The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb Volume V Part 55

G.o.d bless you and yours my dear friend.

I am yours affectionately M. LAMB.

[Dr. Beddoes, who was attending Mrs. Clarkson, would be, I suppose, Thomas Beddoes of Clifton (1760-1808), the father of Thomas Lovell Beddoes and a friend of Coleridge and Southey.

In a letter from Dorothy Wordsworth to Mrs. Clarkson, dated April 19, 1805 (recently printed by Mr. Hale White in the _Athenaeum_), we read:--

I have great pleasure in thinking that you may see Miss Lamb; do not miss it if you can possibly go without injury to yourself--they are the best good creatures--blessings be with them! they have sympathised in our sorrow as tenderly as if they had grown up in the same [town?] with us and known our beloved John from his childhood. Charles has written to us the most consolatory letters, the result of diligent and painful inquiry of the survivors of the wreck,--for this we must love him as long as we have breath. I think of him and his sister every day of my life, and many times in the day with thankfulness and blessings. Talk to dear Miss Lamb about coming into this country and let us hear what she says of it. I cannot express how much we all wish to see her and her brother while we are at Grasmere. We look forward to Coleridge's return with fear and painful hope--but indeed I dare not look to it--I think as little as I can of him.]

LETTER 135

CHARLES LAMB TO DOROTHY WORDSWORTH

[_Slightly torn. The conjectures in square brackets are Talfourd's._]

Friday, 14th June, 1805.

My dear Miss Wordsworth, Your long kind letter has not been thrown away (for it has given me great pleasure to find you are all resuming your old occupations, and are better) but poor Mary to whom it is addrest cannot yet relish it. She has been attacked by one of her severe illnesses, and is at present _from home_. Last Monday week was the day she left me; and I hope I may calculate upon having her again in a month, or little more. I am rather afraid late hours have in this case contributed to her indisposition. But when she begins to discover symptoms of approaching illness, it is not easy to say what is best to do. Being by ourselves is bad, and going out is bad. I get so irritable and wretched with fear, that I constantly hasten on the disorder. You cannot conceive the misery of such a foresight. I am sure that for the week before she left me, I was little better than light-headed. I now am calm, but sadly taken down, and flat. I have every reason to suppose that this illness, like all her former ones, will be but temporary; but I cannot always feel so. Meantime she is dead to me, and I miss a prop.

All my strength is gone, and I am like a [fool, ber]eft of her co-operation. I dare not think, lest I [should think] wrong; so used am I to look up to her [in the least] and the biggest perplexity. To say _all that_ [I know of her] would be more than I think any body could [believe or even under]stand; and when I hope to have her well [again with me] it would be sinning against her feelings to go about to praise her: for I can conceal nothing that I do from her. She is older, and wiser, and better, than me, and all my wretched imperfections I cover to myself by resolutely thinking on her goodness. She would share life and death, heaven and h.e.l.l, with me. She lives but for me. And I know I have been wasting and teazing her life for five years past incessantly with my cursed drinking and ways of going on. But even in this up-braiding of myself I am offending against her, for I know that she has cleaved to me for better, for worse; and if the balance has been against her hitherto, it was a n.o.ble trade.

I am stupid and lose myself in what I write. I write rather what answers to my feelings (which are sometimes sharp enough) than express my present ones, for I am only flat and stupid.

Poor Miss Stoddart! she is coming to England under the notion of pa.s.sing her time between her mother and Mary, between London and Salisbury.

Since she talk'd of coming, word has been sent to Malta that her Mother is gone out of her mind. This Letter, with mine to Stoddart with an account of Allen's death, &c., has miscarried (taken by the French) [_word missing_]. She is coming home, with no soul to receive [_words missing_]. She has not a woman-friend in London.

I am sure you will excuse my writing [any more, I] am very poorly. I cannot resist tra[nscribing] three or four Lines which poor Mary made upon a Picture (a Holy Family) which we saw at an Auction only one week before she left home. She was then beginning to show signs of ill boding. They are sweet Lines, and upon a sweet Picture. But I send them, only as the last memorial of her.

VIRGIN AND CHILD. L. DA VINCI Maternal Lady with the Virgin-grace, Heaven-born thy Jesus seemeth sure, And thou a virgin pure.

Lady most perfect, when thy angel face Men look upon, they wish to be A Catholic, Madona fair, to worship thee.

You had her lines about the "Lady Blanch." You have not had some which she wrote upon a copy of a girl from t.i.tian, which I had hung up where that print of Blanch and the Abbess (as she beautifully interpreted two female figures from L. da Vinci) had hung, in our room. 'Tis light and pretty.

Who art thou, fair one, who usurp'st the place Of Blanch, the Lady of the matchless grace?

Come, fair and pretty, tell to me Who in thy lifetime thou mightst be?

Thou pretty art and fair, But with the Lady Blanch thou never must compare.

No need for Blanch her history to tell, Whoever saw her face, they there did read it well.

But when I look on thee, I only know There liv'd a pretty maid some hundred years ago.

