In 1833 appeared the “Last Essays of Elia,” collected in one volume, from the London, the Englishman’s, and the New Monthly Magazines, and the Athenæum. This work closed his literary life, not long before the closing of his bodily life.
For the scene darkens swiftly now. “Mary
FAC-SIMILE OF A RECEIPT FOR A LEGACY, SIGNED BY CHARLES LAMB AS GUARDIAN FOR HIS SISTER MARY.
[By permission of Charles B. Foote, Esq., the owner of the original.]
is ill again. Her illnesses encroach yearly. The last was three months, followed by two of depression most dreadful. I look back upon her earlier attacks with longing. Nice little durations of six weeks or so, followed by complete restoration, shocking as they were to me, then. In short, half her life is dead to me, and the other half is made anxious with fears and lookings-forward to the next shock.” This was in May, 1833, when he decided to remove to Edmonton: “With such prospects it seemed to me necessary that she should no longer live with me, and be fluttered with continual removals; so I am come to live with her at a Mr. Walden’s and his wife, who take in patients, and have arranged to lodge and board us only.”
To lay a little more load on him, he lost Emma Isola, one month later, in July, 1833, by her marriage with Edward Moxon: their betrothal having been entered into “with my perfect approval and more than concurrence,” he writes. In the same letter he says, as unselfishly as always: “I am about to lose my only walk companion, whose mirthful spirits were the youth of our house.” He gave her, for a marriage gift, his most cherished possession, a portrait of John Milton. Mary’s reason was too clouded, at the time, to take interest in this affair, or even to understand it; but on the day of the wedding, being at table with them all, Mrs. Walden proposed the health of Mr. and Mrs. Moxon. The utterance of the unwonted name restored Mary to her composedness of mind, as if by an electrical stroke; she wrote afterward to the young couple: “I never felt so calm and quiet after a similar illness as I do now. I feel as if all tears were wiped from my eyes, and all care from my heart.”
Amid all these added adversities, he tried, with his cheerful and cheering courage, to make the best of it all. He found compensation in that they were “emancipated from the Westwoods,” and were settled “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, but one or two most beloved. But London streets and faces cheer me inexpressibly, though not one known of the latter were remaining.” And yet he struggled to town still more
THE WALDEN HOUSE AT EDMONTON.