling to admit of the dessert."

"There is to age something so enlivening in the company of youth, unconsciously it shares the cheerfulness it witnesses, and hopes with the hopes around, in that sympathy which is the kindliest part of our nature."

"[Of poets]: They gather from sorrow its sweetest emotions ; they repeat of hope but its noblest visions; they look on nature with an earnest love, which wins the power of making her hidden beauty visible; and they reproduce the passionate, the true, and the beautiful. Alas ! they themselves are not what they paint; the low want subdues the lofty will ; the small and present vanity interferes with the far and glorious aim : but still it is something to have looked beyond the common sphere where they were fated to struggle. They paid in themselves the bitter penalty of not realising their own ideal ; but mankind have to be thankful for the generous legacy of thought and harmony bequeathed by those who were among earth's proscribed and miserable. Fame is bought by happiness."

"Which was the true philosopher ?—the sage Who to the sorrows and the crimes of life Gave tears—or he who laughed at all he saw ?"

"Fear dwells around the absent—and our love For such grows all too anxious, too much filled With vain regrets, and fond inquietudes : We know not love till those we love depart."

"Green trees and blue skies are very well in their way ; I believe indispensable to painters, and useful to poets :"

"O ! never another dream can be Like that early dream of ours, When the fairy, Hope, lay down like a child, And slept amid opening flowers."

"I do not think that life has a suspense more sickening than that of expecting a letter which does not come."

"[From Henrietta]: A man in love is a nonentity for the time—he is nothing ; and nature, that is, my nature, abhors a vacuum."

"But there is something in parting that softens the heart;—it is as if we had never felt how unutterably dear a beloved object could be, till we are about to lose it for ever."

"He was of those whose sensitive organisation, and inborn talent, constitute that genius which holds ordinary maxims at defiance. No education can confer—no circumstances check it; and even to account for it, we need, with the ancients, to believe in inspiration."

"[From Sir Jasper Meredith]: In all this wide world there is nothing but suffering: the child cries in its cradle ; it but begins as it will continue. In all ranks there is the same overpowering misery : the poor man has all the higher faculties of his being absorbed in a perpetual struggle with cold and hunger: a step higher, and pretence comes to aggravate poverty; dig we cannot, and to beg we are ashamed. Go on into what are called the higher classes, and there we find ambition the fever of the soul, and jealousy its canker. There are pleasures ; but there is no relish for them ; and luxuries which have become wearisome as wants. The feelings are either dull in selfish apathy, that excludes enjoyment; or unduly keen, till a look or word is torture."

"There was an evil in Pandora's box Beyond all other ones, yet it came forth In guise so lovely, that men crowded round And sought it as the dearest of all treasure. ... The evil's name was Love."

"We do not know how much we love, Until we come to leave ; An aged tree, a common flower, Are things o'er which we grieve."

"Is not the lark companion of the spring? And should not Hope — that sky-lark of the heart— Bear, with her sunny song, youth company ?"

"[From Lady Marchmont’s Letters to Sir Jasper]: No person can have a greater respect for words than myself ; they can do every thing but what is impossible : and there is an extraordinary excitement in a crowd, which lives in no description that I ever yet read. It is strange the influence we exercise over each other. What is tame and cold with the few, becomes passion shared with the many."

"Farewell's a bitter word to say."

"There are in existence two periods when we shrink from any great vicissitude—early youth and old age. In the middle of life, we are indifferent to change ; for we have discovered that nothing is, in the end, so good or so bad as it at first appeared. We know, moreover, how to accommodate ourselves to circumstances ; and enough of exertion is still left in us to cope with the event. But age is heart-wearied and tempest-torn : it is the crumbling cenotaph of fear and hope ! Wherefore should there be turmoil for the few, and evening hours, when all they covet is repose ? They see their shadow fall upon the grave ; and need but to be at rest beneath! Youth is not less averse from change ; but that is from exaggeration of its consequences, for all seems to the young so important, and so fatal. They are timid, because they know not what they fear; hopeful, because they know not what they expect. Despite their gayety of confidence, they yet dread the first plunge into life's unfathomed deep."

