Works of Charles and Mary Lamb. VI-VII. Letters
Mary Lamb to Samuel Taylor Coleridge [September 1806]
DEAR Coleridge—I have read your silly, very silly, letter, and
between laughing and crying I hardly know how to answer it. You are too serious
and too kind a vast deal, for we are not much used to either seriousness or
kindness from our present friends, and therefore your letter has put me into a
greater hurry of spirits that [?than] your pleasant segar did last night, for
believe me your two odd faces amused me much more than the mighty transgression
vexed me. If Charles had not smoked last
night his virtue would not have lasted longer than tonight, and now perhaps
with a little of your good counsel he will refrain. Be not too serious if he
smokes all the time you are with us—a few chearful evenings spent with you
serves to bear up our spirits many a long and weary year—and the very being led
into the crime by your segar that you thought so harmless, will serve for our
amusement many a dreary time when we can get no letter nor hear no tidings of
you.
You must positively must write to Mrs. Coleridge this day, and you must write
here, that I may know you write, or you must come and dictate a letter for me
to write to her. I know all that you would say in defence of not writing and I
allow in full force everything that [you] can say or think, but yet a letter
from me or you shall go today.
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LETTERS OF C. AND M. LAMB |
Oct. |
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I wanted to tell you, but feared to begin the subject, how
well your children are, how Pypos
thrives and what a nice child Sara is,
and above all I hear such favorable accounts from Southey, from Wordsworth
and Hazlitt, of Hartley.
I have got Wordsworth’s letters out for you to look at, but you
shall not see them or talk of them without you like—Only come here as soon as
you receive this, and I will not teize you about writing, but will manage a few
lines, Charles and I between us. But
something like a letter shall go today.
Come directly
Yours affectionately,
M. Lamb.
Derwent Coleridge (1800-1883)
The son of Samuel Taylor Coleridge; educated at St John's College, Cambridge, he was
rector of Helston in Cornwall, principal of St Mark's College (1841), and a writer on
education. He contributed to
Knight's Quarterly Review.
Hartley Coleridge [Old Bachelor] (1796-1849)
The eldest son of the poet; he was educated at Merton College, Oxford, contributed essays
in the
London Magazine and
Blackwood's, and
published
Lives of Distinguished Northerns (1832).
Samuel Taylor Coleridge (1772-1834)
English poet and philosopher who projected
Lyrical Ballads (1798)
with William Wordsworth; author of
Biographia Literaria (1817),
On the Constitution of the Church and State (1829) and other
works.
Sara Coleridge (1802-1852)
The daughter of Samuel Taylor Coleridge; in 1829 she married Henry Nelson Coleridge
(1798-1843); she translated, edited her father's works, and wrote for the
Quarterly Review.
William Hazlitt (1778-1830)
English essayist and literary critic; author of
Characters of
Shakespeare's Plays (1817),
Lectures on the English Poets
(1818), and
The Spirit of the Age (1825).
Charles Lamb [Elia] (1775-1834)
English essayist and boyhood friend of Coleridge at Christ's Hospital; author of
Essays of Elia published in the
London
Magazine (collected 1823, 1833) and other works.
Robert Southey (1774-1843)
Poet laureate and man of letters whose contemporary reputation depended upon his prose
works, among them the
Life of Nelson, 2 vols (1813),
History of the Peninsular War, 3 vols (1823-32) and
The Doctor, 7 vols (1834-47).
William Wordsworth (1770-1850)
With Coleridge, author of
Lyrical Ballads (1798), Wordsworth
survived his early unpopularity to succeed Robert Southey as poet laureate in 1843.
