A little grumbling is wholesome for the spleen;
but in my inner heart I do approve and embrace this our close but
unharassing way of life."
Lamb's opinions on books, as well as on conduct, making some deduction for
his preference of old writers, is almost always sound. When he is writing
to Mr. Walter Wilson, who is editing De Foe, he says of the famous author
of "Robinson Crusoe,"--
"In appearance of _truth_ his works exceed any works of fiction that I am
acquainted with. It is perfect illusion. It is like reading evidence in a
court of justice. There is all the minute detail of a log-book in it.
Facts are repeated in varying phrases till you cannot choose but believe
them." His liking for books (rather than his criticism on them) is shown
frequently in his letters. "O! to forget Fielding, Steele, &c., and to
read 'em _new_," he says. Of De Foe, "His style is everywhere beautiful,
but plain and homely." Again, he speaks of "Fielding, Smollett, Sterne,--
great Nature's stereotypes." "Milton," he says, "almost requires a solemn
service of music to be played before you enter upon him." Of Shenstone he
speaks as "the dear author of the Schoolmistress;" and so on from time to
time, as occasion prompts, of Bunyan, Isaac Walton, and Jeremy Taylor, and
Fuller, and Sir Philip Sidney, and others, in affectionate terms.
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