Pray
excuse me. It is not for want of obliging you, I assure you. For your
Box we most cordially feel thankful. I shall be your debtor in my poor
way. I do assure you I am incapable.

Again, excuse me

Yours sincerely

C.L.

[Coleridge's death had occurred on July 25, in his sixty-second year;
and Dilke had written to Lamb asking for some words on that event, for
_The Athenaeum_. A little while later a request was made by John Forster
that Lamb would write something for the album of a Mr. Keymer. It was
then that Lamb wrote the few words that stand under the title "On the
Death of Coleridge" (see Vol. I.). Forster wrote thus of the effect of
Coleridge's death upon Lamb:--

He thought of little else (his sister was but another portion of
himself) until his own great spirit joined his friend. He had a
habit of venting his melancholy in a sort of mirth. He would, with
nothing graver than a pun, "cleanse his bosom of the perilous stuff
that weighed" upon it. In a jest, or a few light phrases, he would
lay open the last recesses of his heart. So in respect of the death
of Coleridge. Some old friends of his saw him two or three weeks
ago, and remarked the constant turning and reference of his mind. He
interrupted himself and them almost every instant with some play of
affected wonder, or astonishment, or humorous melancholy, on the
words, "_Coleridge is dead_." Nothing could divert him from that,
for the thought of it never left him.

Wordsworth said that Coleridge's death hastened Lamb's.]

LETTER 608

CHARLES LAMB TO REV. JAMES GILLMAN

Mr. Walden's, Church Street,

Edmonton, August 5, 1834.

My dear Sir,--The sad week being over, I must write to you to say, that
I was glad of being spared from attending; I have no words to express my
feeling with you all. I can only say that when you think a short visit
from me would be acceptable, when your father and mother shall be able
to see me _with comfort_, I will come to the bereaved house. Express to
them my tenderest regards and hopes that they will continue our friends
still. We both love and respect them as much as a human being can, and
finally thank them with our hearts for what they have been to the poor
departed.

God bless you all,

C. LAMB.

[Talfourd writes: "Shortly after, assured that his presence would be
welcome, Lamb went to Highgate. There he asked leave to see the nurse
who had attended