But to whatever conditions or circumstances we may owe the existence of Charles Lamb's letters, their quality is of course the fruit of the genius and temperament of the writer. Unpremeditated as the strain of the skylark, they have almost to excess (were that possible) the prime epistolary merit of spontaneity. From the brain of the writer to the sheet before him flows an unbroken Pactolian stream. Lamb, at his best, ranges with Shakspearian facility the gamut of human emotion, exclaiming, as it were at one moment, with Jaques, "Motley's the only wear!"--in the next probing the source of tears. He is as ejaculatory with his pen as other men are with their tongues. Puns, quotations, conceits, critical estimates of the rarest insight and suggestiveness, chase each other over his pages like clouds over a summer sky; and the whole is leavened with the sterling ethical and aesthetic good sense that renders Charles Lamb one of the wholesomest of writers. As to the plan on which the selections for this volume have been made, it needs only to be said that, in general, the editor has aimed to include those letters which exhibit most fully the writer's distinctive charm and quality. This plan leaves, of course, a residue of considerable biographical and critical value; but it is believed that to all who really love and appreciate him, Charles Lamb's "Best Letters" are those which are most uniquely and unmistakably Charles Lamb's. E. G. J. _September_, 1891. [1] Letter L. [2] Cowley. [3] The James Elia of the essay "My Relations." [4] Letter I. [5] Talfourd's Memoir. [6] Carlyle. [7] It would seem from Lamb's letter to Coleridge (Letter IV.) that it was _he_, not the landlord, who appeared thus too late, and who snatched the knife from the unconscious hand. [8] The reader is referred to Lamb's beautiful essay, "Dream Children." [9] If we except his passing tenderness for the young Quakeress, Hester Savory, Lamb admitted that he had never spoken to the lady in his life. [10] Letter LXXXIII. [11] Letters LXV IL., LXVIII., LXIX. [12] W. S. Landor. [13] In assuming this pseudonym Lamb borrowed the name of a fellow-clerk who had served with him thirty years before in the South Sea House,--an Italian named Elia. The name has probably never been pronounced as Lamb intended. "_Call him Ellia_," he said in a letter to J. Taylor, concerning this old acquaintance. [14] Letter XVII. [15] The rather unimportant series, "Popular Fallacies," appeared in the "New Monthly." [16] In the essay "The Superannuated Man" Lamb describes, with certain changes and modifications, his retirement from the India House. I. TO SAMUEL TAYLOR COLERIDGE. _May_ 27, 1796. Dear Coleridge,--Make yourself perfectly easy about May. I paid his bill when I sent your clothes. I was flush of money, and am so still to all the purposes of a single life; so give yourself no further concern about it. The money would be superfluous to me if I had it.