The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb Volume V Part 63

Let me hear from you soon, and do let me hear some [good news,] and don't let me hear of your walking with sprained ancles again; no business is an excuse for making yourself lame.

I hope your poor Mother is better, and Aunty and Maid jog on pretty well; remember me to them all in due form and order. Charles's love, and our best wishes that all your little busy affairs may come to a prosperous conclusion.

Yours affectionately, M. LAMB.

Friday evening.

[_Added later:_--]

They (Hazlitt and Charles) came home from Sadler's Wells so dismal and dreary dull on Friday, that I gave them both a good scolding--_quite a setting to rights_; and I think it has done some good, for Charles has been very chearful ever since. I begin to hope the _home hollidays_ will go on very well. Mrs. Rickman is better. Rickman we saw at Captain Burney's for the first time since her illness last night.

Write directly, for I am uneasy about your _Lovers_; I wish something was settled. G.o.d bless you.

Once more, yours affectionately, M. LAMB.

_Sunday morning [July 6, or more probably 13]_.--I did not put this in the post, hoping to be able to write a less dull letter to you this morning; but I have been prevented, so it shall go as it is. I am in good spirits just at this present time, for Charles has been reading over the _Tale_ I told you plagued me so much, and he thinks it one of the very best: it is All's Well that Ends Well. You must not mind the many wretchedly dull letters I have sent you; for, indeed, I cannot help it, my mind is so _dry_ always after poring over my work all day. But it will soon be over.

I am cooking a shoulder of Lamb (Hazlitt dines with us); it will be ready at two o'Clock, if you can pop in and eat a bit with us.

[The programme at Sadler's Wells on July 4, 1806, was: "Aquatic Theatre, Sadler's Wells. A new dance called Grist and Puff, or the Highland Fling. The admired comic pantomime, Harlequin and the Water Kelpe. New melodramatic Romance, The Invisible Ring; or, The Water Monstre and Fire Spectre." The author of both was Mr. C. Dibdin, Jun. "Real water."

Mary Lamb's next work, after the _Tales from Shakespear_, was _Mrs.

Leicester's School_. Charles Lamb meanwhile was preparing his _Dramatic Specimens_ and _Adventures of Ulysses_.

Mrs. Rickman did not die then, She lived until 1836.]

LETTER 155

MARY LAMB TO DOROTHY WORDSWORTH

[P.M. August 29, 1806.]

My dear Miss Wordsworth--After I had put my letter in the post yesterday I was uneasy all the night because of some few expressions relative to poor Coleridge--I mean, in saying I wished your brother would come to town and that I wished your brother would consult Mr. Southey. I am very sure your brother will take no step in consequence of any foolish advice that I can give him, so far I am easy, but the painful reflections I have had during a sleepless night has induced me to write merely to quiet myself, because I have felt ever since, that in the present situation of Coleridge, returned after an absence of two years, and feeling a reluctance to return to his family, I ought not to throw in the weight of a hair in advising you or your Brother, and that I ought not to have so much as named to you his reluctance to return to Keswick, for so little is it in my power to calculate on his actions that perhaps in a few days he may be on his return home.

You, my dear friend, will perfectly understand me that I do not mean that I might not freely say to you anything that is upon my mind--but [the] truth is, my poor mind is so weak that I never dare trust my own judgement in anything: what I think one hour a fit of low spirits makes me unthink the next. Yesterday I wrote, anxiously longing for Mr.

Wordsworth and Mr. Southey to endeavour to bring Mrs. C. to consent to a separation, and to day I think of the letter I received from Mrs.

Coleridge, telling me, as joyful news, that her husband is arrived, and I feel it very wrong in me even in the remotest degree to do anything to prevent her seeing that husband--she and her husband being the only people who ought to be concerned in the affair.

