" His clothes were entirely black; and he wore long black gaiters,
up to the knees. His head was bent a little forward, like one who had been
reading; and, if not standing or walking, he generally had in his hand an
old book, a pinch of snuff, or, later in the evening, a pipe. He stammered
a little, pleasantly, just enough to prevent his making speeches; just
enough to make you listen eagerly for his words, always full of meaning,
or charged with a jest; or referring (but this was rare) to some line or
passage from one of the old Elizabethan writers, which was always ushered
in with a smile of tender reverence. When he read aloud it was with a
slight tone, which I used to think he had caught from Coleridge;
Coleridge's recitation, however, rising to a chant. Lamb's reading was not
generally in books of verse, but in the old lay writers, whose tendency
was towards religious thoughts. He liked, however, religious verse. "I can
read," he writes to Bernard Barton, "the homely old version of the Psalms
in our prayer-books, for an hour or two, without sense of weariness." He
avoided manuscripts as much as practicable: "all things read _raw_ to me
in manuscript." Lamb wrote much, including many letters; but his hands
were wanting in pliancy ("inveterate clumsiness" are his words), and his
handwriting was therefore never good.
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