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Letitia Elizabeth Landon Quotes
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Letitia Elizabeth Landon was an English poet and novelist, better known by her initials L.E.L.

✵ 14. August 1802 – 15. October 1838
Letitia Elizabeth Landon photo
Letitia Elizabeth Landon: 785   quotes 11   likes

Letitia Elizabeth Landon Quotes

“Does the sweet morning rise,
Bride-like, from sleep,
When their first revelries
Bird and bee keep,
Singing out joyously
In the green tree?
Then, when my hopes are high,
Think I of thee.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

(5th January 1833) Songs
The London Literary Gazette, 1833-1835

Hope , Bird , Thinking , Sleep

“Ill-timed admiration is enough to enrage a saint.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Heath's book of Beauty, 1833 (1832)

Time

“After all, though beauty be deceitful, and favour be vain, yet beauty is the most exquisite gift ever lavished by fairies around an infant cradle. Its charm is nameless; it wins us, we know not why — and lingers on our memory, we know not wherefore. Whether in the animate or the inanimate world, it is the cause of our most delicious sensations; it belongs to the imagination, for it calls up within us whatever of poetry may be lurking in the "hidden mines of thought." It is the attribute of all that is most glorious in existence — it is on the azure sky — it clothes the earth as with a garment — it rides triumphant over the purple bosom of the sea. Look within our hearts, it has originated all that is ideal in our nature. Beauty is the shadow flung from heaven on earth — it is the type of a lovelier and more spiritual existence, and the broken and transitory lights that it flings on this our sad and heavy pilgrimage, do but indicate another and a better sphere, where the beautiful will also be the everlasting. The homage involuntarily paid to its mysterious influence is but an unconscious acknowledgment of its divine origin, and its eternal future.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

No.8. The Black Dwarf — ISABEL VERE.
Literary Remains

World , Sadness , Beauty , Imagination

“Her rival—hers—language has not a word
By woman's ear so utterly abhorr'd.
No marvel, for it robs her only part
Of sweet dominion—empire o'er the heart.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Title poem, section IV.
The Venetian Bracelet (1829)

Heart , Parting

“It may seem fanciful, but to me the violet is the very emblem of woman's love; it springs up in secret; it hides its perfume even when gathered; how timidly its deep blue leaves bend on their slight stem! The resemblance may be carried yet further — woman's love is but beautiful in its purity; let the hot breath of passion once sully it, and its beauty is departed — thus as the summer advances, the violet loses its fragrance; June comes, but its odours are fled — the heart too has its June; the flower may remain, but its fragrance is gone for ever.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Other Gift Books

Love , Secret , Beauty , Spring

“One moment he is at her knee,
“So, Leila, wouldst thou weep for me?”
Started she, as at lightning gleam,—
“O, Mirza, this I did not dream!
Moslem and Moor, may Spanish maid
Hearken such words as thou hast said?””

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

The Golden Violet - The Wreath
The Golden Violet (1827)

Dreams

“You may smile at the fanciful structures I rear,
And say, that my castles are built but on sand;
Like bubbles, that on the blue waters appear,
That sparkle, invite, and then sink from the hand.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Castle Building
The Fate of Adelaide (1821)

Smile , Water , Appearance

“And this is the sum of our mortal state,
The hopes we number,—
Feverish waking, danger, death,
And listless slumber.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

The Battle Field
The Venetian Bracelet (1829)

Death , Hope

“Hope, frail but lovely shadow! thou dost come,
Like a bright vision on our pathway here,
Making the gloomy future beautiful,
And gilding our horizon with a light,
The fairest human eye can ever know.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Canto I, XIII
The Fate of Adelaide (1821)

Love , Beauty , Hope , Light

“Ahmed comes back a conqueror, but what hath he found?
The cry of the orphan is loud on his ear,
And his eye hath beheld the young bride's bitter tear,
And the friend of his youth is left dead on the plain,
And the flower of his nobles return not again.
There are crowds that are filling the air with his name;
Do ye marvel the monarch is loathing his fame?”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

The Golden Violet - The Eastern King
The Golden Violet (1827)

Youth , Flowers , Tear , Cry

“Oh, where is there the heart but knows
Love's first steps are upon the rose!”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Canto I
The Troubadour (1825)

Love , Heart

“A luxury of deep repose! the heart
Must surely beat in quiet here.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

The London Literary Gazette, 1824

Heart

“Time past on as lightly as he always steps over flowers, Brussels carpets, marble terraces, green turfs, or whatever simile may best express a path without an impediment.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Other Gift Books

Flowers , Time , Past

“And then the lute, the lattice, and the girl,
The white rose, and the melancholy song —
Oh, Night, thy reign is over lovely things!”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

The London Literary Gazette, 1824

Love , Girl , Night

“social life is fill’d
With doubts and vain aspirings; solitude,
When the imagination is dethroned,
Is turned to weariness.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

