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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 quotes11 likes

Letitia Elizabeth Landon Quotes

“Black (for such the quarries yield
Where the sun hath never shone,
Which night only rests upon,
Was the marble floor, which gave
Mirror like some clear dark wave.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

The London Literary Gazette, 1831

“[Before]
Just two or three sweet chords, that seemed
An echo of thy tone,—
The cushat's song was on the wind
And mingled with thine own.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

The Vow of the Peacock (1835)

“In sooth, this earth is a lovely place;
Pass not in darkness over her face;
Yet call back thy words of doom—
They are too gay and too fair for the tomb.
....
And have seen--alas! 'tis but outward show—
The sunshine of yon green earth below:
Glad of rest must the wretched and way-worn be—
Angel of Death, they are ready for thee!”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

The Spirit and the Angel of Death from Friendship’s Offering, 1827
The Vow of the Peacock (1835)

“And Love is like the lightning in its might,
Winging where least bethought its fiery flight,
Melting the blade, despite the scabbard's guard.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

The Golden Violet - The Child of the Sea
The Golden Violet (1827)

“Alas! we make
A ladder of our thoughts, where angels step,
But sleep ourselves at the foot: our high resolves
Look down upon our slumbering acts.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

A History of the Lyre
The Venetian Bracelet (1829)

“Spirit of the midnight dream,
What is now upon thy wing?
Earth sleeps in the moonlight beam;
O'er that sleep what wilt thou fling?”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

(31st March 1827) The Spirit of Dreams
The London Literary Gazette, 1827

“When years have past
Over the fallen arch, the ruin'd hall,
It seems but course of time, the one great doom,
Whose influence is alike upon us all;”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

A History of the Lyre
The Venetian Bracelet (1829)

“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 Chaldeans watched from their lofty towers the silent beauty of night — they saw the stars go forth on their appointed way, and deemed that they bore with them the mighty records of eternity. Each separate planet shone on some mortal birth, and as its aspect was for good or for evil, such was the aspect of the fortunes that began beneath its light. Those giant watch-towers, with their grey sages, asked of the midnight its mystery, and held its starry roll to be the chronicle of this breathing world. Time past on, angels visited the earth no more, and the divine beliefs of young imagination grew earthlier. Yet poetry lingered in the mournful murmur of the oaks of Dodona, and in the fierce war song of the flying vultures, of whom the Romans demanded tidings of conquest. But prophecy gradually sank into divination, and it is a singular proof of the extent both of human credulity and of curiosity, to note the various methods that have had the credit of forestalling the future. From the stars to a tea-cup is a fall indeed”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Literary Remains

“There is a well of melancholy poetry in every human bosom. We have all mourned over the destroyed illusion and the betrayed hope. We have quarrelled in some embittered moment with an early friend, and when too late lamented the estrangement.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

The Monthly Magazine

“I do not believe that affection can exist with truth, without the ideal, and without blending with itself all that is best and most earnest in our nature.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

No.21. Woodstock — ALICE LEE.
No.22. Marmion — CONSTANCE. See under The Monthly Magazine
Literary Remains

“There is nothing in nature so impracticable as the obstinacy of your true husband; it is the insurmountable obstacle—the Alps no female vinegar can melt.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Other Gift Books

“Oh never another dream can be
Like that early dream of ours,
When the fairy Hope lay down to sleep,
Like a child, among the flowers.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Song: Oh never another dream can be
The Venetian Bracelet (1829)

“… absence is
The moonlight of affection;”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Canto II, II
The Fate of Adelaide (1821)

“We change, and others change, while recollection
Fain would renew what it can but recall :
Dark are life's dreams, and weary its affection,
And cold its hopes, — and yet I felt them all,
A long while ago.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

(1838 1) (Vol 52) A Long While Ago
The Monthly Magazine

“Old friend and true companion! soothing Sleep,
Yes fly, like other friends. How easily
Did your sweet influence fall on my free head,
Cool like a lovely crown of myrtle boughs.
Beloved Sleep! amid the clash of arms,
On the rough torrent of unquiet life,
I rested, breathing lightly as a child,
Weary and cradled in your mother arms.
When the storm swept the leaves from off the bough,
And rushed thro' crashing branches, yet my heart
Was in its depths untroubled, — and I slept.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Translations, From the German

“Poverty is a terrible thing when it bows to the very ground the pride of the strong man—a terrible thing when it leaves old age destitute: till, the strong man may yet redeem his fortunes, and that old age may have had enjoyment while it was capable of enjoying. But a child, with the step slow from weakness, which from its age should be so buoyant; a cheek thin and white from hunger, at a period which especially cares for food (for all children are greedy); a form shrivelled with cold; a growth stopped by work too laborious for such tender years; a spirit broken by toil, want, and harshness; —is not such a child poverty's most miserable spectacle? It is, however, a common one.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Heath's book of Beauty, 1833 (1832)

