Lydia Leavitt

“ A man reasons, a woman divines.
There are so many inconsistencies in life that at times one is appalled. Take marriage, for instance:—A young woman marries a man who is tottering on the brink of the grave; old, blaze, a worn-out roue; but with money enough to gild and gloss the antiquated ruin. She goes before a clergyman and promises to love, honour and obey. Yes; she loves the luxury with which she will be surrounded, the glitter of diamonds, the equipages, the great house, all the paraphanalia of wealth, but she hates the trembling, tottering, blear-eyed object who bought her. ”

“ When faults lie thick and die, the crop of good deeds to follow will be the greater.
A priest at ten thousand a year is a monument erected over the grave of Christianity.
The cry of the child for bread reaches further into the universe than peans sung to kings.
When Eve was created nature must have cried 'no,' for ever since woman has continued to repeat the word.
The rich go about the world on stilts, lest the poor should touch the hems of their garments. They are so so high in the air that they gather no perfume from the wild flowers blooming by the wayside. ”

“ A woman may defy the world for a man she loves, and imagine that he will love her for the sacrifice, but no greater mistake can be made. Men are not so constituted. When he sees her standing alone, dishonored, a mark for the finger of scorn, her charm for him is forever lost.
Realism is the grave of love.
A woman's smile is two edged.
Life is too short to prepare a soul for eternity
A great love is only inspired by a great nature. ”

“ My womanly woman allowed this friend to take upon herself the burden of a sin which she herself had committed, allowed her to bear the brunt of scorn and contumely of her world, allowed her to die without righting the great wrong. A lonely grave and a plain marble slab mark the spot where she who was "not quite good form," lies: while she, to whom she had given more than life, gathers the rose leaves with dainty grace, for she is so essentially 'womanly.'"
Life: a little joy, great sorrow, some tragedy, and the curtain falls.
Nothing can hurt so cruelly as the hand of love. ”

“ They who see the clouds forming into fantastic shapes, the glories of a sunset, the shadows in pools, the colour on a bird's wing, the rose tint on the cheek of a child,—they and such as they are the poetry of life.
Man's inhumanity to man is proverbial, woman's inhumanity to woman is diabolical.
"Society, as it exists at present moment in Colonial towns and cities, possesses neither birth, brains or breeding." ”

“ We look to the higher classes and to the lower for good breeding. Middle class people are proverbially ill-bred. What can equal the airs and assumptions of the retired grocer's wife, who has neither the breeding of a lady, nor the unaffected manner of the working-woman.
What a pity there is such an incessant babbling of human tongues, when the daisies by the wayside, the trees of the forest, the birds in their nests, could tell us such wondrous things if our ears were attuned to hear, but the senses are deadened by the discordant din of dismal sounds. ”

“ Only the key sympathy can unlock the sacred chamber hidden in every heart.
The bloodless wreath of love is stronger than a tyrant's chain. The one shall yet bind the world, the other be broken by a simple wish. ”

“ The sunken eyes are closed in death, the tired hands are folded, the heart has ceased to beat, the mute lips are stilled, the weary feet are at rest, a look of ineffable peace rests upon the still face, while all the air is filled with sweet music and the murmur of gentle voices pleading, "Lead, kindly light." ”

“ Venom is the juice of a toad tainting the sweet air.
You have but to sow the seeds of malice to reap a crop of grief.
Men who would face a cannon, tremble before a golden calf.
There is no music for man so sweet as that set upon a woman's tongue. ”

“ The words are gravely spoken by the middle-aged, whose feet have grown a trifle weary, whose hands have gathered the roses, only to find them turned to ashes, whose laughter has more sadness than mirth, whose eyes have grown dim, whose lips tremblingly plead, "Lead, kindly light." ”

“ No, give me the glories of expectation, the wildest exhaltation; the heart beating, the brain throbbing, the stormiest passions with force enough to carry everything before them, even if they bring deep grief—that is life. ”

