Assuredly it would be a pity if laughter should ever become, like rhetoric and the arts, a habit. Alice Meynell More Quotes by Alice Meynell More Quotes From Alice Meynell Happiness is not a matter of events; it depends upon the tides of the mind. Alice Meynell laughter happiness inspirational There is nothing in the world more peaceful than apple - leaves with an early moon. Alice Meynell apples nature moon We talk of sunshine and moonshine, but not of cloud-shine, which is yet one of the illuminations of our skies. A shining cloud is one of the most majestic of all secondary lights. Alice Meynell sunshine light clouds Spirit of place! It is for this we travel, to surprise its subtlety; and where it is a strong and dominant angel, that place, seen once, abides entire in the memory with all its own accidents, its habits, its breath, its name. Alice Meynell strong memories travel recurrence is sure. What the mind suffered last week, or last year, it does not suffer now; but it will suffer again next week or next year. Happiness is not a matter of events; it depends upon the tides of the mind. Alice Meynell mind next-week years It is easy to replace man, and it will take no great time, when Nature has lapsed, to replace Nature. Alice Meynell nature loss men She walks--the lady of my delight-- A sheperdess of sheep. Her flocks are thoughts. She keeps them white; She guards them from the steep. She feeds them on the fragrant height, And folds them in for sleep. Alice Meynell white sheep sleep My day-mind can endure / Upright, in hope, all it must undergo. / But O, afraid, unsure, / My night-mind waking lies too low, too low. Alice Meynell mind night lying If there is a look of human eyes that tells of perpetual loneliness, so there is also the familiar look that is the sign of perpetual crowds. Alice Meynell loneliness eye looks A child is beset with long traditions. And his infancy is so old, so old, that the mere adding of years in the life to follow will not seem to throw it further back -- it is already so far. Alice Meynell infancy-is children years for man, woman, and child the tender, irregular, sensitive, living foot, which does not even stand with all its little surface on the ground, and which makes no base to satisfy an architectural eye, is, as it were, the unexpected thing. ... nothing makes a more helpless and unsymmetrical sign than does a naked foot. Alice Meynell eye men children The true colour of life is the colour of the body, the colour of the covered red, the implicit and not explicit red of the living heart and the pulses. It is the modest colour of the unpublished blood. Alice Meynell color heart blood There is no innocent sleep so innocent as sleep shared between a woman and a child, the little breath hurrying beside the longer, as a child's foot runs. Alice Meynell sleep running children From the shaken tower Alice Meynell bells towers time A wall is the safeguard of simplicity. Alice Meynell wall simplicity But, visiting Sea, your love doth press / And reach in further than you know, / And fills all these; and, when you go, / There's loneliness in loneliness. Alice Meynell ocean loneliness sea With mimicry, with praises, with echoes, or with answers, the poets have all but outsung the bell. The inarticulate bell has found too much interpretation, too many rhymes professing to close with her inaccessible utterance, and to agree with her remote tongue. The bell, like the bird, is a musician pestered with literature. Alice Meynell echoes musician bird Now, in our opinion no author should be blamed for obscurity, nor should any pains be grudged in the effort to understand him, provided that he has done his best to be intelligible. Difficult thoughts are quite distinct from difficult words. Difficulty of thought is the very heart of poetry. Alice Meynell effort pain heart O spring, I know thee! Seek for sweet surprise / In the young children's eyes. / But I have learnt the years, and know the yet / Leaf-folded violet. Alice Meynell spring sweet children Rome in the ages, dimmed with all her towers, / Floats in the mist, a little cloud at tether. Alice Meynell rome age clouds
