some day, as I hope some time again to see you, when all of us are well. Only it ends thus, 'We were nearly of an age; he was the elder; he was the only person in the world in whose eyes I always appeared young." I will now take leave with assuring you that I am most interested in hoping to hear favourable accounts from you. With kindest regards to A. K. and you, "Yours truly, "C. L." 1 [This particularly impressed Lamb, for he recalled his own old friend—almost more than brother-Richard Norris, of the Temple. In his letter to Robinson, January 20th, 1826, he says, "Old as I am waxing, in his eyes I was still the child he first knew me. To the last he called me Charley. I have none to call me Charley now."] THE CHAPTER XV. LETTERS TO BARTON, WILSON, AND GILMAN. [1829-30.] HE illness of Mr. Barton's daughter drew from Lamb the following expression of kindred loneliness and sorrow: TO BERNARD BARTON. "July 3rd, 1829. "Dear B. B.,-I am very much grieved indeed for the indisposition of poor Lucy. Your letter found me in domestic troubles. My sister is again taken ill, and I am obliged to remove her out of the house for many weeks, I fear, before I can hope to have her again. I have been very desolate indeed. My loneliness is a little abated by our young friend Emma having just come here for her holydays, and a schoolfellow of hers that was, with her. Still the house is not the same, tho' she is the same. Mary had been pleasing herself with the prospect of seeing her at this time; and with all their company the house feels at times a frightful solitude. May you and I in no very long time have a more cheerful theme to write about, and congratulate upon a daughter's and a sister's perfect recovery. Do not be long without telling me how Lucy goes on. have a right to call her by her quaker-name, you know. Emma knows that I am writing to you, and begs to be remembered to you with thankfulness for your ready contribution. Her album is filling apace. But of her contributors one, almost the flower of it, a most amiable young man and late acquaintance of mine, has been carried off by consumption, on return from one of the Azores islands, to which he went with hopes of mastering the disease, came back improved, went back to a most close and confined I counting-house, and relapsed. His name was Dibdin, grandson of the Songster. "C. L." What a lesson does the following read to us from one who, while condemned to uninteresting industry, thought happiness consisted in an affluence of time! Here Lucy Barton has recovered from her indisposition; but Miss Lamb is still away. It is a melancholy letter, though beginning in so gay a strain. TO BERNARD BARTON. "Enfield Chase-side, Saturday, 25th July, A.D. 1829, 11 A.M. "There-a fuller, plumper, juicier date never dropt from Idumean palm. Am I in the date-ive case now? if not, a fig for dates, which is more than a date is worth. I never stood much affected to these limitary specialities. Least of all, since the date of my superannuation. 'What have I with time to do? Slaves of desks, 'twas meant for you.' "Dear B. B.-Your handwriting has conveyed much pleasure to me in respect of Lucy's restoration. Would I could send you as good news of my poor Lucy! But some wearisome weeks I must remain lonely yet. I have had the loneliest time, near ten weeks, broken by a short apparition of Emma for her Holydays, whose departure only deepened the returning Solitude, and by ten days I have passed in Town. But town, with all my native hankering after it, is not what it was. The streets, the shops are left; but all old friends are gone. And in London I was frightfully convinced of this as I passed houses and places, empty caskets now. I have ceased to care almost about any body. The bodies I cared for are in graves, or dispersed. My old clubs, that lived so long, and flourished so steadily, are crumbled away. When I took leave of our adopted young friend at Charing Cross, 'twas heavy unfeeling rain, and I had no where to go. Home have I none, and not a sympathising house to turn to in the great city. Never did the waters of heaven pour down on a forlorner head. Yet I tried ten days at a sort of a friend's house ;' but it was large and straggling,-one of the individuals of my old long knot of friends, card-players, pleasant companions, that have tumbled to pieces, into dust and other things; and I got home on Thursday, convinced that I was better to get home to my hole at Enfield, and hide like a sick cat in my corner. Less than a month, I hope, will bring home Mary. She is at Fulham, looking better in her health than ever, but. sadly rambling, and scarce showing any pleasure in seeing me, or curiosity, when I should come again. But the old feelings will come back again, and we shall drown old sorrows over a game of picquet again. But 'tis a tedious cut out of a life of fifty-four, to lose twelve or thirteen weeks every year or two. And to make me more alone, our ill-tempered maid is gone, who, with all her airs, was yet a home-piece of furniture, a record of better days; 2 the young thing that has succeeded her is good and attentive; but she is nothing. And I have no one here to talk over old matters with. Scolding and quarrelling have something of familiarity and a community of interest; they imply acquaintance; they are of resentment, which is of the family of dearness. "I can neither scold nor quarrel at this insignificant implement of household services; she is less than a cat, and just better than a deal dresser. What I can do, and do over-do, is to walk; but deadly long are the days, these summer all-day days, with but a half hour's candle-light and no fire-light. I do not write, tell your kind inquisitive Eliza, and can hardly read. In the ensuing Blackwood will be an old rejected farce of mine, which may be new to you, if you see that same medley. What things are all the Magazines now? I contrive studiously not to see them. The popular New Monthly' is perfect trash. Poor Hessey, I suppose you see, has failed-Hunt and Clarke too. Your Vulgar Truths' will be a good name; and I think your prose must please—me at least. But 'tis useless to write Poetry with no purchaser. 'Tis cold work 6 1 [Not even in Procter's "Life of Lamb," 1866, where this letter is cited, is there any clue to the name; but it was probably at Montagu's that he stayed.] 2 [Becky.] ́uthorship, without something to puff one into fashion. Could you not write something on Quakerism, for Quakers to read, but nominally addressed to Non-Quakers, explaining your dogmas-waiting on the Spirit-by the analogy of human calmness and patient waiting on the judgment? I scarcely know what I mean, but to make Non-Quakers reconciled to your doctrines, by showing something like them in mere human operations; but I hardly understand myself; so let it pass for nothing. I pity you for overwork, but, I assure you, no work is worse. The mind preys on itself, the most unwholesome food. I bragged formerly that I could not have too much time. I have now a surfeit. With few years to come, the days are wearisome. But weariness is not eternal. Something will shine out to take the load off that flags me, which is at present intolerable. I have killed an hour or two in this poor scrawl. I am a sanguinary murderer of time, and would kill him inch-meal just now. But the snake is vital. Well: I shall write merrier anon. 'Tis the present copy of my countenance I send, and to complain is a little to alleviate. May you enjoy yourself as far as the wicked world will let you, and think that you are not quite alone, as I am! Health to Lucia; and to Anna, and kind remembrances. The cares of housekeeping pressed too heavily on Miss Lamb, and her brother, whose tenancy apparently expired at Michaelmas, 1829, resolved, after a great struggle, to resign the dignity of a housekeeper for the independence of a lodger. A couple of old dwellers in Enfield, hard by his cottage, had the good fortune to receive them. Two letters, to Novello and Dyer, bear no note of time. They are conjecturally placed here, because they were evidently written just after the domestication of the Lambs with Mr. and Mrs. Westwood1 in the middle of October of the present year. The exchange of hospitalities between them and their friends was of the good old-fashioned type. Mr. and Mrs. Cowden Clarke speak of the "brilliant supper 2 1 [Compare the letter to Wilson, 15th November, 1829, below.] 2 [In the letter to Gilman of October 24th, Lamb speaks of the removal as having taken place less than a week before.] |