“ The woman who loves not flattery has yet to be born.
This must be a golden age—everybody is running after it.
Beauty is the recompense given to women for her weakness.
Some sins squeak like a snared rabbit—others roar like a lion.
An immaculate reputation may hide a multitude of black lies. ”

“ Birds are charmed by snakes, women by beasts in human form. The glitter of the eye subdues the one, the glitter of gold, the other.
Over the grave of each child which dies in the slums should stand a tablet inscribed, "Died for want of sunlight and pure air." "Who stole the land?"
One tyrant dies that two may be born.
A wise man prefers virgin soil to a cultivated widow.
The bone of contention is never covered with sweet meat.
The woman is most lost who forgets her babe for the ball. ”

“ The words are lightly spoken by the young, who tread life's pathway with nimble feet, whose eager hands are outstretched to gather life's roses, regardless of thorns, whose voice is rippling with laughter and mirth, with blood coursing through the veins and bright eyes looking fearlessly into the future ”

“ The words are whispered by the old, whose tired feet are unable to move, whose palsied hands are helpless, whose head is bowed by the weight of years, whose eyes are sightless, from whose trembling lips are scarcely heard the whispered prayer, "Lead, kindly light." ”

“ More women have been killed by innuendo than by hard work.
To the small boy a circus is more alluring than the Psalms of Solomon.
Eternity is an endless chain whose links are youth, old age and decay. ”

“ There are men who will accept any and every sacrifice from a woman and after making her a wreck, socially and morally, will say to her, "I fear that I am injuring you, so I will sacrifice myself and deny myself the pleasure of your society." Such men would sneak into heaven by a side entrance.
Fate, in a sportive mood, performs some wonderful acrobatic feats with human nature; gives love of oriental luxury to the woman with nothing a year ”

“ Irate Mother-in-law (to son-in-law about to marry second wife) ,—"Is this the way you treat my daughter, lying in the dark grave?"
"Only striking a match to see into it."
Out of the loins of pride and avarice comes the innocent child. Why is this? It cannot be chance. It means something. When we discover what that something is we shall remain innocent.
Greed grasps while poverty gasps.
The agony of despair breeds the monster, 'Human Hate.'
The man who refuses to lend to the Lord distrusts the security. ”

“ Some people's lives are like a flower, the more they are crushed, the sweeter the perfume they exhale.
There are some people who look so rigidly virtuous and repellant that it is a satisfaction to feel one's self just a little bit wicked. ”

“ The ghost of poverty is more dreadful than poverty itself.
A religion of details is a fruit tree which produces only blossoms.
Each grain in the universe is a unit, remove but one and chaos will follow. ”

“ My sovereign hope is the inate desire of the human heart that justice be done.
Love is as much higher, than justice as is the tallest mountain above an ant hill.
The people have so often been beguiled that now they refuse to believe the truth. ”

“ We hear men speak so frequently of womanly women, ending their praises with, 'she is essentially womanly.' I knew one of these womanly women, whose voice was like liquid music, whose ways were gentle, whose eyes filled with tears at the recital of some tale of woe, and always about her was an air of gentle, womanly sweetness and dainty femininity. ”

“ The priest counsels men in the sterile present to feed upon a pregnant future. Tomorrows dinner never yet fed a hungry man.
All the good in a human heart can never die.
You cannot denude a woman of her masked thoughts.
Diplomacy is cultivated in men and bred in women.
He who would pluck contentment must abandon force.
To console a widow is more agreeable than to court a maid.
The man who stains the purity of a woman tarnishes his own soul. ”

“ Twelve "good men and true", will, after mature deliberation, consign a man to the gallows. Twelve women, good and true, will, without any deliberation, send a woman to death by their venomous tongues. ”

“ Love is the one power which transfigures the common things of life.
One-half of our lives is spent in making blunders, the other half in trying to rectify them.
How useless to tell many people to think, for they have nothing to think. ”

