The impression made, in the first instance, on Charles Lamb, by the
terrible death of his mother, cannot be explained in any condensed manner.
His mind, short of insanity, seems to have been utterly upset. He had been
fond of poetry to excess; almost all his leisure hours seemed to have been
devoted to the books of poets and religious writers, to the composition of
poetry, and to criticising various writers in verse. But afterwards, in
his distress, he requests Coleridge to "mention nothing of poetry. I have
destroyed every vestige of past vanities of that kind. Never send me a
book, I charge you. I am wedded" (he adds) "to the fortunes of my sister
and my poor old father." At another time he writes, "On the dreadful day I
preserved a tranquillity, not of despair." Some persons coming into the
"house of misery," and persuading him to take some food, he says, "In an
agony of emotion, I found my way mechanically into the adjoining room, and
fell on my knees by the side of her coffin, asking forgiveness of Heaven,
and sometimes of her, for forgetting her so soon."
A few days later, he says to his friend, "You are the only correspondent,
and, I might add, the only friend I have in the world.
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