The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb Volume VI Part 96

Dear Miss Fryer,--Your letter found me just returned from keeping my birthday (pretty innocent!) at Dover-street. I see them pretty often. I have since had letters of business to write, or should have replied earlier. In one word, be less uneasy about me; I bear my privations very well; I am not in the depths of desolation, as heretofore. Your admonitions are not lost upon me. Your kindness has sunk into my heart.

Have faith in me! It is no new thing for me to be left to my sister.

When she is not violent, her rambling chat is better to me than the sense and sanity of this world. Her heart is obscured, not buried; it breaks out occasionally; and one can discern a strong mind struggling with the billows that have gone over it. I could be nowhere happier than under the same roof with her. Her memory is unnaturally strong; and from ages past, if we may so call the earliest records of our poor life, she fetches thousands of names and things that never would have dawned upon me again, and thousands from the ten years she lived before me. What took place from early girlhood to her coming of age princ.i.p.ally lives again (every important thing and every trifle) in her brain with the vividness of real presence. For twelve hours incessantly she will pour out without intermission all her past life, forgetting nothing, pouring out name after name to the Waldens as a dream; sense and nonsense; truths and errors huddled together; a medley between inspiration and possession. What things we are! I know you will bear with me, talking of these things. It seems to ease me; for I have n.o.body to tell these things to now. Emma, I see, has got a harp! and is learning to play. She has framed her three Walton pictures, and pretty they look. That is a book you should read; such sweet religion in it--next to Woolman's!

though the subject be baits and hooks, and worms, and fishes. She has my copy at present to do two more from.

Very, very tired, I began this epistle, having been epistolising all the morning, and very kindly would I end it, could I find adequate expressions to your kindness. We did set our minds on seeing you in spring. One of us will indubitably. But I am not skilled in almanac learning, to know when spring precisely begins and ends. Pardon my blots; I am glad you like your book. I wish it had been half as worthy of your acceptance as "John Woolman." But 'tis a good-natured book.

[Miss Fryer was a school-fellow of Mrs. Moxon's.

I append another letter, undated, to the same lady. It belongs obviously to an earlier period, but the exact position is unimportant:--]

LETTER 600

CHARLES LAMB TO Miss FRYER

[No date.]

My dear Miss Fryer, By desire of Emma I have attempted new words to the old nonsense of Tartar Drum; but _with_ the nonsense the sound and spirit of the tune are unaccountably gone, and _we_ have agreed to discard the new version altogether. As _you_ may be more fastidious in singing mere silliness, and a string of well-sounding images without sense or coherence--Drums of Tartars, who use _none_, and Tulip trees ten foot high, not to mention Spirits in Sunbeams &c,--than we are, so you are at liberty to sacrifice an enspiriting movement to a little sense, tho' I like LITTLE-SENSE less than his vagarying younger sister NO-SENSE--so I send them----

The 4th line of 1st stanza is from an old Ballad.

Emma is looking weller and handsomer (as you say) than ever. Really, if she goes on thus improving, by the time she is nine and thirty she will be a tolerable comely person. But I may not live to see it.--I take Beauty to be _catching_-- a Cholera sort of thing--Now, whether the constant presence of a handsome object--for there's only two of us--may not have the effect------but the subject is delicate, and as my old great Ant* used to say--"Andsome is as andsome duzz"--that was my great Ant's way of spelling----

Most and best kind things say to yourself and dear Mother for all your kindnesses to our Em., tho' in truth I am a little tired with her everlasting repet.i.tion of 'em. Yours very Truly,

CHS LAMB.

* Emma's way of spelling Miss _Umfris_, as I spell her _Aunt_.

LOVE WILL COME

_Tune: "The Tartar Drum"_

I

Guard thy feelings, pretty Vestal, From the smooth Intruder free; Cage thine heart in bars of chrystal, Lock it with a golden key; Thro' the bars demurely stealing-- Noiseless footstep, accent dumb, His approach to none revealing-- Watch, or watch not, LOVE WILL COME.

His approach to none revealing-- Watch, or watch not, Love will come--Love, Watch, or watch not, Love will come.

