less than a perpetual re-presentment to each individual angel
of his own present attainments and future capabilities,
somehow in the manner of mortal looking-glasses, reflecting
a perpetual complacency and self-satisfaction?

Eighth, and last. Whether an immortal and amenable soul may
not come to be condemned at last, and the man never suspect
it before hand?

The poet did not reply, and the misunderstanding between the two was
happily not long continued. I have sometimes doubted whether Coleridge
ever knew Lamb so well as Lamb knew Coleridge, though of his affection
for the brother and sister there can be no doubt; of them he wrote at
the end of his life:

Dear to my heart, yea as it were my heart.

In his "Sidelights on Charles Lamb," too, Mr. Bertram Dobell rescued a
remarkably interesting testimony "minuted down from the lips of
Coleridge," which shows that the poet came to know Lamb better than
when he sent his provocative message:

Charles Lamb has more totality and individuality of
character than any other man I know, or have ever known in
all my life. In most men we distinguish between the
different powers of their intellect as one being predominant
over the other. The genius of Wordsworth is greater than his
talent, though considerable. The talent of Southey is
greater than his genius, though respectable; and so on. But
in Charles Lamb it is altogether one; his genius is talent,