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HARVARD
UNIVERSITY
LIBRARY

CHISWICK PRESS:-C. WHITTINGHAM AND CO. TOOKS COURT,

CHANCERY LANE.

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BOOK III. (CONTINUED).

CORRESPONDENCE BETWEEN 1801 AND 1820.

CHAPTER XV.

THE

LETTERS TO MANNING AND THE WORDSWORTHS.

[1815.]

'HE following letter to Mrs. Wordsworth's sister, who resided with the poet at Rydal, relates to matters of more domestic and personal interest. He returns to the subject of his irksome duties at the India House, of which he has already spoken so bitterly in some former letters; and in one to Miss Matilda Betham, of September 30 this year he remarks, "Your letter has found me in such a distressed state, owing partly to my situation at home, and partly to perplexities at my office, that I am constrained to relinquish any further revision of Marie,'" to which there is a reference in the letter to his fair correspondent of the 1st of June next (1816). Miss Betham seems to have resorted pretty freely to Lamb for his assistance and advice. There is another letter to her, in which he says:- "I return you by a careful hand the MSS. Did I not ever love your verses ? The domestic leaf will be a meet heirloom to have in the family. 'Tis fragrant with cordiality. What friends you must have had, or dreamed of having!"

TO MISS HUTCHINSON.

Thursday, 19th Oct., 1815.

"Dear Miss H.,-I am forced to be the replier to your letter, for Mary has been ill, and gone from home these five weeks yesterday. She has left me very lonely and very miserable. I stroll about; but there is no rest but at one's own fireside; and there is no rest for me there now. I look forward to the worse half being past, and keep up as well as I can. She has begun to show some favourable symptoms. The return of her disorder has been frightfully soon this time, with scarce a six months' interval. I am almost afraid my worry of spirits about the E. I. House was. partly the cause of her illness; but one always imputes it to the cause next at hand; more probably it comes from some cause we have no control over or conjecture of. It cuts sad great slices out of the time, the little time, we shall have to live together. I don't know but the recurrence of these illnesses might help me to sustain her death better than if we had had no partial separations. But I won't talk of death. I will imagine us immortal, or forget that we are otherwise. By God's blessing, in a few weeks we may be making our meal together, or sitting in the front row of the Pit at Drury lane, or taking our evening walk past the theatres, to look at the outside of them, at least, if not to be tempted in. Then we forget we are assailable; we are strong for the time as rocks;-'the wind is tempered to the shorn Lambs.' Poor C. Lloyd and poor Priscilla! I feel I hardly feel enough for him; my own calamities press about me, and involve me in a thick integument not to be reached at by other folks' misfortunes. But I feel all I can—all the kindness I can, towards you all— God bless you! I hear nothing from Coleridge.

"Yours truly,

"C. LAMB."

The following letters best speak for themselves :

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