Loneliness

Abstract

From the death of his mother to mid-1797 was a desolate period, in which Lamb clung to Coleridge’s religion and Coleridge’s married happiness as if to make these a sustaining part of himself. He spent long hours writing to Coleridge in the office or while his senile father dozed, pouring out his worries and hopes without self-pity. The letters concentrate on the practical and poetic matters that would interest Coleridge. Coleridge, to his everlasting credit, supported Lamb manfully from the midst of a thousand distractions.¹ And through Coleridge he made two new friends, the Jacobin John Thelwall and the young Quaker poet Charles Lloyd.

… pray, pray, write to me: if you knew with what an anxiety of joy I open such a long packet as you last sent me, you would not grudge giving a few minutes now & then to this intercourse (the only intercourse, I fear we two shall ever have) this conversation with your friend—such I boast to be called. Lamb to Coleridge, 1 December 1796 (M i 67)