Letitia Elizabeth Landon

“ The man the most steeped in wickedness, must have had his innocent and his happy moments—a child, he must have played in the sunshine with spirits as light as the golden curls that toss on the wind. His little hands must have been clasped in prayer at his mother's knee; he must, during some moment of youth's generous warmth, have pitied human suffering, and wondered how man's blood could ever be shed by man: and if this holds good of man—how much more so of woman! ”

“ It is upon them that the heart turns back amid after-cares and sorrows:—the nursery, the old garden, the green field, remain the latest things that memory cherishes. They keep alive something of their own freshness and purity; and the affections belonging to those uncalculating hours have a faith and warmth unknown to after-life. To this ordinary but most sweet love Flora had added the ideal and the picturesque—and love, to reach its highest order, must be worked up by the imagination. She saw in her brother the chieftain of their line—the last descendant of Ivor. ”

“ Such are the dark materials out of which the character of Constance is formed; we can trace its degradation step by step—we see how the timid has grown hardened—the resolute reckless—and the affectionate only passionate. Constant contact with coarser natures has seared the finer perceptions, and the sense of right and wrong is deadened by hardship, suffering, and evil communion. The character so formed has now to be worked upon by the most fearful passion which can agitate the human heart—that which is strong as death and cruel as the grave—the passion of jealousy. ”

“ Marmion shall not live on with a fairer bride—that heart, which had been so unutterably precious to her, shall never be the resting-place of another. The fierce and daring love which has ruled her through life is with her even in death. ”

“ There is sunshine in a shady place, and it is soothing to imagine the pleasure that Scott must have had while investing the creature of his imagination with the love and devotion which had been his own solace. There is a striking reality about the character of Alice Lee. They are indeed unfortunate who can recall no likeness, who are not reminded of some actual instance of affection lightening adversity, and shedding its own sweetness over the sorrow which it could at least share. Alice Lee is among the most loveable of Scott's feminine creations. ”

“ Literature soon becomes a power, not what it once was, a passion; but literary success, like all others, is only to be obtained, and retained, by labour—and labour and inclination do not always go together. Take all our most eminent writers, and the quantity of work, hard work, they have got through, will be found enormous and perpetual. Literature, as a profession, allows little leisure, and less indulgence. The readers are the gainers: to them how little difference does it make that Marmion was written in youth, health, and prosperity ”

“ We set out in life, generous, frank, and confiding; the first emotion is always kind and lofty—we are eager to love, for we feel that affection is enjoyment, and that "happiness was born a twin. The world seems filled with beauty, and our very fancies are tangible delights." ”

“ We believe few women go down to the grave without at some time or other feeling the full force of the affections. Flora, had not her career been cut short in the very fulness of its flower, would have loved, loved with all the force of a character formed before it loved. Scott's picture is, at the time when she is introduced, as full of truth as of beauty. The strong mind has less immediate need of an object than the weak one. Rose Bradwardine falls in love at once, compelled by "the sweet necessity of loving." Flora M'lvor feels no such necessity; her imagination is occupied ”

“ But the passion of jealousy cannot exist without the passion of love, and is like its parent, creative, impetuous, and credulous. Earth holds no misery so great as that of doubting the affection, which is dearer than life itself—and perhaps it takes its worst shape to a woman. Her attachment is to her more than it ever can be to a man. ”

“ Constance will not dwell alone, apart—
"Within some lonely bower."
No; she will keep at her lover's side—in the wide and weary world she has nothing to do but to wait upon Marmion's steps. But even that haughty spirit has its sad weak moments: Sir Hugh has
"Often mark'd his cheeks were wet
With tears he fain would hide."
It is a cruel proof of the want of generosity in human nature, that an affection too utterly self-sacrificing always meets with an evil return. The obligation for which we know there is no requital becomes a burden hard to be borne; we take refuge in ingratitude. ”

“ Dryden lived in an age when the political and moral standards were set at too low a water-mark for the high tides of poetry. With the most splendid and vigorous versification, with an energy of satire and wit that had the point of the dagger and the weight of the axe, Dryden was deficient in what Scott possessed. He would have lacked the picturesque which calls up yesterday, and the sentiment which links it with to-day. The machinery of guardian angels which he proposed is enough to show that the first design was a failure. It is a great poetical mistake to revive exploded superstition. ”

“ To whom do the blooming and sheltered villas, which are a national feature in English landscape, belong, but to men who pass the greater part of their lives in small dim counting-houses! This love of nature is divinely given to keep alive, even in the most toiling and world-worn existence, something of the imaginative and the apart. ”

“ Constance is worked out in darker colours than Scott often uses for his feminine portraits. Our sex, at least, ought to be grateful to him, for how divine is the faith he holds in all that is good in us! Even with Constance, how much the soul is "subdued by pity!"—how is the horror relieved by beauty! ”

“ It is a fearful responsibility, the exercise of influence: let our own conduct bring its own consequences—we may well meet the worst; not so when we have led another to pursue any given line of action: if they suffer, how tenfold is that suffering visited on ourselves! For Flora life could offer nothing but the black veil of the Benedictine convent. ”

“ Scott is the epic poet of England; he does for chivalry what Homer did for the heroic age. He caught it just fading into dim oblivion, living by tradition, veiled by superstition, uncertain and exaggerated; yet not less the chaos from whence sprang the present, which must trace to that morning checquered darkness, the acquisitions and the characteristics of to-day. What constitutes the great epic poet? his power of revivifying the past. It is not till a nation has gained a certain point in civilization that it desires to look back ”

