8, 1825.]

Dear Miss Hutchinson--You want to know all about my gaol delivery. Take
it then. About 12 weeks since I had a sort of intimation that a
resignation might be well accepted from me. This was a kind bird's
whisper. On that hint I spake. Gilman and Tuthill furnishd me with
certificates of wasted health and sore spirits--not much more than the
truth, I promise you--and for 9 weeks I was kept in a fright-- I had
gone too far to recede, and they might take advantage and dismiss me
with a much less sum than I had reckoned on. However Liberty came at
last with a liberal provision. I have given up what I could have lived
on in the country, but have enough to live here by managem't and
scribbling occasionally. I would not go back to my prison for seven
years longer for L10000 a year. 7 years after one is 50 is no trifle to
give up. Still I am a young _Pensioner_, and have served but 33 years,
very few I assure you retire before 40, 45, or 50 years' service.

You will ask how I bear my freedom. Faith, for some days I was
staggered. Could not comprehend the magnitude of my deliverance, was
confused, giddy, knew not whether I was on my head or my heel as they
say. But those giddy feelings have gone away, and my weather glass
stands at a degree or two above

CONTENT

I go about quiet, and have none of that restless hunting after
recreation which made holydays formerly uneasy joys. All being holydays,
I feel as if I had none, as they do in heaven, where 'tis all red letter
days.

I have a kind letter from the Words'wths _congratulatory_ not a little.

It is a damp, I do assure you, amid all my prospects that I can receive
_none_ from a quarter upon which I had calculated, almost more than from
any, upon receiving congratulations. I had grown to like poor M. more
and more. I do not esteem a soul living or not living more warmly than I
had grown to esteem and value him. But words are vain. We have none of
us to count upon many years. That is the only cure for sad thoughts. If
only some died, and the rest were permanent on earth, what a thing a
friend's death would be then!

I must take leave, having put off answering [a load] of letters to this
morning, and this, alas! is the 1st. Our kindest remembrances to Mrs.
Monkhouse and believe us

Yours most Truly, C. LAMB.

LETTER 371

CHARLES LAMB TO WILLIAM HORNE

[P.M. May 2, 1825.]

Dear Hone