Margaret Elizabeth Sangster

Margaret Elizabeth Sangster (February 22, 1838 – June 3, 1912) was an American poet, author, and editor popular in the late 19th and early 20th century.

Quotes

• I know,—yet my arms are empty,
  That fondly folded seven,
  And the mother heart within me
  Is almost starved for heaven.
  • "Are the Children at Home?", in Poems of the Household (Boston and New York: Houghton, Mifflin and Company, 1893), p. 19.

• Never yet was a spring-time,
  Late though lingered the snow,
  That the sap stirred not at the whisper
  Of the south wind, sweet and low;
  Never yet was a spring-time
  When the buds forgot to blow.
  • "Awakening", in Easter Bells: Poems (New York: Harper and Brothers, 1897), p. 4.

Winsome Womanhood (1900)

Winsome Womanhood (New York: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1900)

• Fifteen takes its perplexities very seriously and grieves wihout restraint over its sorrows.
  • Ch. I: "The Girl of Fifteen", p. 22.

• One of the first things to be noted in business life is its imperialism. Business is exacting, engrossing, and inelastic.
  • Ch. VI: "The Girl in Business", p. 64.

• Let every birthday be a festival, a time when the gladness of the house finds expression in flowers, in gifts, in a little fête. Never should a birthday be passed over without note, or as if it were a common day, never should it cease to be a garlanded milestone in the road of life.
  • Ch. XV: "As the Children Are About Her", p. 133.

• Every child's birthright is a happy home.
  • Ch. XV: "As the Children Are About Her", p. 135.

• My own opinion is that youthfulness of feeling is retained, as is youthfulness of appearance, by constant use of the intellect.
  • Ch. XXI: "New Studies", p. 167.

• Mind does dominate body. We are superior to the house in which we dwell.
  • Ch. XXI: "New Studies", p. 170.

• Self complacency is fatal to progress.
  • Ch. XXVII: "Consistency and Kindred Virtues", p. 208.

From My Youth Up: Personal Reminiscences (1909)

From My Youth Up: Personal Reminiscences (New York: Fleming H. Revell Company, 1909)

• On the day long after childhood when I suddenly heard of his death, the sky grew dark above my head. I was walking on a Southern highway, and a friend driving in a pony carriage passed me, stopped and said, "Have you heard that Charles Dickens is dead?" It was as if I had been robbed of one of the dearest of friends.
  • Ch. VI: "The Home Library", p. 82.

• I would not, if I could, give up the memory of the joy I have had in books for any advantage that could be offered in other pursuits or occupations. Books have been to me what gold is to the miser, what new fields are to the explorer, what a new discovery is to the scientific student.
  • Ch. VI: "The Home Library", pp. 82–83.

• In the whole round of human affairs little is so fatal to peace as misunderstanding.
  • Ch. XIII: "Hints of the Coming Storm", p. 172.

External links

• Finding Aid for the Margaret E. Sangster Papers at The University of North Carolina at Greensboro