CHARLES LAMB TO WILLIAM WORDSWORTH

[No date. January, 1823.]

Dear Wordsworth, I beg your acceptance of ELIA, detached from any of its
old companions which might have been less agreeable to you. I hope your
eyes are better, but if you must spare them, there is nothing in my
pages which a Lady may not read aloud without indecorum, _which is more
than can be said of Shakspeare_.

What a nut this last sentence would be for Blackwood!

You will find I availed myself of your suggestion, in curtailing the
dissertation on Malvolio.

I have been on the Continent since I saw you.

I have eaten frogs.

I saw Monkhouse tother day, and Mrs. M. being too poorly to admit of
company, the annual goosepye was sent to Russell Street, and with its
capacity has fed "A hundred head" (not of Aristotle's) but "of Elia's
friends."

Mrs. Monkhouse is sadly confined, but chearful.--

This packet is going off, and I have neither time, place nor solitude
for a longer Letter.