Preface [to the Venetian Bracelet]
author: Letitia Elizabeth Landon
source date: 1829

Letitia Elizabeth Landon PREFACE ["Preface." The Venetian Bracelet, the Lost Pleiad, a History of the Lyre, and Other Poems. By L. E. L.. Author of The Improvisatrice, The Troubadour, and The Golden Violet . London: Longman Rees, Orme, Brown, and Green, 1829, pp. iii-viii. Victoria Stewart and Mary A. Waters co-edited this edition for The Criticism Archive.]

D iffidence of their own abilities, and fear, which heightens the anxiety for public favour, are pleas usually urged by the youthful writer: may I, while venturing for the first time to speak of myself, be permitted to say they far more truly belong to one who has had experience of both praise and censure. The feelings which attended the publication of the "Improvisatrice" [The Improvisatrice; and Other Poems (1824) was Landon's second published volume of poetry and her first major success.] are very different from those that accompany the present volume. I believe I then felt little beyond hope, vague as the timidity which subdued it, and that excitement which every author must know: now mine is a "farther looking hope;" [William Wordsworth, "The Force of Prayer; or, The Founding of Bolton Priory. A Tradition." Poems (1815), vol. 2, line 47.] and the timidity which apprehended the verdict of others, is now deepened by distrust of my own powers. Or, to claim my poetical privilege, and express my meaning by a simile, I should say, I am no longer one who springs forward in the mere energy of exercise and enjoyment; but rather like the Olympian racer, who strains his utmost vigour, with the distant goal and crown in view. I have devoted my whole life to one object: in society I have but sought the material for solitude. I can imagine but one interest in existence,—that which has filled my past, and haunts my future,—the perhaps vain desire, when I am nothing, of leaving one of those memories at once a good and a glory. Believing as I do in the great and excellent influence of poetry, may I hazard the expression of what I have myself sometimes trusted to do? A highly-cultivated state of society must ever have for concomitant evils, that selfishness, the result of indolent indulgence; and that heartlessness attendant on refinement, which too often hardens while it polishes. Aware that to elevate I must first soften, and that if I wished to purify I must first touch, I have ever endeavoured to bring forward grief, disappointment, the fallen leaf, the faded flower, the broken heart, and the early grave. Surely we must be less worldly, less interested, from this sympathy with the sorrow in which our unselfish feelings alone can take part. And now a few words on a subject, where the variety of the opinions offered have left me somewhat in the situation of the prince in the fairy tale, who, when in the vicinity of the magic fountain, found himself so distracted by the multitude of voices that directed his way, as to be quite incapable of deciding which was the right path. I allude to the blame and eulogy which have been equally bestowed on my frequent choice of Love as my source of song. I can only say, that for a woman, whose influence and whose sphere must be in the affections, what subject can be more fitting than one which it is her peculiar province to refine, spiritualise, and exalt? I have always sought to paint it self- denying, devoted, and making an almost religion of its truth; and I must add, that such as I would wish to draw her, woman actuated by an attachment as intense as it is true, as pure as it is deep, is not only more admirable as a heroine, but also in actual life, than one whose idea of love is that of light amusement, or at worst of vain mortification. With regard to the frequent application of my works to myself, considering that I sometimes pourtrayed love unrequited, then betrayed, and again destroyed by death—may I hint the conclusions are not quite logically drawn, as assuredly the same mind cannot have suffered such varied modes of misery. However, if I must have an unhappy passion, I can only console myself with my own perfect unconsciousness of so great a misfortune. I now leave the following Poems to their fate: they must speak for themselves. I could but express my anxiety, an anxiety only increased by a popularity beyond my most sanguine dreams.

With regard to those whose former praise encouraged, their best recompense is the happiness they bestowed. And to those whose differing opinion expressed itself in censure, I own, after the first chagrin was past, I never laid down a criticism by which I did not benefit, or trust to benefit. I will conclude by apostrophizing the hopes and fears they excited, in the words of the Mexican king—"Ye have been the feathers of my wings."[^1]

[^1: The anecdote of the Mexican king appears with this quotation at the end of Chapter 2 of Isaac Disraeli's The Literary Character: or the History of Men of Genius (1818), a fourth edition of which had just been issued the year before by Henry Colburn, a regular publisher of Landon's work. The anecdote constitutes one of several examples of traitorous councilors.]