Victorian Quotes, Poetry & Artwork

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A minute's reading provokes a day's thinking…
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Victorian fashion plate, late 19th-century​, Godey's.

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​1880's advertisement for Columbia bicycles and tricycles

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Victorian cyclist bowing to a lady, 1880

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In The Park
Cycling in the park, they say,
Eyes of blue met eyes of gray.
Whirling, wheeling,
Lightly stealing
Glances soft as break of day.
Cycling in the park, 'tis told,
Eyes of gray grew sweet and bold,
Coming, bending,
Gently sending
Pleading wishes manifold.
Cycling in the park, 'tis true,
Eyes of gray saw eyes of blue
Upward gazing, In amazing,
With the lovelight shining through.
—Outing, 1886.
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Victorian cycling Valentine, 1880's

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​Victorian fashion plate, Peterson's Magazine, May, 1890.

"A Bicycler's Handkerchief" from 
​Scribner's Magazine​, February, 1880, p. 640
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​Royal Worcester corset advertisement, late 19th-century

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Victorian fashion plate, late 19th-century​, Godey's.

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Victorian Sukkot die-cut
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Victorian Christmas card with new moon and roses
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Victorian Christmas card with moss roses
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I know my companions are getting ahead;
Still, I think I will linger awhile.
I shall not fall far behind, for I've oft heard it said
That a Miss is as good as a mile!
--Outing and the Wheelman, 1884

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Love's doors are always open…

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Miss Geraldine Morgan
notebook with 1897 article

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Lines Written on Returning
A Lady's Violin
​
Return, sweet violin, and render
To thy mistress, echoes tender,
Born of songs I've breathed to thee:
Whisper forth in plaintive ditty,
Thrill her gentle soul with pity,
Tune her thoughts to love and me!
 
If she laugh, and cry "Oh folly!
This is but Love's melancholy,"
Then in lighter lyrics sing,
Murmuring in melodious measure,
How her heart's fairest treasure
Bounteous earth to me can bring!
 
In thy crannies I have hidden
Songs which need but to be bidden
And their notes will wake anew:
Songs to soothe her grief and sadness,
Summon mirth, woo bliss and gladness,
Songs for every season due.
 
Go, wanton in the warm caresses
Of maiden hand and cheek and tresses
Happy, happy violin!
Could I be thou when as thou liest
On her breast and softly sighest
Greater joy were none to win.
 
—Will Hill, 1895

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​"A woman may sit in her own quiet room, and, by her love, that brightens the homes of earth, and her faith, that lifts up human hearts to the hope of their heavenly home, she may send out influences that will not only make the world better and happier, but also help it to rise upward in its onward progress."
—Sarah Josepha Hale, 1866.

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Give Me A Rosebud
​
Ere summer, on unsandaled feet,
Goes, with her wealth of roses sweet,
Oh, darling one, please give to me
A rosebud, sweet and fair to see.
A lovely rose of creamy-white,
Oft kissed by shining rays of light,
And oft refreshed by gentle dew
And summer rain. Oh, dear one true,
Please let this lovely rosebud be
A token of thy love to me.
Oh, give me, dear, a rosebud fair,
That thou hast watched with tender care.
Perfect its beauty; for I know
Its loveliness would rarer grow
Beneath the gleamings of thine eyes,
Bright as the blue of sapphire skies,
A sacred treasure it will be,
A token of thy love to me.
 
—Aurora Vane, 1883.
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  "Genuine wheelmen grow readily acquainted with one another, off-hand and "boy-fashion," because the element of heartiness and sincerity in the sport creates the same feeling of fraternity and kinship which exists between boys up to the period when estrangement is caused by the advent of worldly wisdom."
​—Karl Kron, 1887.

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"Words are freeborn, and not the vassals of the gruff tyrants of prose to do their bidding only. They have the same right to dance and sing as the dewdrops have to sparkle and the stars to shine."
​—Abraham Coles, 1882.

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Love's Eloquence
In dreams of thee I feel the eloquence
That floods the souls of poets half divine;
Earth blooms anew, and music makes a sense
Of glorious pain, and thought gives warmth like wine.
 
Oh, to give this to language! to distil
With wizardry the heavenly vapor fleet
And in a word, a gem, a flower, at will,
Cast it in trembling passion at thy feet.
 
