Biographia Epistolaris, Volume 1. by Samuel Taylor Coleridge
page 51 of 376 (13%)
page 51 of 376 (13%)
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[[Sub-footnote a: "A word Timidly uttered, for she "lives", the meek,
The self-restraining, the ever kind." From Mr. Wordsworth's memorial poem to her brother. P. W. V. P. 333.]] Mr. Coleridge speaks of Miss Lamb, to whom he continued greatly attached, in these verses, addressed to her brother: "Cheerily, dear Charles! Thou thy best friend shall cherish many a year; Such warm presages feel I of high hope! For not uninterested the dear maid I've viewed--her soul affectionate yet wise, Her polished wit as mild as lambent glories That play around a sainted infant's head." (See the single volume of Coleridge's Poems, p. 28.) Mr. Lamb has himself described his dear and only sister, whose proper name is Mary Anne, under the title of "Cousin Bridget," in the Essay called "Mackery End", a continuation of that entitled "My Relations", in which he has drawn the portrait of his elder brother. "Bridget Elia," so he commences the former, "has been my housekeeper for many a long year. I have obligations to Bridget, extending beyond the period of memory. We house together, old bachelor and maid, in a sort of double singleness; with such tolerable comfort upon the whole, that I, for one, find in myself no sort of disposition to go out upon the mountains, with the rash king's offspring, to bewail my celibacy."--("Works", vol. ii, p. 171.) He describes her intellectual tastes in this essay, but does not |
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