Letitia Elizabeth Landon

“ Let any one look upon the most important epochs of his life; how little have they been of his own making—how one slight thing has led on to another, till the result has been the very reverse of our calculations. Our emotions, how little are they under our own controul! how often has the blanched lip, or the flushed cheek, betrayed what the will was strong to conceal! Of all our sensations, love is the one which has most the stamp of Fate. What a mere chance usually leads to our meeting the person destined to alter the whole current of our life. ”

“ 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! ”

“ We like to imagine the old man, with age gradually smoothing down all asperities, as the shadows of twilight soften the landscape while the night approaches, and surrounded by those whose affection grows nearer and dearer every hour. We are fain to believe the later years of his life the happiest; but, and this is the great charm of all Scott's works, we feel as if we had known the various actors in his varied scenes—and we bid the Antiquary farewell with the same good wishes that we should bestow on an old and favourite friend. ”

“ Why an unhappy passion is often so lasting is that it never encounters that "Ithuriel of the common-place," Reality. I like to think of Rebecca amid the olive groves of Granada. Care for her father's old age, kindliness to the poor and the suffering, and the workings of a mind strong in endurance, would bring tranquillity if not happiness, till the hand might be pressed to the subdued heart without crying "peace, peace, where is no peace!" ”

“ Lady Staunton, too, fears her husband; and that says everything of misery that can fall to a woman's lot. It is dreadful to tremble at the step which was once earth's sweetest music—to start at a voice once so sweet in our ear, and watch if its tone be that of anger, even before we gather the import, and to hesitate before we meet eyes, now only too apt to look reproach and resentment. There is one touch of character full of knowledge in the human heart. Lady Staunton is glad to leave her sister's quiet parlour and garden, for the wild heath spreading its purple harvest for the bees ”

“ Love gives the one touch of elevation to the warm and beating heart, which knew not its own sensibilities and its own powers. The depth of a woman's character is to be tested by her choice in affection; according to that preference must be her standard of perfection. Now, Sir Percie is but a feather-brained coxcomb—still Mysie's liking may well stand excused. In nine cases out of ten, the lover owes half his qualities to the imagination of his mistress; and, it must be admitted, that a proper outside, and fair apparel, are not a bad foundation for fancy. ”

“ What is the world that lies around our own? Shadowy, unsubstantial, and wonderful are the viewless elements, peopled with spirits powerful and viewless as the air which is their home. From the earth's earliest hour, the belief in the supernatural has been universal. At first the faith was full of poetry; for, in those days, the imagination walked the earth even as did the angels, shedding their glory around the children of men. ”

“ The character of Rebecca stands pre-eminent amid Scott's finest conceptions. Its nobility was at once acknowledged. If there be one thing which redeems our fallen nature, which attests that its origin was from heaven and its early home in paradise, it is the generous sympathy that, even in the most hardened and worldly, warms in the presence of the good and of the beautiful. There must have been, even in those whose course has darkened into crime, an innocent and hopeful time, and the light of that hour, however perverted and shadowed, is never quite extinguished. ”

“ 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. ”

“ MARY QUEEN OF SCOTS.
"Her name is a note of the nightingale." What the troubadour minstrel said of his mistress may be also said of Mary Stuart. Beauty, and all the prestige that birth gives to beauty, the far deeper interest that attends misfortune, and the abiding terror of a violent death; all these invest the memory of the ill-fated queen with a sad charm, felt to the present hour. "No man," says Brantome, "ever beheld her without love and admiration, or thought of her fate without sorrow and pity." ”

“ An attachment is an epoch in existence—it leads to casting off old ties, that, till then, had seemed our dearest; it begins new duties; often, in a woman especially, changes the whole character; and yet, whether in its beginning, its continuance or its end, love is as little within our power as the wind that passes, of which no man knows whither it goeth or whence it comes. ”

“ I believe that the grand secret of attraction is, that the details always turn on what is present to our fears, or gratifying to our vanity. The fair man, as fair as hearts, who is with us in daylight and in dreams, usually takes a "local habitation and a name" from some secret hope;—it is pleasant to think that another as dark as spades is exceedingly "vexed in his mind" on our account; while self-love confirms the warning, to be on our guard against some envious woman as fair as diamonds. ”

“ To look on the face of youth, and see in it the writing of death, the shroud up to the throat; to stand beside your chosen friend, and watch the grave yawning at his feet!—better, a thousand times better, our brief span of knowledge, which knoweth little even of the present, than thus to look on a future whose sorrows are more than we can bear. Sufficient for the day is the evil thereof. ”

“ It may be doubted whether absence and distance be half such trials to love, as presence and possession. The remembrance of Edith Bellenden brought to the Scottish exile the scenes of his youth. Hopes long since departed, and some cherished to the last, were linked with her: she was the sweet tie that held him to his country—and his country is all-in-all to a Scotchman. It is a fact, that though a Scotchman be the most locomotive of individuals—there is scarcely a habitable part of the globe where he is not to be found—yet nothing ever weakens his attachment to his country. ”

“ But Diana Vernon is a creature formed by no conventional rules; she has been educated by her own heart amid hardships and difficulties; and if nature has but given the original good impulse, and the strength of mind to work it out, hardships and difficulties will only serve to form a character of the loftiest order. Again, there is that tender relationship between the widowed father and the only girl, in which Scott so much delights. But, if the cradle be lonely which lacks a mother at its side, still more lonely is the hour when girlhood is on the eve of womanhood. ”

