Quotations from Miss Landon's Prose Works
Romance and Reality
Preface
A preface is a species of literary luxury, where an author, like a lover, is privileged to be egotistical.
Prefaces want reform quite as much as Parliament [: so I beg to retrench the gratitude, modesty, &c. usual on such occasions.]
Chapter 1
The course of life is like the child's game – “here we go round by the rule of contrary” -- and youth, above all others, is the season of united opposites, with all its freshness and buoyancy. At no period of our existence is depression of the spirit more common or more painful. As we advance in life our duties become defined ; we act more from necessity and less from impulse ; custom takes the place of energy, and feelings, no longer powerfully excited, are proportionably quiet in re-action. But youth, balancing itself upon hope, is for ever in extremes; its expectations are continually aroused only to be baffled ; and disappointment, like a summer shower, is violent in proportion to its brevity.
Young she was―but nineteen, that pleasantest of ages, just past the blushing, bridling, bewildering coming out, when a courtesy and a compliment are equally embarrassing; when one half the evening is spent in thinking what to do and say, and the other half in repenting what has been said and done.
Her father had been the youngest brother, and, like many other younger brothers, both unnecessary and imprudent; …
His lady was one of those thousand-and-one women who wore dark silk dresses and lace caps ― who, after a fashion of their own, have made most exemplary wives; that is to say, they took to duties instead of accomplishments, and gave up music when they married―who spent the mornings in the housekeeper's room, and the evenings at the tea-table, waiting for the guests who came not ― who rose after the first glass of wine―whose bills and calls were paid punctually, and whose dinners were a credit to them.
Chapter 2
The impetuosity of youth becomes energy in manhood, …
[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.
[This, however, wore off;] the attention of a superior is too flattering to our vanity not to call it forth, …
But sentiment, like salt, is so universal an ingredient in our composition, that even Mr. Delawarr, years and years ago, had looked at a rainbow to dream of a cheek, had gathered violets with the dew on them, and thought them less bright than the eyes to which they were offerings, had rhymed to one beloved name, and had felt one fair cousin to be the fairest of created things.
-- in short, he need only not have been a politician (the very name was a stumbling-block to a young lady's romance), and he would have been erected into a hero fit for a modern novel, …
Chapter 3
Snow-dropped, crocused, and violeted Spring, in the country, was beginning to consider about making her will, and leaving her legacies of full-blown flowers and green fruit to Summer, …
[Now this was a most disinterested act ; for] the member had recovered, and taken that step of all others which insures existence, purchased a life annuity; and it is a well-known fact in physiology, that annuitants and old women never die.
[This, however, the uncle would not admit ; and] youth, if not selfish, is at least thoughtless; …
A great change in life is like a cold bath in winter — we all hesitate at the first plunge.
Affection is more matter of habit than sentiment, more so than we like to admit [; and she was leaving both habits and affections behind.]
A white handkerchief is a signal of distress always answered: …
There is something very amusing in the misfortunes of others.
Adventures never happen now-a-days; there are neither knights nor highwaymen ; no lonely heaths, with gibbets, for finger-posts ; no hope of even a dangerous rut, or a steep hill ; romance and roads are alike macadamised; no young ladies are either run away with, or run over ; —
Chapter 4
— morning, that breaker of spells and sleep.
… and French and Italian were, it must be owned, somewhat unnecessary to one who considered her own language an unnecessary fatigue.
… [for after all,] vanity is like those chemical essences whose only existence is when called into being by the action of some opposite influence.
Lord Etheringhame’s opinions were as hereditary as his halls ; innovation was moral rebellion ; the change of a fashion, a symptom of degeneracy ; he would as soon have destroyed his pedigree as his pigtail ; and looked on every new patent, whether for a peerage or a pie-dish, as another step to ruin ; in short, he held just the reverse of the poet’s opinion — with him, not whatever is, but whatever had been, was right.
In the midst of a brilliant public career, he had little time to discover whether his household divinity was very like those of old — a statue.
Chapter 5
Shopping, true feminine felicity !
[… and] Emily, her head like a kaleidoscope, full of colours, with not a little disdain, put on the blue silk she had thought bleu céleste, at least in the country. What a march does a woman's intellect, i.e. taste, take in the streets of London !
How much we give to thoughts and things our tone-painting,
And judge of others' feelings by our own!
Lady Alicia
“… ; marriage is like money— seem to want it, and you never get it.”
Now came one of those audible pauses, the tickings of the death-watch of English conversation.
The questions of curiosity are few to those of politeness.
Chapter 6
A few moments saw the little vessel gallantly scudding through the waters, dashing before her a shower of foam like sudden snow — and leaving behind a silver tracks like a shining serpent, called by some strange spell from its emerald palace, and yet bright with the mysterious light of its birthplace.
{A forest} It was swept, but not bowed, by a mighty wind, now loud as mountain thunder, and now low with that peculiar whisper which haunts the leaf of the pine — such as might have suited the oracles of old — an articulate though unknown language.
Successful daring makes its own way; …
Alas, for the vanity of human enjoyment ! we grow weary of even our own perfection.
In his mind the imagination was as yet the most prominent feature; it made him impetuous — for the unknown is ever coloured by the most attractive hues ; it made him versatile— for those very hues, from their falsehood, are fleeting, and pass easily from one object to another; it made him melancholy— for the imagination, which lives on excitement, most powerfully exaggerates the reaction; but, like a fairy gift, it threw its own nameless charm over all he did— and a touch, as it were, of poetry, spiritualised all the common-places of life.