I was
engaged to a country walk; and in virtue of the hypostatical union
between us, when Mary calls, it is understood that I call too, we being
univocal.

But indeed I am ill at these ceremonious inductions. I fancy I was not
born with a call on my head, though I have brought one down upon it with
a vengeance. I love not to pluck that sort of fruit crude, but to stay
its ripening into visits. In probability Mary will be at Southampton Row
this morning, and something of that kind be matured between you, but in
any case not many hours shall elapse before I shake you by the hand.

Meantime give my kindest felicitations to Mrs. Procter, and assure her I
look forward with the greatest delight to our acquaintance. By the way,
the deuce a bit of Cake has come to hand, which hath an inauspicious
look at first, but I comfort myself that that Mysterious Service hath
the property of Sacramental Bread, which mice cannot nibble, nor time
moulder.

I am married myself--to a severe step-wife, who keeps me, not at bed and
board, but at desk and board, and is jealous of my morning aberrations.
I can not slip out to congratulate kinder unions. It is well she leaves
me alone o' nights--the damn'd Day-hag _BUSINESS_. She is even now
peeping over me to see I am writing no Love Letters. I come, my dear--
Where is the Indigo Sale Book?

Twenty adieus, my dear friends, till we meet.

Yours most truly, C. LAMB.

Leadenhall, 11 Nov. '24.

[Procter married Anne Skepper, step-daughter of Basil Montagu, in
October, 1824. One of their daughters was Adelaide Ann Procter.

"Agnise"--acknowledge. It has been suggested that Lamb favoured this old
word also on account of its superficial association with _agnus_, a
lamb.]

LETTER 355

CHARLES LAMB TO HENRY CRABB ROBINSON

[P.M. Nov. 20, 1824.]

Dr. R. Barren Field bids me say that he is resident at his brother
Henry's, a surgeon &c., a few doors west of Christ Church Passage
Newgate Street; and that he shall be happy to accompany you up thence to
Islington, when next you come our way, but not so late as you sometimes
come. I think we shall be out on Tuesd'y.

Yours ever

C. LAMB.

Sat'y.

[Barron Field, as I have said, had returned from New South Wales in June
of this year. Later he became Chief Justice at Gibraltar.]

LETTER 356

CHARLES LAMB TO SARAH HUTCHINSON

Desk II, Nov. 25 [1824].

My dear Miss Hutchinson, Mary bids me