disappointed hope," and felt something of enforced
loneliness, consequent upon his being, as he described himself, "slow
of speech and reserved of manners"; he went nowhere, as he put it,
had no acquaintance, and but one friend--Coleridge. It is difficult,
in reading much in these letters, to realize that the writer was but
just come of age in the previous February. The first twenty or so of
the letters of Lamb which have come down to us are addressed to
Coleridge (1796-1798). Between the seventh of the series (5th July,
1796) and the eighth (27th September, 1796) there is a gap of time at
the close of which happened the tragedy that coloured the whole of
Charles Lamb's subsequent life and caused him to give himself up to a
life of devotion to which it would not be easy to find a parallel.

[Footnote 1: It is curious that a quarter of a century later, when
writing of his brother in "Dream Children," Lamb speaks of his being
lame-footed, and of having his limb actually taken off.]

The story is best told in the poignant simplicity of Lamb's first
letter to Coleridge after the calamity:

MY DEAREST FRIEND,

White, or some of my friends, or the public papers, by this
time may have informed you of the terrible calamities that
have fallen on our family. I will only give you the
outlines: My poor dear, dearest sister, in a fit of
insanity, has been the death of her own mother. I was at
hand only time enough to snatch the knife out of her grasp.
She is at present in a madhouse, from whence I hear she must
be moved to an hospital. God has preserved to me my senses,
I eat and drink and sleep, and have my judgment, I believe,
very sound. My poor father was slightly wounded, and I am
left to take care of him and my aunt. Mr. Norris of the
Blue-Coat School, has been very kind to us, and we have no
other friends; but, thank God, I am very calm and composed,
and able to do the best that remains to do. Write as
religious a letter as possible, but no mention of what is
gone and done with. With me "the former things are passed
away," and I have something more to do than to feel.

God Almighty have us all in His keeping!

C. LAMB.

Mention nothing of poetry, I have destroyed every vestige of
past vanities of that kind. Do as you please, but if you
publish, publish mine (I give free leave) without name or
init