Letitia Elizabeth Landon

“ A door creaked on its hinges—the grasp upon her was relaxed—a strange voice said, in tolerable, though foreign, accents, "Ladies—from the days of chivalry to the present, no woman was ever seriously angry at the homage, however rude, excited by her own charms: they pardon the offence themselves caused. Pray use your own pleasure, of which I am the slave."
The door shut heavily on hinges whose rust grated as it closed.
"Do throw that great cloak aside, and tell me what you think of our adventure," said Lady Mandeville, who seemed divided between alarm and laughter. ”

“ At this moment Sontag burst upon the ear with one of those Æolian sweeps of music so peculiarly her own: "Can any thing be more exquisite?" exclaimed Emily.
"Granted," returned Lord E. ; "musical talent is at its perfection in her—the finest natural organ modulated by first-rate science; but where is the mind of Pasta? It is folly to compare beings so opposite: like the child, when asked which he preferred, some grapes or a nectarine, I answer, 'both.' The one is the woman of genius—the other a most lovely creature, with the finest of voices." ”

“ Delawarr's door, Edward walked thither, too excited for solitude, and impatient for a listener to whom he could express his indignation, and who would join in his contempt. He knew Merton's ignorance, but he also knew his vanity; he would be sure to speak; 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," thought he, as, arriving at Mr. Delawarr's house, he laughed to himself at the ideal eloquence in which he had been indulging. ”

“ But when the silver cord of affection is loosened, and the golden bowl of intoxicating passion broken—when that change which passes over all earth's loveliest has passed, too, over the heart—when that step which was once our sweetest music falls on the ear a fear, not a hope—when we know that we love no more as once we loved—when memory broods on the past, which yields but a terrible repentance, and hope turns sickening from a future, which is her grave—if there be a part of life where misery and weariness contend together till the agony is greater than we can bear, this is the time. ”

“ The light dip of the oars alone broke on the silence. Lady Mandeville was more anxious now the danger was over; and Emily was too much exhausted to speak: besides, to tell the truth, disappointment, however unreasonable it may seem, was the uppermost feeling in her mind. When she saw a young cavalier spring into the room, she immediately made up her mind that it was Lorraine. A young lady's lover is always present to her imagination; and, of course, exaggerating in her own mind both the difficulty and honour of the adventure, she felt as if Edward had been actually defrauded. ”

“ Emily had yet to learn, that indifference is but another of the illusions of youth: there is a period in our life before we know that enjoyment is a necessity—that, if the sweet cup of pleasure palls, the desire for it fades too—that employments deepen into duties—and that, while we smile, ay, and sigh too, over the many vain dreams we have coloured, and the many vain hopes we have cherished—a period of re-action, whose lassitude we have all felt:—this influence was now upon Emily. ”

“ It was the last evening of all, and that Emily gave to her saddest farewell—to her home. She retraced the walks of her childhood; the shrubbery, with its luxuriant growth of roses, now in the full beauty of summer; the fruit-garden, where every tree and walk had a remembrance—those iron links of affection. The wind was high, and at every step a shower of fragrant and coloured leaves fell over her like rain: her fancy asked of her feelings, Do they weep to bid me farewell?
Nothing exaggerates self-importance like solitude ”

“ The first thought that a child wilfully conceals is an epoch—one of life's most important—and yet who can recall it?"
"Of all false assertions," answered Mr. Morland, "that ever went into the world under the banner of a great name and the mail-armour of a well-turned phrase, Locke's comparison of the mind to a blank sheet of paper appears to me among the most untrue."
"Memory is a much stranger faculty," added Edward, "than hope. Hope I can understand; I can divide its mixture of desire and fear; I know when I wish for any thing—and hope is the expectation of wishing. ”

“ 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. Had Emily known Cecil Spenser before she knew Edward Lorraine, in all probability she would have fallen in love with him. However, our affections are the last things we can give away ”

“ You have my full consent to fall in love with my nephew, if you will admire my daughter."
"To tell you the truth, I like her most," replied Emily; "I do so very much prefer portraits of my own sex. We really look best in pictures."
"That is because an artificial state is natural to you; but do you like them? Young M'Clise is such a favourite artist of mine."
"I never saw," said Lorraine, "anything so like as this is to Cecil Spenser: it has caught him just as he used to sit in the club window, as if it had been the Castle of Indolence. ”