II

Scornful Beauty may deny him-- He hath spells to charm disdain; Homely Features may defy him-- Both at length must wear the chain.

Haughty Youth in Courts of Princes-- Hermit poor with age oercome-- His soft plea at last convinces; Sooner, later, LOVE WILL COME--

His soft plea at length convinces; Sooner, later, Love will come--Love, Sooner, later, Love will come.

LETTER 601

CHARLES LAMB TO WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

Church S't, Edmonton,

22 feb. [1834].

Dear Wordsworth, I write from a house of mourning. The oldest and best friends I have left, are in trouble. A branch of them (and they of the best stock of G.o.d's creatures, I believe) is establis.h.i.+ng a school at Carlisle. Her name is Louisa Martin, her address 75 Castle Street, Carlisle; her qualities (and her motives for this exertion) are the most amiable, most upright. For thirty years she has been tried by me, and on her behaviour I would stake my soul. O if you can recommend her, how would I love you--if I could love you better. Pray, pray, recommend her.

She is as good a human creature,--next to my Sister, perhaps the most exemplary female I ever knew. Moxon tells me, you would like a Letter from me. You shall have one. _This_ I cannot mingle up with any nonsense which you usually tolerate from, C. LAMB. Need he add loves to Wife, Sister, and all? Poor Mary is ill again, after a short lucid interval of 4 or 5 months. In short, I may call her half dead to me.

Good you are to me. Yours with fervor of friends.h.i.+p; for ever

turn over

If you want references, the Bishop of Carlisle may be one. Louisa's Sister, (as good as she, she cannot be better tho' she tries,) educated the daughters of the late Earl of Carnarvon, and he settled a handsome Annuity on her for life. In short all the family are a sound rock. The present Lord Carnarvon married Howard of Graystock's Sister.

[Wordsworth has written on the wrapper, "Lamb's last letter."

We met the Martins in the early correspondence. It was Louisa whom, many years, before, Lamb used to call "Monkey."

Here should come Lamb's last letter to Thomas Manning, dated May 10, 1834. Mary has, he says, been ill for nigh twenty weeks; "she is, I hope, recovering." "I struggle to town rarely, and then to see London, with little other motive--for what is left there hardly? The streets and shops entertaining ever, else I feel as in a desert, and get me home to my cave." Once a month, he adds, he pa.s.ses a day with Cary at the Museum. When Mary was getting better in the previous year she would read all the auctioneers' advertis.e.m.e.nts on the walk. "These are _my_ Play-bills," she said. "I walk 9 or 10 miles a day, always up the road, dear Londonwards." Addressed to Manning at Puckeridge.

Manning lived on, an eccentric recluse, until 1840.

Here perhaps should come the following melancholy letter to Talfourd, which Mr. Dobell permits me to print:--]

LETTER 602

CHARLES LAMB TO T.N. TALFOURD

[No date. Early 1834?]

D'r T.--[1]Moxon & Knowles are coming to Enfield on Sunday _afternoon_.

My poor shaken head cannot at present let me ask any dinner company; for two drinkings in a day, which must ensue, would incapacity me. I am very poorly. They can only get an Edmont'n stage, from which village 'tis but a 2 miles walk, & I have only _inn beds_ to offer. _Pray_, join 'em if you can. Our first morning stage to London is 1/2 past 8. If that won't suit your avocations, arrange with Ryle (or without him)--but how can I separate him morally?--logically and legally, poetically and critically I can,--from you? No disparagement (for a better Christian exists not)--well arrange _c.u.m_ or _absque illo_--this is latin-- the first Sunday you can, _morning_.

I am poorly, but I always am on these occasions, a week or two. Then I get sober,--I mean less insober. Yours till death; you are mine _after_.

Don't mind a touch of pathos. Love to Mrs. Talfourd.

The Edmonton stages come almost every hour from Snow Hill.

[Footnote 1: Erratum, for M. & K. read K. & M. Booksellers _after_ Authors.]

[Ryle, as I have already said, was Lamb's executor, with Talfourd. Hence the phrase to Talfourd, "you are mine after."]