Purchase of this book includes free trial access to www.million-books.com where you can read more than a million books for free. This is an OCR edition with typos. Excerpt from book: SOME LETTERS OF CHARLES LAMB; Reminiscences Of Himself Awakened Thereby. By Mary Cowden Clarke. The other day, in looking over some long-hoarded papers, I came across the following letters, which struck me as being too intrinsically delightful to be any longer withheld from general enjoyment. The time when they were written—while they had all the warm life ot affectionate intercourse that refers to current personal events, inspiring the wish to treasure them in privacy— has faded into the shadow of the past . Some of the persons addressed or referred to have left this earth; others have survived to look back upon their young former selves with the same kindliness of consideration with which Charles Lamb himself confessed to looking back upon " the child Elia—that ' other me,' there, in the background," and cherishing its remembrance. Even the girl, then known among her friends by the second of her baptismal names, before and not long after she had exchanged her maiden name of Mary Victoria Novello for the married one with which she signs her present communication, can feel willing to share with her more recent friends and readers the pleasure derived from dearand honoured Charles Lamb's sometimes playful, sometimes earnest allusions to her identity. The first letter is, according to his frequent wont, undated; and the post-mark is so much blurred as to be undecipherable; but it is addressed " V. Novello, Esqre., for C. C. Clarke, Esqre. :"— My Dear Sir,—Your letter has lain in a drawer of my desk, upbraiding me every time I open the said drawer, but it is almost impossible to answer such a letter in such a place, and I am out of the habit of replying to epistles otherwhere than at office. You express yourself concerning H. like a true friend, and have made me feel that...