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　　LETTER 117

　　MARY LAMB TO SARAH STODDART

　　[No date. ? March, 1804.]

　　My dearest Sarah,—I will just write a few hasty lines to say Coleridge is setting off sooner than we expected; and I every moment expect him to call in one of his great hurrys for this. Charles intended to write by him, but has not: most likely he will send a letter after him to Portsmouth: if he does, you will certainly hear from him soon. We rejoiced with exceeding joy to hear of your safe arrival: I hope your brother will return home in a few years a very rich man. Seventy pounds in one fortnight is a pretty beginning—

　　I envy your brother the pleasure of seeing Coleridge drop in unexpectedly upon him; we talk—but it is but wild and idle talk—of following him: he is to get my brother some little snug place of a thousand a year, and we are to leave all, and come and live among ye. What a pretty dream.

　　Coleridge is very ill. I dread the thought of his long voyage—write as soon as he arrives, whether he does or not, and tell me how he is.

　　Jamaica bodies… [words illegible].

　　He has got letters of recommendation to Governor Ball, and God knows who; and he will talk and talk, and be universally admired. But I wish to write for him a letter of recommendation to Mrs. Stoddart, and to yourself, to take upon ye, on his first arrival, to be kind affectionate nurses; and mind, now, that you perform this duty faithfully, and write me a good account of yourself. Behave to him as you would to me, or to Charles, if we came sick and unhappy to you.

　　I have no news to send you; Coleridge will tell you how we are going on. Charles has lost the newspaper; but what we dreaded as an evil has proved a great blessing, for we have both strangely recovered our health and spirits since this has happened; and I hope, when I write next, I shall be able to tell you Charles has begun something which will produce a little money; for it is not well to be very poor—which we certainly are at this present writing.

　　I sit writing here, and thinking almost you will see it tomorrow; and what a long, long time it will be ere you receive this—When I saw your letter, I fancy'd you were even just then in the first bustle of a new reception, every moment seeing new faces, and staring at new objects, when, at that time, every thing had become familiar to you; and the strangers, your new dancing partners, had perhaps become gossiping fireside friends. You tell me of your gay, splendid doings; tell me, likewise, what manner of home-life you lead—Is a quiet evening in a Maltese drawing room as pleasant as those we have passed in Mitre Court and Bell yard?—Tell me all about it, every thing pleasant, and every thing unpleasant, that befalls you.

　　I want you to say a great deal about yourself. Are you happy? and do you not repent going out? I wish I could see you for one hour only.

　　Remember me affectionately to your sister and brother; and tell me, when you write, if Mrs. Stoddart likes Malta, and how the climate agrees with her and with thee.

　　We heard you were taken prisoners, and for several days believed the tale.

　　How did the pearls, and the fine court finery, bear the fatigues of the voyage, and how often have they been worn and admired?

　　Rickman wants to know if you are going to be married yet—satisfy him in that little particular when you write.

　　The Fenwicks send their love, and Mrs. Reynolds her love, and the little old lady her best respects.

　　Mrs. Jefferies, who I see now and then, talks of you with tears in her eyes, and, when she heard you was taken prisoner, Lord! how frightened she was. She has heard, she tells me, that Mr. Stoddart is to have a pension of two thousand a year, whenever he chuses to return to England.

　　God bless you, and send you all manner of comforts and happinesses.

　　Your most affectionate friend,

　　MARY LAMB.

　　How-do? how-do? No time to write. S.T.C. going off in a great hurry. CH.

　　LAMB.

　　[Miss Stoddart was now in Malta. Governor Ball was Sir Alexander Ball, to whom Coleridge was to act as private secretary and of whom he wrote some years later in The Friend.

　　"Charles has lost the newspaper"—his work on the Morning Post. Lamb's

　　principal period on this paper had begun after Stuart sold it in

　　September, 1803, and it lasted until February, 1804 (see notes in Vol.

　　II. of this edition).

　　"We heard you were taken prisoners"—by the French.

　　"Mrs. Reynolds"—Lamb's old schoolmistress and pensioner. Mrs. Jefferies

　　I do not know.] The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb — Volume 5