He is coming over with
it, and my life to Southey's "Thalaba," it will gain universal faith.
The letter is wanted, and I am wanted. Imagine the blank filled up with
all kind things.
Our joint, hearty remembrances to both of you. Yours as ever,
C. LAMB.
[1] The Lambs had visited Paris on the invitation of James Kenney, the
dramatist, who had married a Frenchwoman, and was living at Versailles.
LXXI.
TO WALTER WILSON.
_December_ 16, 1822.
Dear Wilson,--_Lightning_ I was going to call you. You must have thought
me negligent in not answering your letter sooner. But I have a habit of
never writing letters but at the office; 'tis so much time cribbed out
of the Company; and I am but just got out of the thick of a tea-sale, in
which most of the entry of notes, deposits, etc., usually falls to
my share.
I have nothing of De Foe's but two or three novels and the "Plague
History." [1] I can give you no information about him. As a slight
general character of what I remember of them (for I have not looked into
them latterly), I would say that in the appearance of _truth,_ in all
the incidents and conversations that occur in them, they exceed any
works of fiction I am acquainted with. It is perfect illusion. The
_author_ never appears in these self-narratives (for so they ought to be
called, or rather auto-biographies), but the _narrator_ chains us down
to an implicit belief in everything he says.
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