618 POST POSTERITY
A strange volume of real life in the daily packet of the postman. Eternal love and instant payment!
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!
| author = Longfellow
| work = 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 provinciates. 16. Dec. 14,
.
Soon as thy letters trembling I unclose,
That well-known name awakens all my woes.
| author = Pope
| work = 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!
| author = Pope
| work = Eloisa to Abelard. L. 35.
Heaven first taught letters for some wretch's aid,
Some banish'd lover, or some captive maid.
| author = Pope
| work = 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.}})
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| page = 618
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{{Hoyt quote
| num =
| text = <poem>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 ever 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.
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| page = 618
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{{Hoyt quote
| num = 15
| text = 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.
| seealso = (See also Bacon)
| topic =
| page = 618
}}
{{Hoyt quote
| num =
| text = <poem>Go, little letter, apace, apace,
Fly;
Fly to the light in the valley below—
Tell my wish to her dewy blue eye.
| author = Tennyson
| work = 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.
| author = Tennyson
| work = InMemoriam. Pt. XCV.
Thoubringest * * *
- * * letters unto trembling hands.
| author = Tennyson
| work = In Memoriam. Pt. X.
M POSTERITY
| seealso = (See also {{sc|Ancestry)
Think of your forefathers! Think of your posterity!
John Q. Adams—Speech at Plymouth. Dec.
22, 1802.
Herself the solitary scion left
Of a time-honour'd race.
Byron—The Dream. St. 2.
He thinks posterity is a pack-horse, always
ready to be loaded.
Benj. Disraeli—Speech. June 3, 1862.
Posterity is a most limited assembly. Those
gentlemen who reach posterity are not much
more numerous than the planets.
Benj. Disraeli—Speech. June 3, 1862.
