MY Brother, my Friend,—I am distrest for you, believe me I am; not so much for your painful, troublesome complaint, which, I trust, is only for a time, as for those anxieties which brought it on, and perhaps even now may be nursing its malignity. Tell me, dearest of my friends, is your mind at peace, or has anything, yet unknown to me, happened to give you fresh disquiet, and steal from you all the pleasant dreams of future rest? Are you still (I
1 [Vide “Merry Wives of Windsor.” Latter part of the 1st Scene, 1st Act.] |
| 1796 | LAMB’S POEMS | 55 |
The Fragments I now send you I want printed to get rid of
’em; for, while they stick burr-like to my memory, they tempt me to go on
with the idle trade of versifying, which I long—most sincerely I speak it—I
long to leave off, for it is unprofitable to my soul; I feel it is; and these
questions about words, and debates about alterations, take me off, I am
conscious, from the properer business of my life. Take my sonnets once for all,
and do not propose any re-amendments, or mention them again in any shape to me,
I charge you. I blush that my mind can consider them as things of any worth.
And pray admit or reject these fragments, as you like or dislike them, without
ceremony. Call ’em Sketches, Fragments, or what you will, but do not
entitle any of my things Love Sonnets, as I told you to call ’em;
’twill only make me look little in my own eyes; for it is a passion of
which I retain nothing; ’twas a weakness, concerning which I may say, in
the words of Petrarch (whose life is
| 56 | LETTERS OF C. AND M. LAMB | Nov. |
These, Coleridge, are the few sketches I have thought worth preserving; how will they relish thus detached? Will you reject all or any of them? They are thine: do whatsoever thou listest with them. My eyes ache with writing long and late, and I wax wondrous sleepy; God bless you and yours, me and mine! Good night.
I will keep my eyes open reluctantly a minute longer to tell you, that I love you for those simple, tender, heart-flowing lines with which you conclude your last, and in my eyes best, sonnet (so you call ’em),
“So, for the mother’s sake, the child was dear, And dearer was the mother for the child.” |
Cultivate simplicity, Coleridge, or rather, I should say, banish elaborateness; for simplicity springs spontaneous from the heart, and carries into daylight its own modest buds and genuine, sweet, and clear flowers of expression. I allow no hot-beds in the gardens of Parnassus. I am unwilling to go to bed, and leave my sheet unfilled (a good piece of night-work for an idle body like me), so will finish with begging you to send me the earliest account of your complaint, its progress, or (as I hope to God you will be able to send me) the tale of your recovery, or at least amendment. My tenderest remembrances to your Sara.
Once more good night.