A History of the Lyre
The Venetian Bracelet (1829)

Life , Imagination , Solitude

“How different too would the real character be from that which is assumed; how little often do the most intimate know of each other. But the difference that the stranger might discover is nothing to that which we trace in ourselves.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

No.16. Ivanhoe — ROWENA.
Literary Remains

“But in this world every thing has its evil; the dust is on the wheels of the conqueror's chariot—the silken-wrought tapestry covers the mouldering wall;”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Heath's book of Beauty, 1833 (1832)

World , Evil

“He had a power; in his eye
There was a quenchless energy,
A spirit that could dare
The deadliest form that Death could take,
And dare it for the daring's sake.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Crescentius from The London Literary Gazette (19th July 1823) Execution of Crescentius
The Improvisatrice (1824)

Death

“Curious it is that every hour of our day is repeated from myriad chimes; and yet how rarely do we attend to the clock striking! Alas! how emblematic is this of the way in which we neglect the many signs of time! How terrible, when we think of what time may achieve, is the manner in which we waste it! At the end of every man's life, at least three-quarters of the mighty element of which that life was composed will be found void—lost—nay, utterly forgotten! And yet that time, laboured and husbanded, might have built palaces, gathered wealth, and, still greater, made an imperishable name.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Heath's book of Beauty, 1833 (1832)

Life , Way , Thinking , Time

“I am a woman: tell me not of fame.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

A History of the Lyre
The Venetian Bracelet (1829)

“How often will the lip frame some indifferent question, when the heart is full of the most important!”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Heath's book of Beauty, 1833 (1832)

Question , Heart , Indifference

“Fanshawe began to talk of the weather; and his auditor was fairly astonished to find how much he had to say about it. He had all but counted the rain-drops; and he was quite aware of every gleam of sunshine that they had had since the morning.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

The Monthly Magazine

Weather

“I am vain—praise is opium, and the lip
Cannot resist the fascinating draught,
Though knowing its excitement is a fraud—
Delirious—a mockery of fame.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

A History of the Lyre
The Venetian Bracelet (1829)

Fraud

“I cannot choose but marvel at the way
In which our lives pass on, from day to day
Learning strange lessons in the human heart,
And yet like shadows letting them depart.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

The Golden Violet - The Rose
The Golden Violet (1827)

Way , Learning , Heart

“Teach it me, if you can,—forgetfulness!
I surely shall forget, if you can bid me;”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Love’s Last Lesson
The Golden Violet (1827)

Forgetting

“Life is a torrid day,
Parched with the dust and sun;
And death's the calm cool night,
When the weary day is done.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

(17th December 1825) Poetic Fragmants - Fifth Series
The London Literary Gazette, 1825

Life , Death , Sun , Night

“Passing thus with time away,
The sweet gifts of youth decay;
Fleet their blooms, thus one by one,
Till their very form is gone;
Memory left but to declare
How beautiful and sweet they were!
In the first blue noon of Spring,
Who can think on withering?”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

(25th December 1824) Faded Flowers
The London Literary Gazette, 1824

Youth , Beauty , Spring , Thinking

“To dream and to create has been my fate,
Alone, apart from life's more busy scheming;
I fear to think that I may find too late
Vain was the toil, and idle was the dreaming.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

(1837 1) (Vol. 49) Memory
The Monthly Magazine

Life , Fate , Fear , Dreams

“Our sky has lost another star,
The earth has claimed its own,
And into dread eternity
A glorious one is gone.
He who could give departed things
So much of light and breath,
He is himself now with the past —
Gone forth from life to death.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

(29th September 1832) On the death of Sir Walter Scott
The London Literary Gazette, 1832

Life , Death , Star , Light

“I am a daughter of that land,
Where the poet’s lip and the painter’s hand
Are most divine, —where the earth and sky,
Are picture both and poetry—
I am of Florence.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Title Poem
The Improvisatrice (1824)

Daughters

“A day may be a destiny; for life
Lives in but little— but that little teems
With some one chance, the balance of all time”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

(1837 1) (Vol. 49) Three Extracts from the Diary of a Week.
The Monthly Magazine

Life , Chance , Time

“For human tears are lava-drops,
That scorch and wither as they flow;
Then let them flow for those who live,
And not for those who sleep below.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

The Churchyard from The London Literary Gazette (3rd January 1829)
The Vow of the Peacock (1835)

Tear , Sleep

“How noble and ennobling!—but within
How mean, how poor, how pitiful, how mix'd
With base alloy; how Disappointment tracks
The steps of Hope; how Envy dogs success;
How every victor's crown is lined with thorns,
And worn mid scoffs!”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

A History of the Lyre
The Venetian Bracelet (1829)

Dogs , Hope , Disappointment , Success

“Oh, blessedness!
To see the fair creations of the thought
Assume a visible form; sweet Poesy!
How witching is thy power upon the heart;
Enchantment that does bind our senses up
In one unutterable influence;
A charmed spell set over every thought,
Till life's whole hope is cast upon the lyre.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

