To Miss Kelly
You are not, Kelly, of the common strain,
That stoop their pride and female honour down
To please that many-headed beast the town,
And vend their lavish smiles and tricks for gain;
By fortune thrown amid the actors' train,
You keep your native dignity of thought;
The plaudits that attend you come unsought,
As tributes due unto your natural vein.
Your tears have passion in them, and a grace
Of genuine freshness, which our hearts avow;
Your smiles are winds whose ways we cannot trace,
That vanish and return we know not how—
And please the better from a pensive face,
And thoughtful eye, and a reflecting brow.
That Lamb had been pondering his offer for some little time is suggested, Mr. Macdonald remarks, by a passage in one of his articles on Miss Kelly in The Examiner earlier in this month, where he says of her as Rachel, in "The Jovial Crew," probably with full knowledge that it would meet her eye and be understood (a truly Elian method of love-lettering), "'What a lass that were,' said a stranger who sate beside us … 'to go a gipseying through the world with.'"
This was Miss Kelly's reply:—
Henrietta Street, July 20th, 1819.
An early & deeply rooted attachment has fixed my heart on one from whom no worldly prospect can well induce me to withdraw it, but while I thus frankly & decidedly decline your proposal, believe me, I am not insensible to the high honour which the preference of such a mind as yours confers upon me—let me, however, hope that all thought upon this subject will end with this letter, & that you will henceforth encourage no other sentiment towards me than esteem in my private character and a continuance of that approbation of my humble talents which you have already expressed so much & so often to my advantage and gratification.
Believe me I feel proud to acknowledge myself
Your obliged friend
F. M. Kelly.
Lamb at once wrote again as follows:—]