I have been thinking of sending some kind of an answer in
Latin to your very elaborate letter, but something has arisen every day to
hinder me. To begin with our awkward friend M.
B. has been with us for a while, and every day and all day we
have had such a lecture, you know how he stutters, on legal, mind, nothing but
legal notices, that I have been afraid the Latin I want to write might prove
rather barbaro-forensic than Ciceronian. He is swallowed up, body and soul, in
law; he eats, drinks, plays (at the card table) Law, nothing but Law. He acts
Ignoramus in the play so thoroughly, that you wd
| 976 | LETTERS OF C. AND M. LAMB |
Suppose I were to consult the local magnates about a matter of this kind—Ha! says one of our waywardens or parish overseers,—What business is this of yours? Do you want to drop the Lodger and come out as a Householder?—Now you must know that I took this house of mine at Enfield, by an obvious domiciliary fiction, in my Sister’s name, to avoid the bother and trouble of parish and vestry meetings, and to escape finding myself one day an overseer or big-wig of some sort. What then wd be my reply to the above question?
Leisure I have secured: but of dignity, not a tittle. Besides, to tell you the truth, the aforesaid irregularities are, to my thinking, most entertaining, and in fact very touching indeed. Here am I, quit of worldly affairs of every kind; for if superannuation does not mean that, what does it mean? The world then, being, as the saying is, beyond my ken, and being myself entirely removed from any accurate distinctions of space or time, these mistakes in road-measure do not seriously offend me. For in the infinite space of the heavens above (which in this contracted sphere of mine I desire to imitate so far as may be) what need is there of milestones? Local distance has to do with mortal affairs. In my walks abroad, limited though they must be, I am quite at my own disposal, and on that account I have a good word for our Enfield clocks too. Their hands generally point without any servile reference to this Sun of our World, in his sub-Empyrean position. They strike too just as it happens, according to their own sweet wiles,—one—two—three—anything they like, and thus to me, a more fortunate Whittington, they pleasantly announce, that Time, so far as I am concerned, is no more. Here you have my reasons for not attending in this matter to the requests of a busy subsolar such as you are.
Furthermore, when I reach the milestone that counts from the
Hicks-Hall that stands now, I own at once the Aulic dignity, and, were I a
gaol-bird, I should shake in my shoes. When I reach the next which counts from
the site of the old Hall, my thoughts turn to the fallen grandeur of the pile,
and I reflect upon the perishable condition of the most imposing of human
structures. Thus I banish from my soul all pride and arrogance, and with such
meditations purify my heart from day to day. A wayfarer such as I am, may learn
from Vincent Bourne, in words terser and
neater than any of mine, the advantages
| 977 |
How well the Milestones’ use doth this express, Which make the miles [seem] more and way seem less. |
What do you mean by this—I am borrowing hand and style from this youngster of mine—your son, I take it. The style looks, nay on careful inspection by these old eyes, is most clearly your very own, and the writing too. Either R’s or the Devil’s. I will defer your explanation till our next meeting—may it be soon.
My Latin failing me, as you may infer from erasures above, there is only this to add. Farewell, and be sure to give Mrs. Rickman my kind remembrances.
Enfield, Chase Side, 4th Oct, 1828. I can’t put this properly into Latin. Dabam—what is it?