—Thomas Walsh, 1900

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A Song of the Wheel
 
When the air is rushing past us, and our ride has just begun,
With the hard white road beneath us, and above, the blazing sun,
What a happiness is in us, what a joy is it we feel,
When it's ride, ride, ride, a-riding on the wheel.
 
We are racing down the roadway, passing tree and field,
Tell us not of other pastimes, and the pleasures that they yield.
For we now are racing madly, nimbly working toe and heel,
For it's race, race, race, a-racing on the wheel.
 
There's a heavenly sky above us, and Nature laughs aloud!
In our little rustic arbor we forget the "madding crowd."
But now we must be stirring, and down the street we steal,
And it's ring, ring, ring, of the bell above the wheel.
 
But it isn't always "scorching," and my cycle's pace is slow,
When the one who cycles with me is the lady that I know,
With face divine, a perfect form, a heart as true as steel,
Oh, it's love, love, love, it's Cupid on the wheel.
 
When Old Time has cycled past me, and my ride is almost done,
And my life will all be evening, and above, the setting sun,
I shall watch the roving cyclist, I shall still be full of zeal,
'Twill be glad, glad, glad, glad memories of the wheel.
 
—Arthur H. Lawrence, 1896
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​Base-ball of Life
 
How much a society girl's life resembles
A game of base-ball in the fair field of life;
Her friends, on the judgement stand, eager assemble,
To witness the victory or triumph the strife.
 
The game has been called and reluctantly entered;
She knows all are watching her heart play—the ball--
Yet none know just where the attraction is centred,
Or even on whom the rich treasure will fall.
 
The nine who are playing with hearts all afire,
In hopes that opponents defeated return,
Resemble the number of those who aspire
To the hand for which many incessant will yearn.
 
The first base is he who has won by endeavor
Some token of friendship above all the rest;
The second base, he who for love's sake will weather
E'en love's competition—the fortress to test.
 
Third base is the man who, in spite of desire
To conquer his passion, must yield to the charm;
Still watches the heart-ball as higher and higher
It rises—then falls—in another man's palm.
 
Short-stop's the man who is furthest from winning,
And yet he is nearer the pitcher, 'tis true;
He eagerly watches the heart-ball while spinning--
In somebody's heaven—and he becomes blue.
 
Throughout the whole poem that heart's been ascending,
Far into man's heaven, expanding so wide;
But now it has changed and downward descending,
It falls to the catcher!  Who is he?  Decide!
 
—J. Adele Mulligan

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Victorian ghost story trade card.  Note the similarity between the woman and a young Queen Victoria, and the corresponding similarity between the portrait in the background and Victoria's consort Prince Albert.  Coincidence?  I think not!

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"Everything that exists has its origin in the past." —Alexandre Dumas, 1861.

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​"I am of opinion that no exercise for women has ever been discovered that is to them so really useful [as riding a high wheel tricycle]. Young and middle-aged ladies can learn to ride the tricycle with greatest facility, and they become excellently skillful. One young lady, who is very dear to me, can beat me both in pace and in distance, and in a tour we have made to-day of several miles on a beautiful country road, we have enjoyed ourselves as much as when we ride out together on horseback, while we have had better exercise. I shall rejoice to see the time when this exercise shall be as popular amongst girls and women as tennis and the dance, for the more fully the physical life of our womankind is developed, the better for men as well as women."
—Dr. B.W. Richardson, 1882.

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Winter
Like a blushing maiden
Nature hides her face,
But by what she loses
Gains an added grace.
While the snowflakes thickly
Flutter through the gloom,
Let the dancing fire-flames
Cheer our cozy room.
And though it be winter
We'll not think of sorrow,
For from friendship's hearthstone
Summer warmth we'll borrow.
​—Fred Miller, 1883

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Victorian valentine with bicycling girls

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Love's Greeting
Ever through life's pilgrimage
Be it thine to know
That sweet, helpful sympathy
Which loving hearts bestow.

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​A Ballade of This Age
 
Long years ago, when garb of steel
Was worn to war by gallants gay,
And valiant hearts o'erflowed with zeal
Their knightly prowess to display;
When men believed in elf and fay,--
Then lovers often wielded lance,
And risked their lives in mortal fray,
For maiden's praise or tender glance.
 
