The life [after sir T.N. Talfourd], letters and writings of Charles Lamb, ed. by P. Fitzgerald, Volume 2

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Page 219 - He is retired as noontide dew, Or fountain in a noon-day grove ; And you must love him, ere to you He will seem worthy of your love...
Page 70 - I was born, the furniture which has been before my eyes all my life, a bookcase which has followed me about, like a faithful dog (only exceeding him in knowledge), wherever I have moved ; old chairs, old tables, streets, squares, where I have sunned myself, my old school— these are my mistresses — have I not enough without your mountains 7 I do not envy you.
Page 283 - Throw yourself on the world without any rational plan of support beyond what the chance employ of booksellers would afford you ! " Throw yourself rather, my dear sir, from the steep Tarpeian rock, slap-dash headlong upon iron spikes. If you have but five consolatory minutes between the desk and the bed, make much of them, and live a century in them rather than turn slave to the booksellers.
Page 435 - Two noble earls, whom if I quote, Some folks might call me sinner, The one invented half a coat, The other half a dinner. The plan was good, as some will say; And fitted to console one; Because, in this poor starving day, Few can afford a whole one.
Page 32 - Charles the Fifth, Slew friend and enemy with my stratagems. Then after that was I an usurer, And with extorting, cozening, forfeiting, And tricks belonging unto brokery, I fill'd the jails with bankrupts in a year, And with young orphans planted hospitals, And every moon made some or other mad...
Page 237 - ... your soul ; they'd keep the cart ten minutes to stow in dirty pipes and broken matches, to show their economy. Then you can find nothing you want for many days after you get into your new lodgings. You must comb your hair with your fingers, wash your hands without soap, go about in dirty gaiters. Was I Diogenes, I would not move out of a kilderkin into a hogshead, though the first had had nothing but small beer in it, and the second reeked claret.
Page 71 - ... characters, than as a gilded room with tapestry and tapers, where I might live with handsome visible objects. I consider the clouds above me but as a roof beautifully painted, but unable to satisfy the mind: and at last, like the pictures of the apartment of a connoisseur, unable to afford him any longer a pleasure. So fading upon me, from disuse, have been the beauties of Nature, as they have been confinedly called; so ever fresh, and green, and warm are all the inventions of men, and assemblies...
Page 155 - Mary is ill again. Her illnesses encroach yearly. The last was three months, followed by two of depression most dreadful. I look back upon her earlier attacks with longing : nice little durations of six weeks or so, followed by complete restoration, - shocking as they were to me then. In short, half her life she is dead to me, and the other half is made anxious with fears and lockings forward to the next shock...
Page 6 - It has reached eight editions in so many weeks, yet literally it is one of the very poorest sort of common novels, with the draw-back of dull religion in it. Had the religion been high and flavoured, it would have been something. I borrowed this Calebs in Search of a Wife...

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