Anne Katherine Elwood

“ That Miss Landon was aware of the melancholy strain of her own writings, is apparent from the following observations.
"I have been told that my writings are too melancholy. How can that be a reproach, if they are true? and that they are true, I attest the sympathy of others and my own experience. If I have painted a state of moral lassitude, when the heart is left like a ruined and deserted city, where the winged step of joy, and the seven-stringed lute of hope have ceased each to echo the other; where happiness lies cold and dead on its own threshold ”

“ It is the best place in the world for a house, but the worst place for a grave. An Irish patriot once candidly observed to me, 'Give me London to live in, but let me die in green Ireland;' now this is precisely my opinion."
Considering Miss Landon's predilection for London, it was fortunate that it was her fate to spend the greater part of her life in or near the metropolis, and singular, that it should be her fate, after thus protesting against a tomb there, that she should have found an untimely and premature grave on the uncivilized and almost unknown shores of Africa ”

“ In her "Scenes in London," she has imparted much poetical beauty to those she has described; but with all her love for the metropolis, she, like every one else, protests against being buried there, for as she observes, "If there be one object more material, more revolting, more gloomy than another, it is a crowded churchyard in a city. It has neither sympathy nor memory. The pressed down stones lie heavy upon the very heart. The sunshine cannot get at them for smoke. There is a crowd, and like most crowds, there is no companionship. * * * No one can love London better than I do ”

“ It appears, indeed, that in Lady Marchmont's derelictions from virtue, Miss Landon had a moral object in view, as she states in the preface, "To show the necessity of a strong and guiding principle—to put in the strongest light, that no vanity, no pleasure, can ever supply the place of affection; to soften and to elevate, has been the object of the following pages. I know too well that I cannot work out my own ideal, but I deeply feel that it is beautiful and true." ”

“ 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. ”

“ Though the active mind of Miss Landon seems to have revolted against the drudgery and the mechanical part of education, generally so called, yet she appears rather to have acquired by intuition, than to have learnt everything in which she took an interest, and her French masters found the task of instruction a pleasure rather than a trouble, from the quickness with which she acquired the language. As for music, though vain were the attempts to force her into an artist, yet "it seemed to charm and inspire her, and for hours she would sit writing on her slate, whilst any one played or sung." ”

“ These somewhat querulous observations, however, perhaps only resolve themselves into the sensation of disappointment on the part of the young and inexperienced, that we cannot at the same time enjoy the blossoms of spring, the foliage of summer, and the fruits of autumn, and that the same individual cannot at the same period expect to possess the prize of hope, the pleasures of memory, and the benefits of experience. ”

“ The more disgusted I am with the present—with its faithless friends, its petty vanities, and its degrading interests, the more intensely does my existence blend itself with the future—the more do I look forward with an engrossing and enduring belief, that the creative feeling, the ardent thought, have not poured themselves forth wholly in vain. Good heaven! even to myself how strange appears the faculty or rather the passion of composition, how the inmost soul develops its inmost nature on the written page! ”

“ Love and chivalry were the favourite topics of Miss Landon's muse, and whilst she identified herself in idea with those whose sorrows she sang, lamenting, often in the first person, over disappointments and treacheries she never had then experienced, it may easily be supposed that those readers who were wholly unacquainted with the fair poetess, naturally concluded her to be the pining victim of unrequited affection. ”

“ Miss Landon appears to have been endowed with peculiarly sensitive feelings, which, though they caused her perhaps to magnify and exaggerate "the ills and woes that mortal man await;" yet, at the same time, enabled her, like all other imaginative children, to create for herself a fairy land of her own, in which she would find consolation for her sorrows and troubles, whether real or imaginary. ”

“ The man who stands listening to a barrel organ, because he loves the tones 'he heard from the lips of his nurse,' or who follows a common ballad-singer, because her song is familiar in its sweetness, or linked with touching words, or hallowed by the remembrance of some other and dearer voice, surely that man has more a soul for music than he who raves about execution, chromatic runs, semi-tones, &c. ”

“ I no longer delight in employment for the mere exertion—I am so easily fatigued and disheartened. I see too clearly the worthlessness of fulfilled hope. How vain seems so much that I once so passionately desired ”

“ Enthusiasm is the royal road to success. Now, call it fame, vanity—what you will—how strange and how strong is the feeling which urges on the painter or the author! We ought to marvel less at the works produced, than at the efforts made. ”