All that I have said, or meant to say, you will perfectly understand, it being nothing more than to beg you will consider both my letter to day and yesterday as if you had not read either, they being both equally the effect of low spirits, brought on by the fatigue of Coleridge's conversation and the anxious care even to misery which I have felt since he has been here, that something could be done to make such an admirable creature happy. Nor has, I a.s.sure you, Mrs. Coleridge been without her full share in adding to my uneasiness. They say she grows fat and is very happy--and people say I grow fat and look happy--

It is foolish to teize you about my anxieties, you will feel quite enough on the subject yourself, and your little ones are all ill, and no doubt you are fatigued with nursing, but I could not help writing to day, to tell you how what I said yesterday has vext and worried me. Burn both these foolish letters and do not name the subject of them, because Charles will either blame me for having written something improper or he will laugh at me for my foolish fears about nothing.

Though I wish you not to take notice of what I have said, yet I shall rejoice to see a letter from you, and I hope, when you have half an hour's leisure, to see a line from you. We have not heard from Coleridge since he went out of town, but I dare say you have heard either from him or Mrs. Clarkson.

I remain my dear friend Yours most affectionately M. LAMB.

Friday [August 29].

[For the full understanding of Mary Lamb's letter it is necessary to read Coleridge's Life and his Letters. Coleridge on his return from abroad reached London August 17, 1806, and took up his quarters with the Lambs on the following day. He once more joined Stuart, then editing the _Courier_, but much of his old enthusiasm had gone. In Mr. d.y.k.es Campbell's words:--

"Almost his first words to Stuart were: 'I am literally afraid, even to cowardice, to ask for any person, or of any person.' Spite of the friendliest and most unquestioning welcome from all most dear to him, it was the saddest of home-comings, for the very sympathy held out with both hands induced only a bitter, hopeless feeling of remorse--a

"'Sense of past youth, and manhood come in vain;-- And genius given, and knowledge won in vain;--'

"of broken promises,--promises to friends and promises to himself; and above all, sense of a will paralysed--dead perhaps, killed by his own hand."

Coleridge remained at Lamb's at any rate until August 29, afterwards taking rooms in the _Courier_ office at 348 Strand. Meanwhile his reluctance to meet or communicate with his wife was causing his friends much concern, none more so than Mary Lamb, who wrote at least two letters filled with anxious sympathy to Dorothy Wordsworth on the subject, asking for the mediation of Wordsworth or Southey. Her earlier letter is missing.

To quote Mr. d.y.k.es Campbell again:--

"On September 16--just a month after his landing--he wrote his first letter to his wife, to say that he might be expected at Greta Hall on the 29th.

"Before this, Wordsworth had informed Sir George Beaumont that Coleridge 'dare not go home, he recoils so much from the thought of domesticating with Mrs. Coleridge, with whom, though on many accounts he much respects her, he is so miserable that he dare not encounter it. What a deplorable thing! I have written to him to say that if he does not come down immediately I must insist upon seeing him some-where. If he appoints London I shall go.

"'I believe if anything good is to be done for him it must be done by me.'"

"It was this letter of Wordsworth, doubtless, which drew Coleridge to the North. Dorothy's letter to Lady Beaumont, written on receipt of the announcement of Coleridge's home-coming, goes copiously and minutely into the reasons for the estrangement between the poet and his wife.

Miss Wordsworth still had hopes of an improvement. 'Poor soul!' she writes, 'he had a struggle of many years, striving to bring Mrs. C. to a change of temper, and something like communion with him in his enjoyments. He is now, I trust, effectually convinced that he has no power of that sort,' and may, she thinks, if he will be 'reconciled to that one great want, want of sympathy,' live at home in peace and quiet.

'Mrs. C. has many excellent properties, as you observe; she is unremitting in her attention as a nurse to her children, and, indeed, I believe she would have made an excellent wife to many persons. Coleridge is as little fitted for her as she for him, and I am truly sorry for her.'"

It might perhaps be stated here that the separation was agreed upon in December. At the end of that month Coleridge visited the Wordsworths at Coleorton with Hartley, and in a few days began to be "more like his old self"--in Dorothy Wordsworth's phrase.

I append an undated letter which may belong to this period:--]

LETTER 156

MARY LAMB TO S. T. COLERIDGE

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 amus.e.m.e.nt 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_.

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 favourable 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.