“ Emily would have listened to him with delight, even if he had spoken Sanscrit. When have the words of a loved one dropped other than honey?
"That woman's heart is not mine," said a modern philosopher; "she yawned while I demonstrated to her the 48th problem in Euclid." This, we own, was expecting a great deal; but not more than love has a right to do. You do not love if there is not some nameless fascination in the lightest act. What would be absurd, ridiculous, nay disagreeable, in another, has in the beloved a fairy spell. Love's is the true alchemy, turning what it touches to gold. ”

“ Algernon [14] thenceforth lived in the deepest seclusion: one only object yet had an interest for him—his young brother; perhaps the very loneliness of his affection made it the deeper. In many points of character Edward resembled his brother; but he had an energy which the other had not—a buoyancy of spirit, to which difficulty was a delight. As he advanced in life, many an effort did he make to rouse Lord Etheringhame from his lethargy, but in vain. Grief, after all, is like smoking in a damp country—what was at first a necessity becomes afterwards an indulgence. ”

“ It draws all things into somewhat of relation to itself: it is despotic, and jealous of all authority but its own: it bars the heart against the entrance of other feelings, and deems wandering thoughts its traitors. This empire, and even more than this, did it hold over Emily; yet for a moment its authority was lost, while old feelings and former affections came thronging in its place, as she caught the last red sunshine on the church windows, and saw the old avenue of lime trees, and the shady road, which wound through meadows where the hay was doubly sweet in the cool evening air. ”

“ Arundel remained in the parlour with the medical and legal ladies—she for news, they for luncheon—while Emily stole softly to her uncle's room. Though the light fell full on his face, he was asleep—a calm, beautiful, renovating sleep—and Emily sat down by the bedside. The love which bends over the sleeping is, save in its sorrow, like the love which bends over the dead—so deep, so solemn! ”

“ Oh, Life!—the wearisome, the vexatious—whose pleasures are either placed beyond our reach, or within it when we no longer desire them—when youth toils for the riches, age may possess but not enjoy;—where we trust to friendship, one light word may destroy; or to love, that dies even of itself;—where we talk of glory, philosophical, literary, military, political—die, or, what is much more, live for it—and this coveted possession dwells in the consent of men of whom no two agree about it. ”

“ Moreover, Edward has a devotion of manner, which every female takes as a compliment to herself; and a spirit of romantic enterprise, enough to turn your heads and hearts, like the love-charms of the Irish story-tellers."
"Why!" exclaimed Lord Mandeville, "you must have seen a great deal of him. How, Miss Arundel, did you ever withstand his fascinations?"
Most probably Emily did not hear this question; for she was in the act of opening the window, to walk on the terrace. Lady Mandeville alone caught sight of her face, coloured with the brightest carnation. What betraying things blushes are! ”

“ Principle cannot support you—that you have pronounced to be but prejudice; your talents—you have admitted their inadequacy to meet the times; your character—you have turned upon yourself. Delawarr, shall the history of that country, whose past has instructed, and whose future has inspired—shall it have no higher name for you than the slave and victim of expediency?"
The colour that for a moment had stained the sallow cheek of the hearer passed in an instant: brow and lip had been carefully moulded to a sneer—and a short bitter laugh prefaced Mr. Delawarr's answer. ”

“ At least every second house was lighted up, and that most visible, the corner one, was illuminated like a palace with the rich stream of radiance that flowed through the crimson blinds; ever and anon a burst of music rose upon the air, and was lost again in a fresh arrival of carriages; then the carriages themselves, with their small bright lights flitting over the shadowy foot passengers,—the whole square was left to the care of the gas and the watchman, before Emily remembered that she had next day to do justice to her country roses. ”

“ Fatigue, distress, loss, were all absorbed in one overpowering feeling of gratitude. But the reaction was too strong: her nurse now arrived; and when Beatrice threw her arms round her neck to welcome her, for the first time in her life she fainted.
The young Spaniard had now to commence a course of small daily exertions, the most trying of all to one whose habits hitherto had been those of imaginative idleness—mornings passed over a favourite volume, evenings over her lute, only interrupted by attention to her mother, of which affection made a delight. ”

“ There is something to me inexpressibly touching in that young artist's history: he is poor, low-born, with neither grace of person nor of manner; he is not even successful in his pursuit; he is the victim, not the priest of his altar; yet how we enter into his hopes! how convinced we feel of his power! and the author's great skill is shown in making his enthusiasm a pledge for his genius. No one could draw such a character who had not, at some time or other, numbered fame and futurity among his own visions. Again, I know no one who has painted love so poetically—and poetry is love's truth ”

