On this page
-
Text (1)
-
Untitled Article
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
-
-
Transcript
-
Note: This text has been automatically extracted via Optical Character Recognition (OCR) software. The text has not been manually corrected and should not be relied on to be an accurate representation of the item.
Additionally, when viewing full transcripts, extracted text may not be in the same order as the original document.
Untitled Article
an evident getting up 4 ^ phrases , 'afaabit altnost impossible to be avoided in a Yrairtistid conversationalist' / 'IirChaffkti kamb there was a perfect absence jotf tttife ; aM tllat'heffsaid wag choieb in its humou r true in-its- philosophy ; tout the racy freshness , that was like an atmosphere of cotmtiy > ail- abdut it , was * better than all ; the perfect simplicity ; absence of all conceit , child-like enjoyment
of his own wit , and the sweetness and benevolence that played about the rugged facey gave to it a charm in no way inferior to the poetical enjoyment derived from the more popular conversation of his friend . Another difference might be observed ; that Coleridge ' s metaphysics seemed based in the study of his own individual nature more than the nature of others , while Charles Lamb seemed not for a moment to rest on self , but to throw his
whole soul into the nature of circumstances and things around him . These differences served only to heighten the enjoyment of witnessing the long-enduring genuine friendship existing between the two , —the three , ( for why should ' Mary' be excluded ?) —wrought out of mingling sympathies and felicitous varieties . In Gharles Lamb , as in Coleridge , at times there was a > melancholy in the face which partook of the nature of his individual
character . It was not dissatisfaction ; it was not gloom ? but it seemed to say that he had had more affection , more gushing tenderness of feeling , than he had met with objects on whom to expend it . His * Dream Children' * is sufficient proof of this . Had he married his' Alice , ' had they been realities of little ( the pun is irresistible ) Lambs playing about him , this might not have been . How he would have joked with them , laughed ivith them , delighted to watch them for the sake of the thousand beauties he
would have discovered in daily developement ; though much more that they were the children of her whom he loved , transmitters of her loveliness and worth , so many receptacles of her soul , < wMch they would bear down as a blessing to posterity , to give to others who should come after him the like joy which she had bestowed upon hinx But then what would the world have done for want f
of his' Klia , for would he not have been engrossed with the cares of a family , ' or with the sense of his own enjoyment ? Assuredly not ; they would have stimulated him to greater literary exertions , and we should have had such stories of happy love , such descriptions of summer gambols in the green wood and winter frolickings by the fire-side , Midsummer merry-makings and Christmas
carolling © , as would have made a gladsome echo through the world , and have taught it a lesson of which it is yet so ignorant , the nature and ministry of true and pure and devoted lpve . But ) what would have become of the following letter , with which we have been favoured , and which , goes to < prove that he was not , all alone inwtl |^ ' ^ vorld- ^ -in his world , that * is to say ? It was written to a * 0 » o of the papers of' Ellia . '
Untitled Article
r Evening with Charles Lamb and Coleridge . 165
-
-
Citation
-
Monthly Repository (1806-1838) and Unitarian Chronicle (1832-1833), March 2, 1835, page 165, in the Nineteenth-Century Serials Edition (2008; 2018) ncse.ac.uk/periodicals/mruc/issues/vm2-ncseproduct2643/page/21/
-