“ The colours and the light of youth have gone together. The judgment of the man rarely confirms that of the boy. What was once sweet has become mawkish, and the once exquisite simile appears little more than an ingenious conceit. 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. ”

“ How well I remember (at such a distance from England, I may perhaps be pardoned for clinging to every recollection of the past) a discussion between some friends and myself, as to whether Jeannie Deans should have saved her sister's life—even with a lie I am afraid I rather argued—"and for a great right, do a little wrong"—that to save one whom I loved, I must have committed the sin of perjury, and said on my soul be the guilt; that if even to refuse a slight favour was painful, who could bear to say no! when on that no! hung a fellow-creature's life—that fellow-creature most tenderly beloved. ”

“ Bitter, indeed, is the fruit of the tree of knowledge to her; at the expense of how many kind and beautiful feelings must that knowledge be obtained; how often will the confidence be betrayed, and the affection misplaced; how often will the aching heart turn on itself for comfort, and in vain; for, under its first eager disappointment, youth wonders why its kindliness and its generous emotions have been given, if falsehood and ingratitude be their requital. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The young and beautiful girl is left to herself—in a wild solitude, like Osbaldistone-hall—with a tutor like Rashleigh.
Take the life of girls in general; how are they cared for from their youth upwards. The nurse, the school, the home circle, environ their early years; they know nothing of real difficulties, or of real cares; and there is an old saying, that a woman's education begins after she is married. Truly, it does, if education be meant to apply to the actual purposes of life. How different is the lot of a girl condemned from childhood upwards to struggle in this wide and weary world! ”

“ 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 lovable of Scott's feminine creations. ”

“ It is coloured in the loveliest and loftiest light of humanity: the picture of Catherine Seyton, cheering the solitude of her imprisoned mistress with the playful gaiety of a spirit, as yet unbroken, as it is unspotted by the world. What "high resolve and constancy" is in the courage with with she plans and looks forward to escape! How true to the more generous impulses of her age is the utter disbelief of all the charges brought against the queen! Suspicion and youth are no comrades for each other. Youth is frank, eager, and prone to believe in the good ”

“ How deep must be the feeling of the bereaved parent who cannot look on the fair face of his child without recalling a face, once the fairest and the dearest in the world: the shadow of the grave hangs around the infant playfulness of the orphan, and even the hopes of the present must come tinged with something of sadness from the past. How soon too, with the quick feelings of her sex, would the orphan-girl learn that consolation needed to be mixed with her affection ”

“ Flora's imagination has an object in its loyalty—and her affection in her brother. If there be one tie on earth, dear even as love, it is that which unites an only brother and sister, left together orphans in their childhood. If "heaven lies around us in our infancy," there is something sacred in the love—an instinct with that earliest time. It grows with our growth, and strengthens with our strength ”

“ No marvel that she is beloved—and no marvel that she loves. Those gay spirits need the softening of tender affection; that warm heart is full of passionate emotions—of quick yet deep sensations—of generous impulse, and ready confidence—all that so soon kindles into love. To such a temperament love rarely brings happiness: it is too eager—too trusting and too sensitive—its end is too often in tears. But for poor Effie's one hour of Eden, "a darker departure is near;" ”

“ The common-place of today is coloured by the picturesque of yesterday. Never will there be poetry, generous endeavour, or lofty standard of excellence, but among a people who take pride in the past. It is the past that re deems and elevates the present. The good worked from this feeling is beautifully shown, as calling out the kindly sense with us. In Elspeth Glendinning it takes the shape of enduring hospitality, and affectionate respect to the unfortunate. In Tibb Tackets, the bower-woman, by increased devotion to the fortunes of a family fallen from its high estate. ”

“ I can conceive no punishment so dreadful as keeping perpetual watch on our words, lest they betray what they mean to conceal; to know no unguarded moment—no careless gaiety—to pine for the confidence which yet we dare not bestow—to tremble, lest that some hidden meaning lurk in a phrase which only our own sickly fancy could torture into bearing such—to have suspicion become a second nature—and to shrink every morning from the glad sunshine, for we know not what a day may bring forth: the wheel of Ixion were a tender mercy compared to such a state. ”

“ How often, among our acquaintance, have we met some individual whose crabbed temper has provoked our irritability, or whose peculiarities have awakened our mirth; could we look into the early history of that individual, and trace the causes that have led sorrow to mask itself with eccentricity, we should feel only wonder and pity; but the waters of life are for ever flowing onwards, and little trace do they bear of what clouds have darkened or reddened the waves below as they floated by. ”

“ No man ever enters into the feelings of a woman, let his kindness be what it may; they are too subtle and too delicate for a hand whose grasp is on "life's rougher things." They require that sorrow should find a voice; now the most soothing sympathy is that which guesses the suffering without a question. But Diana Vernon has been brought up by a father, who, whatever might be his affection, has had no time for minute and tender cares. ”

“ Deception is always an evil, but in youth—youth, whose very faults should be open-hearted and impetuous, it lays the foundation of the worst possible faults of character. More over, unromantic as it may sound, the objections of the elder party are often more wisely founded than their juniors are tempted to admit, and life has no wretchedness equal to an ill-assorted marriage—it is the sepulchre of the heart, haunted by the ghosts of past affections, and hopes gone by for ever. ”