and his Sister in
high spirits when I called to wish them joy on the 22 of April. 'I never
saw him so calmly cheerful,' says my journal, 'as he seemed then.'" See
the next letters for Lamb's own account of the event.]

LETTER 368

CHARLES LAMB TO WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

Colebrook Cottage,

6 April, 1825.

Dear Wordsworth, I have been several times meditating a letter to you
concerning the good thing which has befallen me, but the thought of poor
Monkhouse came across me. He was one that I had exulted in the prospect
of congratulating me. He and you were to have been the first
participators, for indeed it has been ten weeks since the first motion
of it.

Here I am then after 33 years slavery, sitting in my own room at 11
o'Clock this finest of all April mornings a freed man, with L441 a year
for the remainder of my life, live I as long as John Dennis, who
outlived his annuity and starved at 90. L441, i.e. L450, with a
deduction of L9 for a provision secured to my sister, she being
survivor, the Pension guaranteed by Act Georgii Tertii, &c.

I came home for ever on Tuesday in last week. The incomprehensibleness
of my condition overwhelm'd me. It was like passing from life into
Eternity. Every year to be as long as three, i.e. to have three times as
much real time, time that is my own, in it! I wandered about thinking I
was happy, but feeling I was not. But that tumultuousness is passing
off, and I begin to understand the nature of the gift. Holydays, even
the annual month, were always uneasy joys: their conscious
fugitiveness--the craving after making the most of them. Now, when all
is holyday, there are no holydays. I can sit at home in rain or shine
without a restless impulse for walkings. I am daily steadying, and shall
soon find it as natural to me to be my own master, as it has been
irksome to have had a master. Mary wakes every morning with an obscure
feeling that some good has happened to us.

Leigh Hunt and Montgomery after their releasements describe the shock of
their emancipation much as I feel mine. But it hurt their frames. I eat,
drink, and sleep sound as ever. I lay no anxious schemes for going
hither and thither, but take things as they occur. Yesterday I
excursioned 20 miles, to day I write a few letters. Pleasuring was for
fugitive play days, mine are fugitive only in the sense that life is
fugitive. Freedom and life co-existent.

At the foot of such a call upon you for gratulation, I am asha