Pray, like it
very much. For his theories and nostrums, they are oracular enough, but
I either comprehend 'em not, or there is "miching malice" and mischief
in 'em, but, for the most part, ringing with their own emptiness.
Hazlitt said well of 'em: "Many are the wiser and better for reading
Shakspeare, but nobody was ever wiser or better for reading Shelley." I
wonder you will sow your correspondence on so barren a ground as I am,
that make such poor returns. But my head aches at the bare thought of
letter-writing. I wish all the ink in the ocean dried up, and would
listen to the quills shivering up in the candle flame, like parching
martyrs. The same indisposition to write it is has stopped my "Elias;"
but you will see a futile effort in the next number, [1] "wrung from me
with slow pain." The fact is, my head is seldom cool enough. I am
dreadfully indolent. To have to do anything--to order me a new coat, for
instance, though my old buttons are shelled like beans--is an effort. My
pen stammers like my tongue. What cool craniums those old inditers of
folios must have had, what a mortified pulse! Well, once more I throw
myself on your mercy. Wishing peace in thy new dwelling,
C. LAMB.
[1] The essay "Blakesmoor in Hertfordshire," in the "London Magazine"
for September, 1824.
LXXXIV.
TO BERNARD BARTON.
_December_ 1, 1824.
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