Charles Lamb, in pipefuls / selected and arranged by Walter Lewin.

  • Charles Lamb
Date:
1890
Catalogue details

Licence: Public Domain Mark

Credit: Charles Lamb, in pipefuls / selected and arranged by Walter Lewin. Source: Wellcome Collection.

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    *3 of France was living in St. Helena? What an event in the solitude of the seas ! like finding a fish’s bone at the top of Plinlimmon; but these things are nothing in our* western world. Novelties cease to affect. Come and try what your presence can. To Wordsworth, Coleridge is printing “ Christabel,” by Lord Byron’s recommendation to Murray, with what he calls a vision, “ Kubla Khan,” which said vision he repeats so enchantingly that it irradiates and brings heaven and elysian bowers into my parlour while he sings or says it; but there is an observation, “Never tell thy dreams,” and I am almost afraid that “ Kubla Khan ” is an owl that won’t bear daylight. I fear lest it should be discovered by the lantern of typography and clear reducting to letters no better than nonsense or no sense. When I was young I used to chant with ecstacy “ Mild Arcadians ever blooming,” till somebody told me it was meant to be nonsense. Even yet I have a lingering attachment to it, and I think it better than “Windsor Forest,” “Dying Christian’s Address,” etc. Coleridge has sent his tragedy to D[rury] L[ane] T[heatre]. It cannot be acted this season; and by their manner of receiving, I hope he will be able to alter it to make them accept it for next. He is, at present, under the medical care of a Mr. Gillman (Killman ?) a Highgate apothecary, where he plays at leaving off laud—m. I think his essentials not touched : he is very bad; but then he wonderfully picks up another day, and his face, when he repeats his verses, hath its ancient glory ; an archungel a little damaged. To Miss Matilda Betham, ^11 this while I have been tor¬ menting myself with the thought of having been ungracious to you, and you have been all the while accusing yourself. Let us absolve one another, and be quiet. My head is in such a state from incapacity for business that I certainly know it to be my duty not to undertake the veriest trifle in addition. I hardly know how I can go on. I have tried to get some redress by explaining my health, but with no great success. No one can tell how ill I am because it does not come out to the exterior of my face, but lies in my skull, deep and
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