This page is for quotations that amuse me or otherwise give me food for thought.
Here's one I posted on Facebook recently:
OLD STYLE RELATIVITY
"Thus, to the horseman, who is galloping at full speed, the hedges, trees, and houses, seem rapidly to recede; whilst in reality, they never move from their places. It is he that flies from them, and not they from him."
Maria Edgeworth, The Limerick Gloves, Nov 1799
THE SAME, YET NOT THE SAME
I found this attributed to Tennyson - so this is to correct that. He would most likely have known this poem. Of course, it may go back even earlier, although it is typical of Landon's use of duality.
THE same, yet not the same — her face
Has still that Grecian line ;
The sculptured perfectness whose grace
Has long been held divine.
Letitia Landon, 1830
YORKSHIRE PUDDING
Thus Mrs Higgs says from Italy in Landon's Romance and Reality, 1831:
'' Dear, dear, we shall have no dinners worth eating till we get to England. I quite long for our good Sunday smell of a piece of roast beef and a Yorkshire pudding."
I WROTE MY NAME UPON THE SAND
A little known poem of Landon's, entitled Song, from Friendship's Offering, 1827
I wrote my name upon the sand;
I thought I wrote it on thine heart.
I had no touch of fear, that words,
Such words, so graven, could depart.
DEEP IN THE SILENT WATERS
Deep in the silent waters,
A thousand fathoms low,
A gallant ship lies perishing —
She foundered long ago.
From The Lost Ship, 12th January 1833