Poetical Fragments from Ethel Churchill Volume I/Life’s Mask

by Letitia Elizabeth Landon

For works with similar titles, see Philosophy.

LADY MARCHMONT TO SIR JASPER
MEREDITH.

Which was the true philosopher?—the sage
Who to the sorrows and the crimes of life
Gave tears—or he who laughed at all he saw?
Such mockery is bitter, and yet just:
And Heaven well knows the cause there is to weep.
Methinks that life is what the actor is—
Outside there is the quaint and gibing mask;
Beneath, the pale and careworn countenance.

Blanchard’s title is:

LIFE’S MASK

In The New York Mirror (24th February 1838), as Philosophy