The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb Volume VI Part 91

[Dated at end:] Mr. Walden's, Church Street, Edmonton, May 31, 1833.

Dear Mrs. Hazlitt,--I will a.s.suredly come, and find you out, when I am better. I am driven from house and home by Mary's illness. I took a sudden resolution to take my sister to Edmonton, where she was under medical treatment last time, and have arranged to board and lodge with the people. Thank G.o.d, I have repudiated Enfield. I have got out of h.e.l.l, despair of heaven, and must sit down contented in a half-way purgatory. Thus ends this strange eventful history--

But I am nearer town, and will get up to you somehow before long--

I repent not of my resolution.

'Tis late, and my hand unsteady, so good b'ye till we meet.

Your old

C.L.

LETTER 583

CHARLES LAMB TO MARY BETHAM

June 5, 1833.

Dear Mary Betham,--I remember You all, and tears come out when I think on the years that have separated us. That dear Anne should so long have remembered us affects me. My dear Mary, my poor sister is not, nor will be for two months perhaps capable of appreciating the _kind old long memory_ of dear Anne.

But not a penny will I take, and I can answer for my Mary when she recovers, if the sum left can contribute in any way to the comfort of Matilda.

We will halve it, or we will take a bit of it, as a token, rather than wrong her. So pray consider it as an amicable arrangement. I write in great haste, or you won't get it before you go.

_We do not want the money_; but if dear Matilda does not much want it, why, we will take our thirds. G.o.d bless you.

C. LAMB.

[Miss Betham's sister, Anne, who had just died, had left thirty pounds to Mary Lamb. Mr. Ernest Betham allows me to take this note from _A House of Letters_.]

LETTER 584

CHARLES LAMB TO MATILDA BETHAM

[June 5, 1833.]

Dear Miss Betham,--I sit down, very poorly, to write to you, being come to _Mr. Walden's, Church Street, Edmonton_, to be altogether with poor Mary, who is very ill, as usual, only that her illnesses are now as many months as they used to be weeks in duration--the reason your letter only just found me. I am saddened with the havoc death has made in your family. I do not know how to appreciate the kind regard of dear Anne; Mary will understand it two months hence, I hope; but neither she nor I would rob you, if the legacy will be of use to, or comfort to you. My hand shakes so I can hardly write. On Sat.u.r.day week I must come to town, and will call on you in the morning before one o'clock. Till when I take kindest leave.

Your old Friend,

C. LAMB.

[Here should come a note from Lamb to Mrs. Randal Norris, postmarked July 10, 1833, which encloses a note from Joseph Jekyll, the Old Bencher, thanking Lamb for a presentation copy of the _Last Essays of Elia_ ("I hope not the last Essays of Elia") and asking him to accompany Mrs. Norris and her daughters on a visit to him. Jekyll adds that "poor George Dyer, blind, but as usual chearful and content, often gives ...

good accounts of you."

Here should come notes to Allsop, declining an invitation to Highgate, and to a Mr. Tuff, warning him to be quick to use some theatre tickets which Lamb had sent him.]

LETTER 585

CHARLES LAMB TO EDWARD MOXON

[P.M. July 14, 1833.]

Dear M. the Hogarths are _delicate_. Perhaps it will amuse Emma to tell her, that, a day or two since, Miss Norris (Betsy) call'd to me on the road from London from a gig conveying her to Widford, and engaged me to come down this afternoon. I think I shall stay only one night; she would have been glad of E's accompaniment, but I would not disturb her, and Mrs. N. is coming to town on Monday, so it would not have suited. Also, C.V. Le Grice gave me a dinner at Johnny Gilpin's yesterday, where we talk'd of what old friends were taken or left in the 30 years since we had met.

I shall hope to see her on Tuesd'y.

To Bless you both

C.L.

Friday.

[Le Grice we have met. "Johnny Gilpin's" was The Bell at Edmonton.

Here should come another note from Lamb to Mrs. Randal Norris, in which Lamb says that he reached home safely and thanks her for three agreeable days. Also he sends some little books, which were, I take it, copies of Moxon's private reissue of _Poetry for Children_.

Mr. W.C. Hazlitt records that a letter from Lamb to Miss Norris was in existence in which the writer gave "minute and humorous instructions for his own funeral, even specifying the number of nails which he desired to be inserted in his coffin."]

LETTER 586

CHARLES LAMB TO EDWARD MOXON

[P.M. July 24, 1833.]

For G.o.d's sake, give Emma no more watches. _One_ has turn'd her head.

She is arrogant, and insulting. She said something very unpleasant to our old Clock in the pa.s.sage, as if he did not keep time, and yet he had made her no appointment. She takes it out every instant to look at the moment-hand. She lugs us out into the fields, because there the bird-boys ask you "Pray, Sir, can you tell us what's a Clock," and she answers them punctually. She loses all her time looking "what the time is." I overheard her whispering, "Just so many hours, minutes &c. to Tuesday--I think St. George's goes too slow"--This little present of Time, why, 'tis Eternity to her--

What can make her so fond of a gingerbread watch?

She has spoil'd some of the movements. Between ourselves, she has kissed away "half past 12," which I suppose to be the canonical hour in Hanover Sq.

Well, if "love me, love my watch," answers, she will keep time to you--

It goes right by the Horse Guards--