“ It was to attend one of these national institutions—a dinner on the opening of a canal—that Lord Mandeville set forth, with a mouthful of patriotism and public spirit; and Lady Mandeville, and Emily, still languid with recent illness, were left tête-à-tête.
Night came; and the wind and rain, which beat against the window, only added the advantage of contrast to the curtained, carpeted, and lighted boudoir; and every gust served as an excuse for shrinking still farther into the warm crimson cushions of the arm-chairs they had drawn almost into the fire. They had no new books ”

“ Lady Mandeville.—"On the contrary, I hold that vanity is to love what opium is to the constitution,—exciting, but destroying."
Edward Lorraine.—"I must own I allow to this 'religion of the heart' a more exalted creed than you seem inclined to do. Love is of all others the principle in our nature which calls forth 'its higher and its better part.' Look at the disinterestedness of love, the sacrifices it even delights in making! Think how lightly are all worldly advantages held when thrown into the balance with affection." ”

“ One sweeping censure, in passing, on our now-a-days style of conversation. Its Scylla of sarcasm, its Charybdis of insincerity, which, one or other, bid fair to engulf its all of originality or interest. Ridicule is suspended, like the sword of Damocles, in every drawing-room—but, unlike that sword, is over every head; hence every one goes into society with the armour of indifference, or the mantle of deceit. None say either what they think or what they feel. We are the Chinese of conversation; and, day by day, the circle grows less and less. ”

“ Then hate—that hate with which the miserably poor look on others' enjoying, what he sees, but shares not, and pursues the toil that binds him to the soil, fiercely and bitterly saying, "Why have I no part in the good things of earth?" Still less did Lady Mandeville and Emily, as they drove through the streets of Naples, dreary as is the aspect of a southern metropolis in the winter,—still less did they think of the hopes, the enterprise, and the daring, their appearance excited in the breast of one individual. ”

“ A stately bend from the elder—a low "many thanks"—a good night—and the visit was over.
"Is it possible," thought Emily, "a visit in London could be so dull?"
The next morning was more amusing—visitor after visitor came in; for Lady Alicia, like most indolent people, preferred any one else's company to her own,—all could entertain her better than she could entertain herself. An elderly gentleman had gone off with a cough, and a lady of no particular age with a prophecy.
"Well, take my word for it, those girls will never marry; marriage is like money—seem to want it, and you never get it." ”

“ Edward Lorraine.—"There still remains in us so much of the heavy clay of which we were originally compounded. We are ourselves the stumbling-blocks in the way of our happiness. Place a common individual—by common, I mean with the common share of stupidity, custom, and discontent—place him in the garden of Eden, and he would not find it out unless he were told, and when told, he would not believe it." ”

“ Emily felt as if her own solitary situation had never weighed upon her thoughts till now. "Many are kind to me, but none care for me." Youth, with its affection an impulse and a delight, judges others by itself, and exaggerates its claims.
Strange it is that people (unless in the way of ostentation) never value the blessings they possess. But if life has a happiness over which the primeval curse has passed and harmed not, it is the early and long enduring affection of blood and habit. ”

“ Our nature has many mysteries—the moral and physical world are strangely allied; the weight on the air presages the hurricane—the darkness on the heaven the tempest—why may not destiny have its signs, and the heart its portents, and the nameless sadness that oppresses the spirits forbode the coming sorrow? But Emily only thought of hers as a weakness—she strove to shake it off. ”

“ Emily had at first shrunk back, in that intuitive awe which all little people at least must have experienced—the feeling which fixes the eye and chains the lip, on finding ourselves for the first time in the presence of some great man, hitherto to us an historical portrait, one whose thoughts are of the destinies of nations, whose part seems in the annals of England, and not in its society. ”

“ Successful daring makes its own way; and when the dangerous bend of the river was passed, and the wind had gradually wailed itself to rest like a passionate child, his boatmen were as elated as if the triumph had been their own. They reached the landing-place, ruled by an old oak, beneath whose shade the sea-kings must have stood: the crew went on to the little village, whose houses were already those of promise; while Edward loitered after, languid with the luxury of exertion, and the softness of the now lulled and lovely night. ”

“ At Howell's, Emily was aroused from the contemplation of a bracelet formed of bees' wings united by lady-birds, by seeing Lady St Leon, a large, good-natured person—one of those who take up a chariot or a sofa to themselves—one of those fortunate beings who have never had a cross but a diamond one in the world—one who, as a child, was amusing enough to be papa's pet, and pretty enough to be mamma's. ”