Page:Mary Lamb (Gilchrist 1883).djvu/264

248 crisis I should have more rejoiced in. I am about to lose my old and only walk companion, whose mirthful spirits were the 'youth of our house,'—Emma Isola. I have her here now for a little while, but she is too nervous properly to be under such a roof, so she will make short visits—be no more an inmate. With my perfect approval and more than concurrence she is to be wedded to Moxon at the end of August. So 'perish the roses and the flowers!'—how is it?

"Now to the brighter side. I am emancipated from the Westwoods and I am with attentive people and younger. I am three or four miles nearer the great city; coaches half price less and going always, of which I will avail myself. I have few friends left there, one or two, though, most beloved. But London streets and faces cheer me inexpressibly, though not one known of the latter were remaining. I am feeble but cheerful in this my genial hot weather. Walked sixteen miles yesterday. I can't read much in summer-time."

There was no sense of being "pulled up by the roots" now in these removals. Lamb had and could have no home since she who had been its chief pride was in perpetual banishment from him and from herself. The following notelet which Talfourd, in his abundance, probably did not think worth publishing, at any rate shows with mournful significance how bitter were his recollections of Enfield, to which they had gone full of hope. It was written to Mr. Gillman's eldest son, a young clergyman, desirous of the incumbency of Enfield:—

"By a strange occurrence we have quitted Enfield for ever! Oh! the happy eternity! Who is Vicar or Lecturer for that detestable place concerns us not. But Asbury, surgeon and a good fellow, has