Oblivion now has set its seal
On those proud deeds of ages gray,
When Love to ladies made appeal
Through minstrel's lute or poet's lay;
Extinguished now is ev'ry ray
Of that bright sun of old Romance,
And unmoved now those hommes d'epée
By maiden's praise or tender glance.
 
Time's onward course now doth reveal
Another chivalry today;
They ride no steed but trusty Wheel;
No garb of steel doth them array.
Yet gallant knights and true are they;
Full hard they ride, oft brook mischance,
And daring feats full oft essay,
For maiden's praise or tender glance.
 
Envoy
O 'cycling knights of our late day!
Her dearest prize Fortuna grants,
And sweetest guerdon doth convey,
In maiden's praise or tender glance.
 
—Basil Webb, 1883.

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Victorian bicycle advertisement
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Why?
I cannot tell you why I love you.
Ask the dewdrop on the rose
Why it falls and rests so softly,
Ere the lovely leaves unclose.
 
I cannot tell you why I love you.
Ask the bird who sweetly sings
Why he trills his tender carol,
List the answer which he brings.
 
I cannot tell you why I love you.
Love were lost if it could speak.
But your voice is as the bird-song,
As the dewy rose your cheek.
 
—Minnie C. Ballard, 1883
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June
A sky full of blue and an earth spread with green,
With fleecy white clouds softly floating between,
With trees full of leaves and of songsters in tune,
Oh! What can this be but our beautiful June?
She throws out her signal o'er garden and wall,
She tosses her banner of roses to all;
No matter what scenes or how sweetly attune,
​A month without roses could never be June. —Sarah E. Howard, 1888

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For A Birthday
How many years have subtly wrought,
With patient art and loving care,
To rear this pleasurehouse of thought,
This fabric of a woman fair?
'Twere vain to guess: years leave no trace
On that soft cheek's translucent swell;
Time, lingering to behold that face,
Is cheated of his purpose fell.
Why ask how many, when I find
Her charm with every morrow new?
How be so stupid?
Was I blind?
Next birthday I shall ask how few.
—James Russell Lowell, 1892

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A Gift
What's the best thing I can offer
As a gift for you to-day?
Any present I may proffer
You will value it, you say.
That is very sweetly spoken,
Yet, however that may be,
I should wish to choose the token
Carefully—so let us see.
 
Shall I send a nosegay, dearest?
Ah! the summer flowers are dead,
And the leaves are in their serest,
And the fruit has lost its red;
And, besides, the flowers would perish,
Lose their scent, and fade and die;
But a gift for you to cherish
Should be more than petals dry.
 
Shall I send a pretty present,
Something tasteful, something rare?
Something to the senses pleasant,
Something quaint, or something fair?
Yet, perhaps, you would not choose it,
If the choice could rest with you,
And some day perhaps you'd lose it,
Or the thing might break in two.
 
Shall I send you for your reading
Some loved book of noble thought,
Spirit-stirring, spirit-leading,
Teaching what you would be taught?
Yet perhaps upon the morrow
I might learn 'twas yours before,
Or some day a friend might borrow,
To return it never more!
 
What if I to-day should send you
Something of my very own,
No one else can give or lend you,
No one ask for on a loan--
Something that will still be waking
When the flowers in dust are strewed?
Something far too strong for breaking,
And you can't lose if you would.
 
Love I send you, very tender,
Everlasting, ever true,
That will show you how the sender
Thinks and cares and feels for you;
And when life is at its dreariest,
Or when outside things look grey,
May my fadeless present, dearest,
Point you to a brighter day!
 
 
—Harriet L. Childe-Pemberton, 1883.

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Victorian corset advertisement​

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"The inspiration of the true scholar comes from the vast realms of knowledge which lie before him." —Anonymous, 1872.
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"No one can know or think too much, or act too well."
​—W.H. Venable, 1872.

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"What we truly and earnestly aspire to be, that in some sense we are. The mere aspiration, by changing the frame of mind, for the moment realizes itself."
​ —Mrs. Jameson, 1877.
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"Every new book must have, in the consciousness of its author, a private history that, like the mysteries of romance, would if unfolded have an interest for the reader, and by unveiling the inner life of the volume show its character and tendencies."
—Sarah Josepha Hale, 1866.
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​The Wheelman's Joy
 
The shadow of my silent steed
Flies over hill and vale,
As swiftly as the clouds that speed
On Notus' fav'ring gale.
 