“ Youth has sorrows, but maturity has cares, and the care is harder to bear than the sorrow. Circumstances, too, may change around us; and the trouble that comes late in the day is a heavy burden. We have no longer the alacrity of spirit that feels but half the weight it carries. I know nothing so touching as the account in "Scott's Memoirs" of how different the modes of composition which led to the production of Marmion and of Woodstock. ”

“ How often is the writer obliged to put his own trouble, his suffering, or his sorrow aside, to finish his task! The hand may tremble, the eyes fill with unbidden tears, and the temples throb with feverish pain, yet how often is there some hard and harsh necessity, which says, "the work must be done." ”

“ A woman must look up to love: she may deceive herself, but she must devoutly believe in the superiority of her lover. With one so constituted as Flora—proud, high-minded, with that tendency to idealise inseparable from the imagination, Flora must have admired before she could have loved. The object of her attachment must have had something to mark him out from "the undistinguishable many." ”

“ Alice is at the most interesting period of a woman's existence—when the character is gradually forming under circumstances that develop all the latent qualities. The rose has opened to the summer—the girl has suddenly become a woman.
Alice Lee's predominate feeling is attachment to her father: her love for her cousin is a gentle and quiet love; it belongs to the ease and familiarity of childhood; it is constantly subdued by a rival and holier sentiment. ”

“ Byron's is little more than the shadowy but graceful outline: Scott has worked out his creation truly and severely. The Pages in the old drama are entirely poetical creations; they occupy the debatable ground between the fanciful and the existing; they belong exclusively to the romantic in literature. They could only have been fancied when poetry delighted to hold love a creed as well as a passion. The heart called up the ideal to redeem the real, and an attachment was elevated by disinterestedness and moral beauty. ”

“ What a curious timepiece it would be that could indicate to us the moment this gradual and insensible change had so completely taken place that no atom was left of the original person who had existed at a certain period, but there existed in his stead another person having the same thews and sinews, the same face and lineaments, the same consciousness—a new ship built on an old plank—a pair of transmigrated stockings like those of Sir John Cutler, all green without one thread of the original black left! ”

“ Many a pulse, too, has lost its elasticity—many a warm quick emotion sleeps to awaken no more: the heart loses its youth while the mind is in all its vigour. In one of the memoranda of the deeply-affecting journal in the last volume of "Scott's Life," he observes:—"People say that the whole human frame in all its parts and divisions, is gradually, in the act, decaying and renewing. ”

“ But Christianity brought its own heaven to the things of earth; every passion was refined, and every affection exalted. Only under the purifying influence of that inward world to which it gave light, could sentiment have had its birth—and sentiment is the tenth Muse and the fourth Grace of modern poetry. But in the description of Constance there also is that strong perception of the actual, which is Scott's most marked characteristic. He paints her exactly what in all probability she would have been ”

“ None of Sir Walter's novels end more satisfactorily than "Woodstock." There could be but one destiny for Alice—the genial and quiet circle of an English home, whose days are filled with pleasant duties, and whose sphere lies around the hearth. The devoted daughter is what she ought to be—the affectionate mother and the happy wife. ”

“ Our future is obscure and threatening; the eyes involuntarily turn away—they can see nothing but the phantom—more terrible for its indistinctness—of slow, but certain retribution. Remorse, unattended by repentance, always works for evil—it adds bitterness and anger to error. ”

“ The sentiment which the heart once beat to applaud has now no answering key-note within, and the real is perpetually militating against the imagined. It is a great triumph to the poet when we return to the volume, and find that our early creed was, after all, the true religion. Few writers stand this test so well as Sir Walter Scott. ”

“ I believe if there were only the author's amusement in the case it would fall very short of their own; not but what composition has its moments of keen and rapid delight when the scene rises vividly before you, and the mind is warm with the consciousness of its own powers: but these are only "angel visits," they do not form the staple of any work. ”

“ The influence of a genius like Scott's is shown by the fresh and new spirit he pours into literature.
No merely literary man ever before exercised the power over his age exercised by Scott. It is curious to note the wealth circulated through his means, and the industry and intelligence to which he gave the impetus. The innkeepers of Scotland ought to have no sign but his head. When Waverley appeared, a tour through Scotland was an achievement: now, how few there are but have passed an autumn at least amid its now classic scenery. ”

“ The name of jealousy is often taken in vain—Henry VIII. is called jealous when he was only tyrannical;—the mere desire of influence, envy, and irritability of temper, are often veiled under the name of jealousy; and many a husband and wife talk of "being jealous," while in reality profoundly indifferent to each other, and only desiring a decent excuse for anger: it is oftener envy than any other feeling. ”

“ Excepting, therefore, the impassioned Italian of Sir Charles Grandison, Flora M'lvor is the first female character of our novels in which poetry is the basis of the composition. She has all Clementine wants; picturescue accessories, and the strong moral purpose. Generally speaking, the mind of a woman is developed by the heart; the being is incomplete till love brings out either its strength or its weakness. This is not the case with the beautiful Highlander; and Scott is the first who has drawn a heroine, and put the usual master-passion aside. ”

“ Never did any one age produce two minds so essentially opposed as those of Byron and Scott. Byron idealised and expressed that bitter spirit of discontent which has at the present moment taken a more material and tangible form. ”

“ Scott's talents are universally admitted, he is constantly admonished to choose some loftier theme, as if any theme could have been better suited to a great national poet than one belonging to the history of that country whose youth is renewed in his stirring lines. ”

“ Half the works that constitute the charm of our leisure, that give their own interest to the long November evening, or add to the charm of a summer noon beneath the greenwood tree, are the offspring of poverty and of pain. ”