"Who, in after life, can help smiling at the fancies in which early anticipation revelled ; how absurd, how impossible, do they not now appear! Yet, in such mockery lurks much of bitterness : the laugh rings hollow from many a disappointment, and many a mortification."

"Who shall place a bound to human folly, when both the inflicter and the endurer of torture have deemed that pain is acceptable in the sight of God ?"

"[From Sir Jasper Meredith]: Human enjoyment is all too dearly atoned."

"It was a lovely day ; for, say what they will, England does see the sunshine sometimes. Indeed, I think that our climate is an injured angel : has it not the charm of change, and what charm can be greater ?"

"[From Walter Maynard]: Poetry is the immortality of earth : where shall we look for our noblest thoughts, and our tenderest feelings, but in its eternal pages ?"

"[From Mr Lintot, another publisher]: Paper and printing are terrible things ; I wish books could do without them …"

"[From Sir Jasper]: I like a cat because it does not disguise its selfishness with any flattering hypocrisies. Its attachment is not to yourself, but to your house. Let it but have food, and a warm lair among the embers, and it heeds not at whose expense. Then it has the spirit to resent aggression. You shall beat your dog, and he will fawn upon you; but a cat never forgives : it has no tender mercies, and it torments before it destroys its prey."

"[From Lord Norbourne]: Statesmen and philosophers too, often talk a great deal of nonsense. Half of what are called our finest sentiments originate in the necessity of rounding a sentence."

"I believe that one great reason why the suffering of the mind is so often followed by suffering of the body is, that we are so indifferent about it, that we do not care to take even those ordinary precautions which are taken almost unconsciously in general. There is nothing in life worth attention, not even ourselves."

"There is nothing in this world so sensitive as affection. It feels its own happiness too much not to tremble for its reality ; and starts, ever and anon, from its own delicious consciousness, to ask, Is it not, indeed, a dream ? A word and a look are enough either to repress or to encourage. Nothing is a trifle in love, for all is seen through an exaggerated medium …"

"Change is the universal prescription for a wounded spirit. " It will do you so much good," is the constant remark. Perhaps it may; but how reluctant is any one who is suffering mentally, to try it! There is an irritation about secret and subdued sorrow, which peculiarly unfits you for exertion ; you are discontented with all that is around you, and yet you shrink from alteration ; it is too much trouble ; you do not feel in yourself even energy enough for the ordinary demands of life."

"[From Walter Maynard]: What a folly are our own exertions ; every thing depends upon a lucky chance in this world !"

"[From Norbourne Courtenaye]: You cannot doubt that influence: from our veriest infancy we feed upon the thoughts of the dead ; even your own strong and original mind has been cultivated by others. I never enter a library without being grateful to those whose moral existence has formed my own. Our sages, our poets, have left a world behind, formed of all that is good, beautiful, and true in our own. Not a life but owes to them some of its happiest hours ; they are our favourites, our old, familiar friends."

"[From Lord Norbourne]: Why, there remain avarice and business. I exceedingly regret that I do not, cannot force myself to love money. It is the most secure source of enjoyment of which our nature is capable. It is tangible and present ; it is subject to no imaginary miseries; it goes on increasing ; it is a joy for ever. It exercises both bodily and mental faculties in its acquisition ; it is satisfaction to the past, and encouragement to the future."

"Walter was wrong ; but I own I tremble at the fatality which sometimes seems to hang over our slightest actions. How often do we find ourselves involved in sudden misery and unhappiness, by circumstances over which we have no control ! and we ask bitterly ; "What have I done to deserve this ?" Not in this world will be the answer!"

"… nothing can supply the place of strong, undeviating principle. There is but one wrong, and one right ;"

"[From Lady Marchmont’s journal]: What a mistake to build our hopes on the external vanities of life! circumstance is nothing. How worthless, now appears to me, all that once seemed the chief objects of existence! our happiness lies within."

"We may, we ought, to be merciful to others ; to ourselves, we should be only just."