No whip, no spur, its sleek thigh wounds;
Nor galls the chaffing rein;
But, free as Helios' steed, it bounds
Along the shining plain.
 
Fly on, fly on, my glorious wheel,
And round the belted earth
Go flashing with thy spokes of steel,
Like star on heaven's girth!
 
My toils, my cares I leave behind;
Away, away I spin.
The birds that travel on the wind
Seem all my kith and kin.
 
Look how the groves go by the fields,
The fields go by the groves!
What joy the flying 'cycle yields,
As swiftly on it moves!
 
Now cleaving with its noiseless hoof
The white dust of the plain;
Now sliding down the mountain's roof
Like a silver drop of rain!
 
Oh, merry are the wheelman's days;
His dreams are deep and sweet;
He glides down all life's troubled ways
With velvet 'neath his feet!

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A Nurse
 
A nurse, a simple nurse; to the unthinking
Only a nurse, and nothing but a name;
A patient woman in her round of duty,
Living and dying all unknown to fame.
 
Only a nurse, a messenger of mercy,
An angel sent unto our suffering race,
With quiet step, and tender hand of healing,
Divinest pity on her gentle face.
 
When all the world lies wrapt in quiet slumber,
Save the poor sufferer moaning on his bed,
Whose watchful eye with Christian love keeps vigil
Through the long night with silent softened tread?
 
Only a nurse, in duty all unshrinking;
Before such scenes, man's stouter heart would quail;
See there!  That sweet, fair girl, in sorest trial
Is at her post, nor will her courage fail.
 
The fever we but terror-struck encounter,
Or fly before with selfish, coward dread;
While nurse and doctor hasten to the rescue,
And stand unflinching by the stricken bed.
 
Hark!  That weird bell —an accident at midnight;
The nurse and doctor, wakeful, close at hand,
The minister to suffering or dying,
The hospital's heroic little band!
 
There you or I may in our need find refuge,
With kindly help and loving tender care;
Respect we'll give those brave, unselfish women,
And night and day remember them in prayer.
 
—E.M.C., 1886.

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"The imagination is the most active and the least susceptible of fatigue of all the faculties of the human mind; its more intense exercise is tremendous, and sometimes unsettles the reason; its repose is only a gentle sort of activity; nor am I certain that it is ever quite unemployed, for even in our sleep it is still awake and busy, and amuses itself with fabricating our dreams."
​—William Cullen Bryant, 1884.

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My Lady Fair
She walks in the garden, my lady fair,
With a nameless grace and a presence rare;
With rapture I gaze on her lovely face,
For all that is pure and true I trace.
She walks in the garden, my lady fair.
There's a glint of gold in her rippling hair,
She's trilling a lay of the olden time,
And her eye grows bright as her glance meets mine.
I love her! I love her!
This lady fair,
With the gracious mien and the presence rare.
And the dearest of all life's joys, I ween,
Is to call my lady my wife, my queen.
—Mrs. Pidsley, 1883. 
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"Carry sunshine in thine own heart, and, like the perfume in flowers, it will breathe a fragrance everywhere." —Anonymous, 1887.
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Victorian die-cut pasted into an autograph album in the late 19th-century
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"The past is our wisest and best instructor. In its dim and shadowy outlines we may, if we will, discern in some measure those elements of wisdom which should guide the present and secure the welfare of the future."
—Frederick Douglass, 1889.
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Victorian die-cut pasted into an autograph album in the late 19th-century
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"Refuse to dwell among shadows when there is so much sunshine in the world." —Hester M. Poole, 1888.
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Nothing Like Kitty
If you'd see something pretty, something dainty, something nice,
Take a look at my kitty; and tell me, if you're wise,
Is there anything cuter, anywhere in town,
Anything softer than this ball of down?
Is there anything with silky hair, of such a tawny shade?
Anything with two ears, like pink shells inlaid?
Anything with two eyes, round and bright and saucy?
Anything with feet so spry to catch a thievish mousey? —Anonymous, 1888.
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"Nature alone cures, what nursing has to do… is put the patient in the best position for nature to act upon him." —Florence Nightingale, 1860.
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"Everything that exists has its origin in the past." —Alexandre Dumas, 1861.
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"Love is the golden key that unlocks all souls." —A.D. Mayo, 1872.
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"What we truly and earnestly aspire to be, that in some sense we are.  The mere aspiration, by changing the frame of mind, for the moment realizes itself."
—Mrs. Jameson, 1877.​
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"Man pays deference to woman instinctively, involuntarily, not because she is beautiful, or truthful, or wise, or foolish, or proper, but because she is woman, and he can not help it.  If she descends, he will lower to her level; if she rises, he will rise to her height."
—Gail Hamilton, 1872.​
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"Every new book must have, in the consciousness of its author, a private history that, like the mysteries of romance, would if unfolded have an interest for the reader, and by unveiling the inner life of the volume show its character and tendencies."
​—Sarah Josepha Hale, 1866.
​

