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Works of Charles and Mary Lamb. VI-VII. Letters
Charles Lamb to William Wordsworth, May 1833
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Preface
Contents vol. VI
Letters: 1796
Letters: 1797
Letters: 1798
Letters: 1799
Letters: 1800
Letters: 1801
Letters: 1802
Letters: 1803
Letters: 1804
Letters: 1805
Letters: 1806
Letters: 1807
Letters: 1808
Letters: 1809
Letters: 1810
Letters: 1811
Letters: 1812
Letters: 1814
Letters: 1815
Letters: 1816
Letters: 1817
Letters: 1818
Letters: 1819
Letters: 1820
Letters: 1821
Contents vol. VII
Letters: 1821
Letters: 1822
Letters: 1823
Letters: 1824
Letters: 1825
Letters: 1826
Letters: 1827
Letters: 1828
Letters: 1829
Letters: 1830
Letters: 1831
Letters: 1832
Letters: 1833
Letters: 1834
Appendix I
Appendix II
Appendix III
List of Letters
Index
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End of May nearly, [1833].

DEAR Wordsworth, Your letter, save in what respects your dear Sister’s health, chear’d me in my new solitude. Mary is ill again. Her illnesses encroach yearly. The last was three months, followed by two of depression most dreadful. I look back upon her earlier attacks with longing. Nice little durations of six weeks or so, followed by complete restoration—shocking as they were to me then. In short, half her life she is dead to me, and the other half is made anxious with fears and lookings forward to the next shock. With such prospects, it seem’d to me necessary that she should no longer live with me, and be fluttered with continual removals, so I am come to live with her, at a Mr. Walden’s and his wife, who take in patients, and have arranged to lodge and board us only. They have had the care of her before. I see little of her; alas! I too often hear her. Sunt lachrymæ rerum—and you and I must bear it—

To lay a little more load on it, a circumstance has happen’d, cujus pars magna fui, and which at another crisis I should have more rejoiced in. I am about to lose my old and only walk-companion, whose mirthful spirits were the “youth of our house,” Emma Isola. I have her here now for a little while, but she is too nervous properly to be under such a roof, so she will make short visits, be no more an inmate. With my perfect approval, and more than concurrence, she is to be wedded to Moxon at the end of Augst. So “perish the roses and the flowers”—how is it?

Now to the brighter side, I am emancipated from most hated and detestable people, the Westwoods. I am with attentive people, and
912 LETTERS OF C. AND M. LAMB Sept.
younger—I am 3 or 4 miles nearer the Great City, Coaches half-price less, and going always, of which I will avail myself. I have few friends left there, one or two tho’ most beloved. But London Streets and faces cheer me inexpressibly, tho’ of the latter not one known one were remaining.

Thank you for your cordial reception of Elia. Inter nos the Ariadne is not a darling with me, several incongruous things are in it, but in the composition it served me as illustrative

I want you in the popular fallacies to like the “Home that is no home” and “rising with the lark.”

I am feeble, but chearful in this my genial hot weather,—walk’d 16 miles yesterdy. I can’t read much in Summer time.

With very kindest love to all and prayers for dear Dorothy,

I remain
most attachedly yours
C. Lamb.
at mr. walden’s, church street, edmonton, middlesex.

Moxon has introduced Emma to Rogers, and he smiles upon the project. I have given E. my Milton—will you pardon me?—in part of a portion. It hangs famously in his Murray-like shop.

[On the wrapper is written:—]

Dr M[oxon], inclose this in a better-looking paper, and get it frank’d, and good by’e till Sundy. Come early—

C. L.