A Bit of Lamb

I've no doubt that our readers are eagerly awaiting my blog partner's return, but must once again find me here holding down the ethereal blog fort, at the helm of the blog ship, or blog-sitting this little bundle of intellectual property we have joint custody of. Select whatever analogy is most entertaining to you.  

I'm just adding one or two things that jumped out of the book to me so as not to overwhelm our returning traveler, not that he has ever been at a loss for words. ;)


"I am so glad you want to talk about Charles Lamb on paper." I could certainly understand Juliet's happiness in finding someone who was willing to discuss something she was interested in by means of writing instead of face to face conversation. I wonder if she might have had a different response to Dawsey had she met him in person instead of on paper. How do you think her coming to know him through his thoughts and ideas, through the written word, affected her feelings about him and would she have had a different first impression if she'd seen him first? I wonder.

In this same letter she mentions that Lamb had a "genius for sympathy" which I thought was an interesting choice of words. Being a lover of the outdoors I understood what Wordsworth was trying to say but when CL responded with his feelings about furniture he had seen his whole life and a "book case which has followed me about like a faithful dog where-ever I have moved..." well, I understood that too.

The comic story about him being so drunk that he had to be carried home by the butler and then writing a letter of apology made me smile as did the letter when I found it online. Here is the link should you want to read it for yourself: Lamb's Apology for Drinking Too Much, compliments of the New York Times.


She closes this particular letter with a charming idea put forth by her friend, a parson:

"He thinks that if one cares deeply about someone or something new one throws a kind of energy out into the world, and 'fruitfulness' is drawn in."

She says he calls it "grace." I liked that concept very much and I wonder if the good parson (or the authors--I'm having trouble not thinking of the characters as real people--wasn't on to something).