Victorian die-cut pasted into an autograph album in the late 19th-century
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"Love is the golden key that unlocks all souls."—A.D. Mayo, 1872.

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​"Books are windows through which the mind looks out."
—Anonymous, 1889.

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This die-cut was pasted into a Victorian autograph album back in 1892. The lady who gave it to the album's owner wrote nearby:
"The leaves of the valley shall wither / The joys of life fade away / But friendship shall blossom forever / Where all other joys shall decay."

---

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"It is better for men, it is better for women, that each somewhat idealize the other."
—Gail Hamilton, 1872. ​

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"The perfect woman is as beautiful as she is strong, as tender as she is sensible.  She is calm, deliberate, dignified, leisurely.  She is gay, graceful, sprightly, sympathetic.  She is severe upon occasion, and upon occasion playful." —Gail Hamilton, 1872.
Illustration from Peterson's Magazine, 1877, scanned from our private collection.

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Desire
 Ella Wheeler Wilcox, 1887.
No joy for which thy hungering heart has panted,
No hope it cherishes through the waiting years,
But, if thou dost deserve it, it shall be granted;
For with each passionate wish the blessing nears.
 
Tune up the fine-strung instrument of thy being
To chord with thy dear hope; and do not tire;
When both, in key and rhythm are agreeing,
Lo!  Thou shalt kiss the lips of thy desire.
 
The thing thou cravest so, waits in the distance,
Wrapped in the Silence, unseen and dumb.
'Tis thine to make it part of thy existence;
Live worthy of it —call— and it will come.

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Pass to Society (1896)
Bike, and the world bikes with you;
Walk, and you walk alone.
And you can't get into society
If you have no wheel of your own.​

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​The Rose of Stars
 
When Love, our great Immortal,
Put on mortality,
And down from Eden's portal
Brought this sweet world to be,
At the sublime archangel
He laughed with veilèd eyes,
For he bore within his bosom
The seed of Paradise.
 
He hid it in his bosom,
And there such warmth it found,
It brake in bud and blossom,
And the rose fell on the ground;
As the green light on the prairie,
As the red light on the sea,
Through fragrant belts of summer
Came this sweet world to be.
 
And the grave archangel, seeing,
Spread his mighty vans for flight,
But a glow hung round him fleeing
Like the rose of Arctic night;
And sadly moving heavenword
By Venus and by Mars,
He heard the joyful planets
Hail Earth, the Rose of Stars.
 
—G.E. Woodberry, 1896

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"If a book come from the heart it will contrive to reach other hearts.—All art and authorcraft are of small account to that." —Thomas Carlyle, 19th-century.

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"Great love alone is timeless amid change." —Phillip Marston, 1894.

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"To me, words are a mystery and a marvel… There is no point where art so nearly touches nature as when it appears in the form of words." —J.G. Holland, 1884.
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Love's Eloquence
In dreams of thee I feel the eloquence
That floods the souls of poets half divine;
Earth blooms anew, and music makes a sense
Of glorious pain, and thought gives warmth like wine.
 
Oh, to give this to language! to distil
With wizardry the heavenly vapor fleet
And in a word, a gem, a flower, at will,
Cast it in trembling passion at thy feet.
  
—Thomas Walsh, 1900

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"This is the true nature of home -- it is the place of Peace... it is a sacred place, a vestal temple, watched over by Household Gods, before whose faces none can come but those whom they can receive with love, -- so far as it is this... so far it vindicates the name and fulfills the praise of home."
​—John Ruskin, 1878.​

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"Hers was not a nature to be crushed by any trouble; on the contrary, the deeper the water the better she floated." — Darley Dale, 1889.

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"Have nothing in your houses that you do not know to be useful, or feel to be beautiful."
​—William Morris, 19th-century.
​