“I should almost define poetry to be the necessity of feeling strongly in the first instance, and the as strong necessity of confiding in the second.”

Presenting poetry as both intense feeling and the urge to communicate it · Essay, On the Character of Mrs. Hemans's Writings

• Emotion
• Poetry
• Writing

“Poetry is even more a passion than a power, and nothing is so strongly impressed on composition as the character of the writer.”

Linking poetic creation closely with feeling and personality · Essay, On the Character of Mrs. Hemans's Writings

• Character
• Emotion
• Poetry

“There cannot be a greater error than to suppose that the poet does not feel what he writes.”

Rejecting the idea that poetic emotion is merely manufactured · Essay, On the Character of Mrs. Hemans's Writings

• Emotion
• Poetry
• Writing

“If, even at three years old, we turn to the pleasures of memory, the less that is asserted about the felicity of childhood, the less there will be to dispute.”

Questioning sentimental assumptions about childhood happiness · Essay, A Calendar of the London Seasons

• Childhood
• Happiness
• Memory

“We enjoy no pleasure so much as we do tormenting ourselves.”

Dryly observing humanity's attraction to self-created anxieties · Essay, A Calendar of the London Seasons

• Character
• Happiness
• Humour

“A London day requires to be well aired before it is ventured into.”

A characteristically playful observation on London life · Essay, A Calendar of the London Seasons

• Humour
• Life
• Society

“Perhaps it is a benevolent provision of Nature that we remember more what touches than what pains us.”

Reflecting on memory's tendency to preserve tenderness over pain · Essay, A Calendar of the London Seasons

• Consolation
• Memory
• Nature

“We deny that poetry is fiction; its merit and its power lie alike in its truth.”

Insisting that poetry communicates truths rather than mere invention · Essay, On the Ancient and Modern Influence of Poetry

• Literature
• Poetry
• Truth

“The imagination, which is the source of poetry, has in every country been the beginning as well as the ornament of civilization. It civilizes because it refines.”

Arguing that imagination contributes fundamentally to civilisation · Essay, On the Ancient and Modern Influence of Poetry

• Civilization
• Imagination
• Poetry

“Literary taste is often confounded with literary talent by others, quite as much as by ourselves.”

Distinguishing appreciation of literature from the ability to create it · Essay, Living Literary Characters, No. V

• Criticism
• Literature
• Skill

“I believe the love of flowers to be as inherent in the disposition as any other inclination.”

Seeing delight in flowers as a natural human instinct · Traits and Trials of Early Life

• Beauty
• Instinct
• Nature

“To connect the external object with the internal emotion is the sweetest privilege of poetry.”

Defining poetry as a meeting of the visible world and inward feeling · Preface, Traits and Trials of Early Life

• Emotion
• Nature
• Poetry

“A preface is a species of literary luxury, where an author, like a lover, is privileged to be egotistical.”

Wryly acknowledging the author's temptation to talk about herself · Preface, Romance and Reality

• Character
• Humour
• Writing

“I don't think people ought to like me, on the whole, but when they do, aint I glad?”

Combining self-doubt with an unaffected delight in being loved · Journal, 1 January 1842

• Humour
• Identity
• Love

“I do love to carry puddings to good old grannies.”

A playful glimpse of her early delight in practical acts of kindness · Journal, December 1841

• Care
• Humour
• Kindness

“When I begin to pray I have so much to thank Him for, that I hardly know how to stop.”

Finding gratitude still possible in the midst of personal bereavement · Letter to Miss Lord, 31 January 1849

• Faith
• Gratitude
• Grief

“The loss of a mother is never made up or atoned for; and ours was such a mother.”

A direct expression of the enduring nature of bereavement · Letter to her youngest brother, 1849

• Family
• Grief
• Motherhood

“We can not drain this bitter cup at one draught and then go on our way as though it had never been.”

Acknowledging that grief cannot simply be completed and left behind · Letter to her youngest brother, 1849

• Family
• Grief
• Sorrow

“It is the struggle to be patient and gentle and cheerful, when pressed down and worn upon and distracted, that costs us so much.”

Recognising that character is tested most severely under exhaustion and pressure · Letter to Mrs. Stearns, 17 February 1849

• Character
• Patience
• Struggle

“I have an insatiable curiosity about even the outer life of those I love; and of the inner one you can not say too much.”

Expressing a desire to know friends deeply rather than superficially · Letter to Miss Eliza A. Warner, 27 September 1868

• Friendship
• Identity
• Love

“We make the most of it as long as we must stay in it; but the under-current bears home.”

Balancing engagement with earthly life against a strong sense of spiritual homecoming · Letter from Dorset, 27 July 1873

• Faith
• Home
• Life

“I feel like a ball that now is tossed to Sorrow and tossed back by Sorrow to Joy.”

Capturing the rapid alternation between grief and happiness in lived experience · Letter to Miss Eliza A. Warner, 26 October 1868

• Emotion
• Joy
• Sorrow

“It seems to me we are meant to use all the faculties God gives us; to abuse them is another thing.”

Distinguishing the healthy use of human abilities from their misuse · Letter to Mrs. Condict, 27 February 1877

• Faith
• Skill
• Work

“We enjoy seeing our children enjoy their work and their play; is our Father unwilling to let us enjoy ours?”

Arguing that faith need not exclude innocent pleasure and creativity · Letter to Mrs. Condict, 27 February 1877

• Faith
• Joy
• Work