This is a little unfair, to tell so much about ourselves, and to advert so little to your letter, so full of comfortable tidings of you all. But my own cares press pretty close upon me, and you can make allowance.

That you may go on gathering strength and peace is the next wish to Mary's recovery.

I had almost forgot your repeated invitation. Supposing that Mary will be well and able, there is another _ability_ which you may guess at, which I cannot promise myself. In prudence we ought not to come. This illness will make it still more prudential to wait. It is not a balance of this way of spending our money against another way, but an absolute question of whether we shall stop now, or go on wasting away the little we have got beforehand, which my wise conduct has already incroach'd upon one half. My best Love, however, to you all; and to that most friendly creature, Mrs. Clarkson, and better health to her, when you see or write to her.

C. LAMB.

[The reference to Miss Stoddart is explained later, in the next letter but one.

Mary Lamb's two poems were included in the _Works_, 1818. "Lady Blanch"

is the poem quoted on page 300.]

LETTER 136

CHARLES LAMB TO THOMAS MANNING

[Dated by Mr. Hazlitt: July 27, 1805.]

Dear Archimedes,--Things have gone on badly with thy ungeometrical friend; but they are on the turn. My old housekeeper has shown signs of convalescence, and will shortly resume the power of the keys, so I shan't be cheated of my tea and liquors. Wind in the west, which promotes tranquillity. Have leisure now to antic.i.p.ate seeing thee again.

Have been taking leave of tobacco in a rhyming address. Had thought _that vein_ had long since closed up. [_A sentence omitted here._] Find I can rhyme and reason too. Think of studying mathematics, to restrain the fire of my genius, which G.D. recommends. Have frequent bleedings at the nose, which shows plethoric. Maybe shall try the sea myself, that great scene of wonders. Got incredibly sober and regular; shave oftener, and hum a tune, to signify cheerfulness and gallantry.

Suddenly disposed to sleep, having taken a quart of pease with bacon and stout. Will not refuse Nature, who has done such things for me!

Nurse! don't call me unless Mr. Manning comes.--What! the gentleman in spectacles?--Yes.

_Dormit_.

C. L.

Sat.u.r.day, Hot Noon.

["Have been taking leave of tobacco." On August 10, 1824, Lamb tells Hood that he designs to give up smoking.]

LETTER 137

MARY LAMB TO SARAH STODDART [? Sept. 18, 1805.]

My dear Sarah,--I have made many attempts at writing to you, but it has always brought your troubles and my own so strongly into my mind, that I have been obliged to leave off, and make Charles write for me. I am resolved now, however few lines I write, this shall go; for I know, my kind friend, you will like once more to see my own handwriting.

I have been for these few days past in rather better spirits, so that I begin almost to feel myself once more a living creature, and to hope for happier times; and in that hope I include the prospect of once more seeing my dear Sarah in peace and comfort in our old garret. How did I wish for your presence to cheer my drooping heart when I returned home from banishment.

Is your being with, or near, your poor dear Mother necessary to her comfort? does she take any notice of you? and is there any prospect of her recovery? How I grieve for her and for you....

I went to the Admiralty about your Mother's pension; from thence I was directed to an office in Lincoln's Inn, where they are paid. They informed me at the office that it could not be paid to any person except Mr. Wray, without a letter of attorney from your Mother; and as the stamp for that will cost one pound, it will, perhaps, be better to leave it till Mr. Wray comes to town, if he does come before Christmas; they tell me it can be received any Thursday between this and Christmas, If you send up a letter of Attorney, let it be in my name. If you think, notwithstanding their positive a.s.surance to the contrary, that you can put me in any way of getting it without, let me know. Are you acquainted with Mr. Pearce, and will my taking another letter from you to him be of any service? or will a letter from Mr. Wray be of any use?--though I fear not, for they said at the office they had orders to pay no pension without a letter of Attorney. The attestation you sent up, they said, was sufficient, and that the same must be sent every year. Do not let us neglect this business; and make use of me in any way you can.

I have much to thank you and your kind brother for; I kept the dark silk, as you may suppose: you have made me very fine; the broche is very beautiful. Mrs. Jeffries wept for grat.i.tude when she saw your present; she desires all manner of thanks and good wishes. Your maid's sister was gone to live a few miles from town; Charles, however, found her out, and gave her the handkerchief.

I want to know if you have seen William, and if there is any prospect in future there. All you said in your letter from Portsmouth that related to him was burnt so in the fumigating, that we could only make out that it was unfavourable, but not the particulars; tell us again how you go on, and if you have seen him: I conceit affairs will some how be made up between you at last.

I want to know how your brother goes on. Is he likely to make a very good fortune, and in how long a time? And how is he, in the way of home comforts?--I mean, is he very happy with Mrs. Stoddart? This was a question I could not ask while you were there, and perhaps is not a fair one now; but I want to know how you all went on--and, in short, twenty little foolish questions that one ought, perhaps, rather to ask when we meet, than to write about. But do make me a little acquainted with the inside of the good Doctor's house, and what pa.s.ses therein.