“ It visits the silent City of the Dead and gently scatters the leaves over the new-made grave of a young child, sighing softly the while, the voice now rising, now falling, sobbing and moaning, and at last dies away in a melancholy sound, like the strings of an Aeolian harp touched by unseen hands. ”

“ If the world valued us as we value ourselves the heavens would not be sufficiently large whereon to inscribe our greatness.
What becomes of the characters who play an important part in fiction; the strong, brave, true fiction-people, whom we love as we read? Is there no place for them in the world peopled by shadows? ”

“ The greatness of the Yukon is only surpassed by the greatness of its liars.
Innocence is a rose bud with a worm outside waiting to gnaw a hole in it.
A blood-sucker on a boy's toe looks bigger to him than a sea-serpent to a man. ”

“ The ashes of a bad woman cannot be cleansed with the waters of an ocean.
She who walks the street by night is an outcast. She who seduces a Prince may die a Queen.
Princes on sale for gold, women for titles, virtue for bread, statesmen for place, and priests for salary.
Monopoly. A whip in the hands of plutocrats, which bites the backs of men and saddens the hearts of women.
No soul can remain stagnant.
A gossip scatters more ills than a pestilence.
'Tis useless to kill the serpent after she has laid her eggs.
The poison on the fang cannot injure till the snake strikes. ”

“ He who writes with a feather plucked from the wing of the third bird will be worshipped by the mob.
Not gold, not broad acres, not vast power, not blazoned titles, not eloquence, but truth is the lever which moves the world.
When Europe completes the process of Christianizing China that nation will have disappeared from the map.
The truth-seeker never digs in the columns of the political newspaper.
A money shaver with a conscience would soon be poorer than his clients.
I have read of the dog-like affection of woman—I have seen their cat-like characteristics. ”

“ Whence comes eternal truths? They are written in the rocks, they are breathed out of the soft, South wind; they are painted in the sunset, they speak in the flowers and the tiny blade of grass, they twinkle in distant stars. ”

“ It shakes angrily the trees whose limbs are swaying in protest against the onslaught; it carries the leaves rustling to the ground, and in its fury uproots the giant oaks, which groan in agony as they are hurled to the ground, lying like soldiers on the field of battle. ”

“ Slaves are bound with fetters of steel—poor men with fetters of law. One corrodes with age, the other is perpetually renewed.
The devil fish of the sea claws his victim, then sinks to the bottom. The devil fish of the land claws his, then rises to the top. ”

“ The age of good breeding has passed; insolence has taken its place.
A woman ceases to think of self when she looks in the face of her new-born child.
There are people who go through life as if they were going to their own funeral—and did not enjoy it. ”

“ I would rather have for a friend the most thorough-paced scamp, with a generous heart, than the most respectable, canting, whining, Pharisee.
To stand in a rarefied atmosphere on a mountain height and view the struggles of ordinary mortals below may be poetic, but it is very lonely. ”

“ Many could make lye out of the cold ashes of their hopes.
Gather the blossoms daily—the frost may come at night.
Plant no flowers on the graves of those we have neglected in life.
Some men are not content so long as an unfinished crime remains.
Some men prefer the drudgery of the devil to the sleep of innocence.
Women are tempted to taste a little evil, just to know what it is like.
Every life leads up to a precipice, over which a few jump, the others tumble in and are lost. ”

“ We might be willing to exchange positions, to exchange all that is apparent to the eyes of the world, but our inner consciousness, our memories, our thoughts, feelings and desires; all that is part and parcel of ourselves, we hold sacred. ”

“ You know that if you violate nature's laws you will howl here.
While poverty spins threads of gold with which to weave a garment to cover her nakedness, the plutocrat melts the threads into sovereigns for his own use. ”

“ The mathemetician can measure a world, yet he cannot weigh the secret thing which stirs a poet's heart.
Man has waited for ages for heaven to help him. Heaven has waited equally long for man to help himself. ”

“ The hand of hate is velvet in comparison.
There are women who consider the world well lost for the man whom they love and idealize; while upon close acquaintance they would discover that he was not worth even the loss of a dinner. ”