“In a valley sweet with singing
From the hill and from the wood,
Where the green moss rills were springing,
A wondrous maiden stood.
The first lark seemed to carry
Her coming through the air;
Not long she wont to tarry,
Though she wandered none knew where.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

The London Literary Gazette (10th January 1835) Versions from the German (Second Series.) 'The Coming of Spring'—Schiller.
Translations, From the German

“Lone upon a mountain, the pine-trees wailing round him,
Lone upon a mountain the Grecian youth is laid;
Sleep, mystic sleep, for many a year has bound him,
Yet his beauty, like a statue's pale and fair, is undecay'd.
When will he awaken?”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

The Monthly Magazine

“Three hackney-coaches, and two women in patterns passed by; also a man with an umbrella dripping, which he held rather over a brown paper parcel than himself: at last, a bright spot appeared just above the palace, the rain seemed to melt into luminous streaks on the sky, and the rain-drops that had sprinkled all over the panes of glass began to gather into two or three large drops, and to descend slowly along the surface. They would have done to bet upon, but there was no one to bet with.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

The Monthly Magazine

“Love is like the glass,
That throws its own rich colour over all,
And makes all beautiful.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Roland's Tower
The Improvisatrice (1824)

“She said “Oh rather thank thy God,
My lot is not thine own.
How would my weary feet rejoice
Like thine to walk and run
Over the soft and fragrant grass,
Beneath yon cheerful sun.
And yet I trust to God's good will
My spirit is resign'd;
Though sore my sickness, it is borne
At least with patient mind.
Though noble be my father's name,
And vast my father's wealth;
He would give all, could he but give
His only child thy health!
Ah, judge not by the outside show
Of this world, vain and frail —””

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

The Lady Marian
Traits and Trials of Early Life (1836)

“Last night I by my casement leant,
And looked on the bright firmament;
And marked a group of stars, which met,
Almost as if on purpose set
Together for their loveliness,”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

(30th October 1824) The Stars
The London Literary Gazette, 1824

“Light like the wan blue flames that wave
Their death-torch o'er the murderer's grave;
And flickering shapes beset the way,
Watching in gloom to seize their prey,
Most terrible, for that the eye
Wander'd in dim uncertainty;”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

The Golden Violet - The Broken Spell
The Golden Violet (1827)

“A light compliment was never yet breathed by love.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

The London Literary Gazette, 1821-1822

“We seek—we find—
And find the charm has with the search declined.
Affections—pleasures—all in which we trust, —
What do they end in?—Nothing, or disgust.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

(1st July 1826) Moralising
The London Literary Gazette, 1826

“And all was silence. — save when the wild bees.
Intoxicate with their noon revelries,
Murmuring, kiss'd the blossoms where they lay;
Or when the breeze bore a green leaf away;
Or when the flutter of the cusha's wing
Echoed its song of plaintive languishing”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

(2nd October 1824) The Glen
The London Literary Gazette, 1824

“Indeed it is a doubtful fact whether clever people are ever very agreeable; they are too much absorbed by one particular pursuit, to bound lightly enough over those generalities which are the stepping-stones of conversation; they feel as if they ought to say something worth remembering.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

The Monthly Magazine

“Like a marble statue placed,
Looking o'er the watery waste,
With its white fixed gaze;
There the Goddess sits, her eye
Raised to the unpitying sky;”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

The Monthly Magazine

“Selfishness is hypocritical by nature, and seizes on the first decent excuse as a cloak;”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Traits and Trials of Early Life (1836)

“How incomprehensible is woman's love! —it is not kindness that wins it, nor return that insures it; we daily see the most devoted attachment lavished on those who seem to us singularly unworthy. The Spectator shewed his usual knowledge of human nature, when, in speaking on this subject, he relates, that in a town besieged by the enemy, on the women being allowed to depart with whatever they held most precious, only one among them carried off her husband,—a man notorious for his tyrannical temper, and who had, moreover, a bad—or, as it turned out, a good—habit of beating his wife every morning. Well, all governments are maintained by fear—fear being our great principle of action; and fear, we are tempted to believe, heightens and strengthens the love of woman.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Heath's book of Beauty, 1833 (1832)

“There's feasting spread in gorgeous halls,
The lamps flash round the city walls,
And many a flood of lustre falls
O'er many an honoured name.
Turn thou from this, and enter where
Some mother weeps o'er her despair,
Some desolate bride rends her rich hair,
Some orphan joins the cry!
Then back again to the death plain,
Where lie those whom they weep in vain,
And ask, in gazing on the slain,
What art thou, Victory?”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

