L E. L. Assumes a Virtue
William Howitt remarks, “I met Letitia E. Landon in company at a time when there was a report that she was actually though secretly married.4 Mrs. Hofland, on entering the room, went up to her in her plain, straightforward way, and said, ‘Ah, my dear, what must I call you, Miss Landon, or whom?’ After well-feigned surprise at the question, Miss Landon began to talk in a tone of merry ridicule at this report, and ended by declaring that as to love or marriage, they were things she never thought of. ‘What then have you been doing with yourself this last month?’
“‘Oh, I have been puzzling my brain to invent a new sleeve; how do you like it?’ showing her arm.
“‘You never think of such a thing as love!’ exclaimed a sentimental young man; ‘you, who have written so many volumes upon it?’
“‘Oh, that’s all professional, you know,’ exclaimed she, with an air of merry scorn.
“‘Professional!’ said a grave Quaker who stood near; ‘why dost thou make a difference between what is professional and what is real? Dost thou write one thing and think another? Does not that look very much like hypocrisy?’
“To this the astonished poetess made no reply, but by a look of genuine amazement. It was a mode of putting the matter to which she had evidently never been accustomed. And, in fact, there can be no question that much of her writing was professional. She had to win a golden harvest for the comfort of others dear to herself; and she felt, like all authors who have to cater to the public, that she must provide, not so much what she would of her free-will choice, but what they expected of her.”
Notes
4. In later years, when L. E. L. married Governor Machan, of Cape Coast Castle, West Africa, she was thirty-six years of age, and died a few months afterwards.