MY dear Miss
Wordsworth—I thank you, my kind friend, for your most
comfortable letter. Till I saw your own handwriting, I could not persuade
myself that I should do well to write to you, though I have often attempted it,
but I always left off dissatisfied with what I had written, and feeling that I
was doing an improper thing to intrude upon your sorrow. I wished to tell you,
that you would one day feel the kind of peaceful state of mind, and sweet
memory of the dead which you so happily describe as now almost begun, but I
felt that it was improper, and most grating to the feelings of the afflicted,
to say to them that the memory of their affliction would in time become a
constant part not only of their “dream, but of their most wakeful
sense of happiness.” That you would see every object with, and
through your lost brother, and that that would at last become a real and
everlasting source of comfort to you, I felt, and well knew from my own
experience in sorrow, but till you yourself began to feel this
| 1805 | MRS. THOMAS CLARKSON | 309 |
Why is he wandering on the sea? Coleridge should now with
Wordsworth be. By slow degrees he’d steal away Their woe, and gently bring a ray (So happily he’d time relief) Of comfort from their very grief. He’d tell them that their brother dead When years have passed o’er their head, Will be remember’d with such holy, True, and perfect melancholy That ever this lost brother John
Will be their heart’s companion. His voice they’ll always hear, his face they’ll always
see, There’s nought in life so sweet as such a memory. |
Mr. and Mrs. Clarkson came to see us last week, I find it was at your request they sought us out; you cannot think how glad we were to see them, so little as we have ever seen of them, yet they seem to us like very old friends. Poor Mrs. Clarkson looks very ill indeed, she walked near a mile, and came up our high stairs, which fatigued her very much, but when she had sat a while her own natural countenance with which she cheared us in your little cottage seemed to return to her, and then I began to have hopes she would get the better of her complaint. Charles does not think she is so much altered as I do. I wish he may be the better judge. We talked of nothing but you. She means to try to get leave of Dr. Beddoes to come and see you—her heart is with you, and I do not think it would hurt her so much to come to you, as it would distress you to see her so ill.
She read me a part of your letter wherein you so kindly express your wishes that we would come and see you this summer. I wish we could, for I am sure it would be a blessed thing for you and for us to be a few weeks together—I fear it must not be. Mrs. Clarkson is to be in town again in a fortnight and then they have promised we shall see more of them.
I am very sorry for the poor little Dorothy’s illness—I hope soon to hear
she is perfectly recovered. Remember me with affection to your brother, and
your good sister. What a providence it is that your brother and you have this
kind friend, and these
| 310 | LETTERS OF C. AND M. LAMB | May |
Pray remember us to Old Molly. Mrs. Clarkson says her house is a pattern of neatness to all her neighbours—such good ways she learnt of “Mistress.” How well I remember the shining ornaments of her kitchen, and her old friendly face, not [the] least ornamental part of it.
Excuse the haste I write in. I am unexpectedly to go out to dinner, else I think I have much more to say, but I will not put it off till next post, because you so kindly say I must not write if I feel unwilling—you do not know what very great joy I have in being again writing to you. Thank you for sending the letter of Mr. Evans, it was a very kind one. Have you received one from a Cornet Burgoine? My brother wrote to him and desires he would direct his answer to your brother.
God bless you and yours my dear friend.