(26th January 1822) Poetic Sketches, No.3
The London Literary Gazette, 1821-1822

Life , Hope , Sense , Heart

“Youth's first acquaintance with sorrow is a terrible thing—before time has taught, what it will surely teach, that grief is our natural portion, at once transitory and eternal. But the first lesson is the severest—we have not then looked among our fellows, and seen that suffering is general; and we feel as if marked out by fate for misery that has no parallel.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Heath's book of Beauty, 1833 (1832)

Fate , Youth , Feeling , Nature

“I'm weary, I'm weary. Oh! pleasure is pain
When its spell has been broken again and again.
I am weary of smiles that are bought and are sold,
I am weary of beauty whose fetters are gold,
I am weary of wealth—what makes it of me
But that which the basest and lowest might be?”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

The Golden Violet - The Eastern King
The Golden Violet (1827)

Pain , Pleasure , Smile , Beauty

“Oh! why should woman ever love,
Trusting to one false star above;
And fling her little chance away
Of sunshine for its treacherous ray.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Canto IV
The Troubadour (1825)

Love , Star , Chance , Falseness

“A story from the stars; or rather one
Of starry fable from the olden time,
When young Imagination was as fresh
As the fair world it peopled with itself.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

The Lost Pleiad
The Venetian Bracelet (1829)

People , World , Imagination , Star

“For many years he has not breathed the air,
The wholesome open air; the sun, the moon,
The stars, the clouds, the fair blue heaven, the spring,
The flowers, the trees, and the sweet face of man,
Song, or words yet more musical than song,
Affections, feelings, social intercourse
(Unless remembered in his fairy dreams)
Have all been strangers to his solitude! —
A curse is set on him, like poverty,
Or leprosy, or the red plague, but worse, —
The heart has sent its fire up to the brain,
And he is mad.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

(5th April 1823) Poetical Catalogue of Pictures. A Maniac visited by his Family in confinement : by Davis.
5th April 1823) April see The Vow of the Peacock (1835
The London Literary Gazette, 1823

Dreams , Music , Feeling , Star

“I own it gave my picturesque fancies at first a shock, to hear of a steam-boat on Loch Katrine; but I was wrong. Nothing could be a more decisive proof of the increased communication between England and Scotland — and communication is the regal road to improvement of every kind.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

The Monthly Magazine

Communication , Decision

“Did we not know this world to be but a place of trial — our bitter probation for another and for a better — how strange in its severity would seem the lot of genius in a woman. The keen feeling — the generous enthusiasm — the lofty aspiration — and the delicate perception — are given but to make the possessor unfitted for her actual position.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

The Monthly Magazine

World , Feeling

“for earth were too like heaven,
If length of life to love were given.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

The Improvisatrice (1824)

Love , Life

“Do any thing but love; or if thou lovest
And art a Woman, hide thy love from him
Who thou dost worship; never let him know
How dear he is; flit like a bird before him, —
Lead him from tree to tree, from flower to flower;
But be not won, or thou wilt, like that bird,
When caught and caged, be left to pine neglected,
And perish in forgetfulness.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

(26th April 1823) Fragment - Do any thing but love ; or if thou lovest
The London Literary Gazette, 1823

Love , Art , Flowers , Bird

“Love's gifts are like the vein of gold
That intersects earth's darker mould;
The gold is gained, the coin is wrought;
But how much trouble has it brought?”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

The Vow of the Peacock (1835)

Love

“Experience has rude lessons, and we grow
Like what we have been taught too late to know,
And yet we hate ourselves for being so.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

(1836-1) (Vol.46) Experience
The Monthly Magazine

Hate

“Beauty should be around the beautiful.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

The London Literary Gazette, 1823

Beauty , Beauty

“Once the buds of the pomegranate
Paled beside her cheek's warm dye,
Now 'tis like the last sad planet
Waning in the morning sky —
She has wept away its red.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

(1836-3) (Vol.48) Subjects for Pictures. Second Series. III. The Moorish Maiden’s Vigil
The Monthly Magazine

Sadness

“What a strange page in human history is that of social distinction; no people so savage but they have a sort of fashion. Even among the wild people in whose country I am now writing, there are all the small distinctions of small gentility — for example, it is not "comme il faut to wear silk."”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

No.18. The Monastery — MYSIE HAPPER.
Literary Remains

People , History , Fashion , Country

“… Oh! burning are the drops
That wounded love will shed—like to the dew
Falling from off the poison tree, the blight
Still following the touch;—ah! other tears
Soften and bless—but these destroy the heart.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Canto II, XVII
The Fate of Adelaide (1821)

Love , Tear , Tree , Heart

“During slumber's magic reign
Other times shall live again;”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

The Fairy Queen Sleeping. By Stothart
The Troubadour (1825)

Time