at my present afflictions may be sanctified to me!
Mary is recovering; but I see no opening yet of a situation for her.
Your invitation went to my very heart; but you have a power of exciting
interest, of leading all hearts captive, too forcible to admit of Mary's
being with you. I consider her as perpetually on the brink of madness. I
think you would almost make her dance within an inch of the precipice;
she must be with duller fancies and cooler intellects. I know a young
man of this description who has suited her these twenty years, and may
live to do so still, if we are one day restored to each other. In answer
to your suggestions of occupation for me, I must say that I do not think
my capacity altogether suited for disquisitions of that kind.... I have
read little; I have a very weak memory, and retain little of what I
read; am unused to composition in which any methodizing is required. But
I thank you sincerely for the hint, and shall receive it as far as I am
able,--that is, endeavor to engage my mind in some constant and innocent
pursuit. I know my capacities better than you do.

Accept my kindest love, and believe me yours, as ever.

C. L.

[1] Mary Lamb had fallen ill again.

XV.

TO ROBERT SOUTHEY

(No month, 1798.)

Dear Southey,--I thank you heartily for the eclogue [1]; it pleases me
mightily, being so full of picture-work and circumstances. I find no
fault in it, unless perhaps that Joanna's ruin is a catastrophe too
trite; and this is not the first or second time you have clothed your
indignation, in verse, in a tale of ruined innocence. The old lady,
spinning in the sun, I hope would not disdain to claim some kindred with
old Margaret. I could almost wish you to vary some circumstances in the
conclusion. A gentleman seducer has so often been described in prose and
verse: what if you had accomplished Joanna's ruin by the clumsy arts and
rustic gifts of some country fellow? I am thinking, I believe, of
the song,--

"An old woman clothed in gray,
Whose daughter was charming and young,
And she was deluded away
By Roger's false, flattering tongue."

A Roger-Lothario would be a novel character; I think you might paint him
very well. You may think this a very silly suggestion, and so indeed it
is; but, in good truth, nothing else but the first words of that foolish
ballad put me upon scribbling my "Rosamund." [2] But I thank you heartily
for the poem. Not having anything of my ow