21st January 1826) Io triumphe (under the pen name Iole
The London Literary Gazette, 1826

“If we did but know how we rush into one evil while seeking to avoid another, we should have no resolution to shun any thing.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Heath's book of Beauty, 1833 (1832)

“Dear friend, if it be your’s to have in some deep vale a home,
Where you may dream of faith and fate, and all the great, to come.
If such a place of tranquil rest be to your future given,
Where every hour of solitude is consecrate to heaven,
Oh, leave it not! let this vain life fret its few hours afar,
Where joy departs, and glory mocks the wide world’s weary war
Let not its rude and angry tide with jarring torrent wake
The silence that the poplars love, of your own limpid lake.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Translations, From the French

“For my spirit hath left her earthly home
And found a nobler dwelling,
Where the music of light is that of life,
And the starry harps are swelling.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

The Golden Violet - Amenaïde
The Golden Violet (1827)

“Tis strange with how much power and pride
The softness is of love allied;
How much of power to force the breast
To be in outward show at rest,—
How much of pride that never eye
May look upon its agony!
Ah! little will the lip reveal
Of all the burning heart can feel.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Canto IV
The Troubadour (1825)

“Now I hold that necessity merits more amiable adjectives;--what a great deal of trouble is saved thereby. To an undecided person like myself, the inevitable is invaluable.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

The Monthly Magazine

“How life effaces as it goes
The keenest pang of earlier woes.
How careless and how cold we grow,
Dry as the dust we tread below;”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

The Vow of the Peacock (1835)

“The poor child, as Charles Lamb so touchingly expresses it, is not brought, but "dragged out," and if the wits are sharpened, so, too, is the soft, round cheek. The crippled limb and broken constitution attest the effects of the over-early struggle with penury; but the child of rich parents suffers, though in another way; there is the heart that is crippled, by the selfishness of indulgence and the habit of relying upon others. It takes years of harsh contact with the realities of life to undo the enervating work of a spoilt and over aided childhood. We cannot too soon learn the strong and useful lessons of exertion and self-dependance.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Traits and Trials of Early Life (1836)

“The earth was parched, the trees were sear'd,
And blasted every branch appear'd;
At one end yawned a gloomy cave,
Black, as its mouth were that of the grave;
And dark, as if the waters of death
Were in its depths, rose a well beneath.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

The Golden Violet - The Ring
The Golden Violet (1827)

“Courage is like an angel at my heart!”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

Translations, From the German

“Race of the rainbow wing, the deep blue eye
Whose palace was the bosom of a flower;
Who rode upon the breathing of the rose;
Drank from the harebell; made the moon the queen
Of their gay revels; and whose trumpets were
The pink-veined honeysuckle; and who rode
Upon the summer butterfly : who slept
Lulled in the sweetness of the violet's leaves,—
Where are ye now? And ye of eastern tale,
With your bright palaces, your emerald halls;
Gardens whose fountains were of liquid gold;
Trees with their ruby fruit and silver leaves,—
Where are ye now?”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

(12th June 1824) Stanzas
The London Literary Gazette, 1824

“Where on earth is the truth that may vie
With woman's lone and long constancy?”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

The Golden Violet - The Broken Spell
The Golden Violet (1827)

“It is a sweet, albeit most painful, feeling
To know we are regretted.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

The Improvisatrice (1824)

“"Waverley" was the avater (sic) of a new era;”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

No. 1. Waverley — FLORA MAC IVOR.
Literary Remains

“It is curious to observe how little one period resembles another. Centuries are the children of one mighty family, but here is no family-likeness between them.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

The Monthly Magazine

“Oh, all
Know love is woman's happiness.”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

The Improvisatrice (1824)

“By-the-by, this doctrine of perpetual transmigration would be a curious plea to urge for the non-fulfilment of former engagements; seven years is I believe the term allotted for the entire change. Now, might not a man encumbered with debt plead at the expiration of the period in the Courts of Westminster, that he was not the person who actually contracted those debts? Or might not an inconstant couple sue for a divorce, on the plea that neither were the individuals who originally married?”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

The Monthly Magazine

“Another year, another year,—
Alas! and must it be
That Time's most dark and weary wheel
Must turn again for me?”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

New Year's Eve
The Venetian Bracelet (1829)

“What is the light of a poet's name,
If it is not his country that hallows his fame?
Where may he look for guerdon so fair
As the honour and praise that await him there?
His name will be lost and his grave forgot,
If the tears of his country preserve them not!...”

Letitia Elizabeth Landon

The Improvisatrice (1824)