Hoyt & Roberts, comps. Hoyt’s New Cyclopedia of Practical Quotations. 1922.
Post (Letters)
(He) put that which was most material in the postscript.
Bacon—Essays. Arber’s Ed. 93.
He whistles as he goes, light-hearted wretch,
Cold and yet cheerful; messenger of grief
Perhaps to thousands, and of joy to some.
Cowper—Winter Evening. Bk. IV. L. 12.
Belshazzar had a letter,—
He never had but one;
Belshazzar’s correspondence
Concluded and begun
In that immortal copy
The conscience of us all
Can read without its glasses
On revelation’s wall.
Emily Dickinson—Poems. XXV. (Ed. 1891). Belshazzar had a Letter.
The welcome news is in the letter found;
The carrier’s not commission’d to expound;
It speaks itself, and what it does contain,
In all things needful to be known, is plain.
Dryden—Religio Laici. L. 366.
Carrier of news and knowledge,
Instrument of trade and industry,
Promoter of mutual acquaintance,
Of peace and good-will
Among men and nations.
Charles W. Eliot—Inscription on Southeast corner of Post-office, Washington, D. C.
Messenger of sympathy and love,
Servant of parted friends,
Consoler of the lonely,
Bond of the scattered family,
Enlarger of the common life.
Charles W. Eliot—Inscription on Southwest corner of Post-office, Washington, D. C.
Every day brings a ship,
Every ship brings a word;
Well for those who have no fear,
Looking seaward well assured
That the word the vessel brings
Is the word they wish to hear.
Emerson—Letters.
Sent letters by posts … being hastened and pressed on.
Esther. VIII. 10. 14.
Thy letter sent to prove me,
Inflicts no sense of wrong;
No longer wilt thou love me,—
Thy letter, though, is long.
Heine—Book of Songs. New Spring. No. 34.
Neither snow, nor rain, nor heat, nor night stays these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.
Herodotus—Inscription on the front of the Post office, New York City.
Letters, from absent friends, extinguish fear,
Unite division, and draw distance near;
Their magic force each silent wish conveys,
And wafts embodied thought, a thousand ways:
Could souls to bodies write, death’s pow’r were mean,
For minds could then meet minds with heav’n between.
Aaron Hill—Verses Written on a Window in a Journey to Scotland.
An exquisite invention this,
Worthy of Love’s most honeyed kiss,—
This art of writing billet-doux—
In buds, and odors, and bright hues!
In saying all one feels and thinks
In clever daffodils and pinks;
In puns of tulips; and in phrases,
Charming for their truth, of daisies.
Leigh Hunt—Love-Letters Made of Flowers.
A piece of simple goodness—a letter gushing from the heart; a beautiful unstudied vindication of the worth and untiring sweetness of human nature—a record of the invulnerability of man, armed with high purpose, sanctified by truth.
Douglas Jerrold—Specimens of Jerrold’s Wit. The Postman’s Budget.
A strange volume of real life in the daily packet of the postman. Eternal love and instant payment!
Douglas Jerrold—Specimens of Jerrold’s Wit. The Postman’s Budget.
My days are swifter than a post.
Job. IX. 25.
Kind messages, that pass from land to land;
Kind letters, that betray the heart’s deep history,
In which we feel the pressure of a hand,—
One touch of fire,—and all the rest is mystery!
Longfellow—The Seaside and Fireside. Dedication. St. 5.
Good-bye—my paper’s out so nearly,
I’ve only room for, Yours sincerely.
Moore—The Fudge Family in Paris. Letter VI.
Je n’ai fait celle-ci plus longue que parceque je n’ai pas eu le loisir de la faire plus courte.
I have only made this letter rather long because I have not had time to make it shorter.
Pascal—Lettres provinciales. 16. Dec. 14, 1656.
Soon as thy letters trembling I unclose,
That well-known name awakens all my woes.
Pope—Eloisa to Abelard. L. 29.
Line after line my gushing eyes o’erflow,
Led thro’ a sad variety of woe:
Now warm in love, now with’ring in my bloom,
Lost in a convent’s solitary gloom!
Pope—Eloisa to Abelard. L. 35.
Heav’n first taught letters for some wretch’s aid,
Some banish’d lover, or some captive maid.
Pope—Eloisa to Abelard. L. 51.
Ev’n so, with all submission, I
*****
Send you each year a homely letter,
Who may return me much a better.
Prior—Epistle to Fleetwood Shepherd. L. 23.
And oft the pangs of absence to remove
By letters, soft interpreters of love.
Prior—Henry and Emma. L. 147.
I will touch
My mouth unto the leaves, caressingly;
And so wilt thou. Thus, from these lips of mine
My message will go kissingly to thine,
With more than Fancy’s load of luxury,
And prove a true love-letter.
J. G. Saxe—Sonnet. (With a Letter.)
The letter is too long by half a mile.
Love’s Labour’s Lost. Act V. Sc. 2. L. 54.
Here are a few of the unpleasant’st words
That over blotted paper!
Merchant of Venice. Act III. Sc. 2. L. 254.
Tell him there’s a post come from my master, with his horn full of good news.
Merchant of Venice. Act V. Sc. 1. L. 46.
What! have I ’scaped love-letters in the holiday-time of my beauty, and am I now a subject for them?
Merry Wives of Windsor. Act II. Sc. 1. L. 1.
I have a letter from her
Of such contents as you will wonder at:
The mirth whereof so larded with my matter,
That neither singly can be manifested,
Without the show of both.
Merry Wives of Windsor. Act IV. Sc. 6. L. 12.
Jove and my stars be praised! Here is yet a postcript.
Twelfth Night. Act II. Sc. 5. L. 187.
If this letter move him not, his legs cannot. I’ll give ’t him.
Twelfth Night. Act III. Sc. 4. L. 188.
Let me hear from thee by letters.
Two Gentlemen from Verona. Act I. Sc. 1. L. 57.
A woman seldom writes her Mind, but in her Postscript.
Steele—Spectator. No. 79.
Go, little letter, apace, apace,
Fly;
Fly to the light in the valley below—
Tell my wish to her dewy blue eye.
Tennyson—The Letter. St. 2.
I read
Of that glad year that once had been,
In those fall’n leaves which kept their green,
The noble letters of the dead:
And strangely on the silence broke
The silent-speaking words.
Tennyson—In Memoriam. Pt. XCV.
Thou bringest***
***letters unto trembling hands.
Tennyson—In Memoriam. Pt. X.