“ In 1830, Miss Landon commenced her first novel, entitled "Romance and Reality," which was published in the following year. The plot of this novel is, perhaps, somewhat deficient in interest; a young lady, a beautiful, spoilt, and petted heiress, comes up from the country to be domiciled with a handsome and agreeable young man, with whom she falls in love, though his affections are placed elsewhere, and she eventually dies of a broken heart in consequence. ”

“ We can all feel for a heroine who is deceived, betrayed, or ill-used, but not so easily do we sympathize with one who volunteers an attachment with out any sufficient grounds for so doing. The story, moreover, is burdened with a number of scenes, that have no reference to the plot, and with conversations and descriptions of living characters apparently only introduced as vehicles for some piquant remark, witty allusion, or mournful and half-moral reflection. ”

“ She read with avidity every thing which came in her way, giving the preference, very naturally, to romance and poetry; and though the prudent and thoughtful cousin, who undertook the care of her education whilst at Trevor Park, "always made it her particular care never to allow of her reading novels, knowing it would only weaken her mind, and give it a distaste to more serious reading," yet, despite the prohibition, Cooke's novelists and poets were all read through, even in the early days of childhood. ”

“ I have known little else than privation, disappointment, unkindness, and harassment; from the time I was fifteen my life has been one continual struggle, in some shape or other, against absolute poverty, and I must say not a tithe of my profits have I ever expended on myself. ”

“ Though subject to spasms, hysterical affections, and deep and instantaneous fainting fits, whilst in England, Mrs. Maclean describes herself in her letters to her friends, as enjoying excellent health and spirits at Cape Coast Castle, with the exception of excruciating headache, and an abscess forming and breaking continually in her ear, which, indeed, had rendered her lately deaf on that side. ”

“ Mrs. Maclean, far better known to the public as L. E. L., or Letitia Elizabeth Landon, was descended from an ancient and highly respectable family, settled at one time at Crednall, in Herefordshire; where, till the disastrous period of the South Sea Scheme, they were in the possession of landed property. The whole of the patrimonial estates were then lost through the unfortunate speculations of Sir William Landon; in consequence of which, his descendants were obliged to provide for themselves by their own exertions. ”

“ Of a night the beauty is very remarkable; the sea is of a silvery purple, and the moon deserves all that has been ever said in her favour."
In several places she playfully describes her troubles in housekeeping, to which she had never been accustomed previously. ”

“ When highly excited, she experienced a sensation of atmospheric oppression,—when her constitutional irritability of temperament would find relief only in rapid motion in the open air, and however inclement might be the weather, she would pace for hours in the garden, or if she found that too bounded for her feelings, she would seek a wider space. ”

“ Previous to her departure from England she had contemplated a republication of her minor poems, selected from her favourite work, "The Drawing-room Scrap Book;" and in one of her letters to Mr. Fisher, she states, that "some of her very best poems had made their appearance there." In the volume which appeared in 1839, she observes, "For the last few years the 'Drawing-room Scrap Book' has been the cherished record of my poetical impressions, and my only poetical work; and I grew gradually to look forward to June and July, as recalling my first keen delight in composition." ”

“ It is easy for those whose only trouble on that head is change, to find fault with one who never in her life knew what it was to have two dresses at a time. No one knows but myself what I have had to contend with."
Much to Miss Landon's honour, it must be stated, that the fruits of her literary exertions were almost invariably applied to the support and maintenance of her family, and to the assistance of her brother when he was sent to Oxford by his uncle, as he loved, indeed, affectionately to remember and to acknowledge ”

“ Though expressing herself delighted with Paris, she seems to have had a horror of sight-seeing, for she says of herself, "I really do not, in my heart, care for all the articles in marble, stone, or brick, that were ever ushered in with a paragraph in the Stranger's Guide. In my plan of Paradise, people will ride very little, and walk not at all. ”

“ Alas! we talk of their vanity; we forget that in doling forth the careless sneer, we are bestowing but the passing thought of a moment to that which has been the work of an existence. Truly, genius, like virtue, ought to be its own reward, but it cannot. Bitter though the toil, and vain the hope, human exertion must still look to human approbation."
"Francesca Carrera," the next prose production of Miss Landon's pen, was published by Mr. ”

“ So fadeth human bloom."
In 1815, when Miss Landon was about thirteen years of age, the family quitted Trevor Park, and after a twelvemonth's residence at Lewis Place, Fulham, Mr. Landon removed to Brompton, where a considerable part of his daughter's youth was passed, excepting a year or two spent with her grandmother in Sloane-street, and some occasional visits to her relations. Here, no sooner was she emancipated from the school-room, and allowed to pursue the bent of her own mind, than her poetical reveries were committed to paper, and through the encouraging kindness of Mr. ”