English poet and essayist (1743-1825)
Remember that the true pleasures of life consist in the exertion of our own powers. If you were to feast every day upon roasted partridges from off Dresden china, and dip your whiskers in syllabubs and creams, it could never give you such true enjoyment as the commonest food procured by the labor of your own paws.
ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD
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Tales, Poems and Essays
It is the fault of the present age, owing to the freer commerce that different ranks and professions now enjoy with each other, that characters are not marked with sufficient strength: the several classes run too much into one another. We have fewer pedants, it is true, but we have fewer striking originals.
ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD
Tales, Poems and Essays
Fair Spring! whose simplest promise more delights
Than all their largest wealth, and thro' the heart
Each joy and new-born hope
With softest influence breathes.
ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD
"Ode to Spring"
The man whose tender sensibility of conscience and strict regard to the rules of morality makes him scrupulous and fearful of offending, is often heard to complain of the disadvantages he lies under in every path of honor and profit.
ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD
Tales, Poems and Essays
The dead of midnight is the noon of thought.
ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD
"A Summer Evening's Meditation"
The most characteristic mark of a great mind is to choose some one important object, and pursue it through life.
ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD
Tales, Poems and Essays
It is another advantage of history, that it stores the mind with facts that apply to most subjects which occur in conversation among enlightened people. Whether morals, commerce, languages, polite literature be the object of discussion, it is history that must supply her large storehouse of proofs and illustrations.
ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD
Tales, Poems and Essays
There is a cast of manners peculiar and becoming to each age, sex, and profession; one, therefore, should not throw out illiberal and common-place censures against another. Each is perfect in its kind -- a woman as a woman; a tradesman as a tradesman.
ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD
Tales, Poems and Essays
Much has been said of the uses of history. They are no doubt many, yet do not apply equally to all: but it is quite sufficient to make it a study worth our pains and time, that it satisfies the desire which naturally arises in every intelligent mind to know the transactions of the country, of the globe in which he lives. Facts, as facts, interest our curiosity and engage our attention.
ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD
Tales, Poems and Essays
The more history approaches to biography the more interest it excites.
ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD
Tales, Poems and Essays
The talking restless world shall see,
Spite of the world we'll happy be;
But none shall know
How much we're so,
Save only Love, and we.
ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD
"To Mr. Barbauld"
The first thing to be considered, with respect to education, is the object of it. This appears to me to have been generally misunderstood.
ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD
Tales, Poems and Essays
Is there not
A tongue in every star that talks with man,
And wooes him to be wise?
ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD
"A Summer Evening's Meditation"
We'll little care what others do,
And where they go, and what they say;
Our bliss, all inward and our own,
Would only tarnished be, by being show.
ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD
"To Mr. Barbauld"
It has been made a question whether friendship can subsist among the vicious. If by vicious be meant those who are void of the social, generous, and affectionate feelings, it is most certain it cannot; because these make the very essence of it. But it is very possible for persons to possess fine feelings, without that steady principle which alone constitutes virtue; and it does not appear why such may not feel a real friendship. It will not indeed be so likely to be lasting, and is often succeeded by bitter enmities.
ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD
Tales, Poems and Essays
Who can reckon up the benefits supplied to us by this parent Earth, — ever serviceable, ever indulgent! with how many productions does she reward the labor of the cultivator! how many more does she pour out spontaneously! How faithfully does she keep, with what large interest does she restore, the seed committed to her by the husbandman! What an abundance does she yield, of food for the poor, of delicacies for the rich! Her wealth is inexhaustible; and all that is called riches among men consists in possessing a small portion of her surface.
ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD
Tales, Poems and Essays
A rich, flourishing, cultivated mind, pregnant with inexhaustible stores of entertainment and reflection. A perpetual spring of fresh ideas; and the conscious dignity of superior intelligence. Good heaven! and what reward can you ask besides?
ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD
Tales, Poems and Essays
And oft the starry scope of heaven beneath,
When day's tumultuous sounds had ceased to breathe,
With fixed feet, as rooted there,
Through the long night they drew the chilly air;
While sliding o'er their head,
In solemn silence dread,
The' ethereal orbs their shining course pursued,
In holy trance enwrapt the sages stood,
With folded arms laid on their reverent breast,
And to that Heaven they knew, their orisons addressed.
ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD
"The Epiphany"
There is no one quality gives so much dignity to a character, as consistency of conduct. Even if a man's pursuits be wrong and unjustifiable, yet if they are prosecuted with steadiness and vigor, we cannot withhold our admiration.
ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD
Tales, Poems and Essays
But if an acquaintance with history thus increases a rational love of our country, it also tends to check those low, illiberal, vulgar prejudices which adhere to the uninformed of every nation. Travelling will also cure them: but to. travel is not within the power of every one. There is no use, but a great deal of harm in fostering a contempt for other nations; in an arrogant assumption of superiority, and the clownish sneer of ignorance at every thing in laws, government, or manners which is not fashioned after our partial ideas and familiar usages. A well-informed person will not be apt to exclaim at every'event out of the com- mon way, that nothing like it has ever happened since the creation of the world, that such atrocities are totally unheard-of in any age or nation, — sentiments we have all of us so often heard of late on the subject of the French Revolution,—when in fact we can scarcely open a page of their history without being struck with similar and equal enormities. Indeed, party spirit is very much cooled and checked by an acquaintance with the events of past times.
ANNA LETITIA BARBAULD
Tales, Poems and Essays