LETTER 14


CHARLES LAMB TO S. T. COLERIDGE

Nov. 14th, 1796.

Coleridge, I love you for dedicating your poetry to Bowles. Genius of
the sacred fountain of tears, it was he who led you gently by the hand
through all this valley of weeping, showed you the dark green yew trees
and the willow shades where, by the fall of waters, you might indulge an
uncomplaining melancholy, a delicious regret for the past, or weave fine
visions of that awful future,

"When all the vanities of life's brief day
Oblivion's hurrying hand hath swept away,
And all its sorrows, at the awful blast
Of the archangel's trump, are but as shadows past."

I have another sort of dedication in my head for my few things, which I
want to know if you approve of, and can insert. I mean to inscribe them
to my sister. It will be unexpected, and it will give her pleasure; or
do you think it will look whimsical at all? As I have not spoke to her
about it, I can easily reject the idea. But there is a monotony in the
affections, which people living together or, as we do now, very
frequently seeing each other, are apt to give in to: a sort of
indifference in the expression of kindness for each other, which demands