...delusions that he later described to his former schoolmate and close friend, Samuel Taylor Coleridge: "But mad I was — and many a vagary my imagination played with me, enough to make a volume if all told. . . . For while it lasted I had many many hours of pure happiness. Dream not, Coleridge, of having...

...described to his former schoolmate and close friend, Samuel Taylor Coleridge: "But mad I was—and many a vagary my imagination played with me, enough to make a volume if all told. . . . For while it lasted I had many many hours of pure happiness. Dream not, Coleridge, of having...

...agreeably' in a madhouse, following some form of breakdown (possibly connected with an unrequited passion). 'I am got somewhat rational now, and don't bite any one.' But he looked back on this period with a gloomy kind of Envy. For while it lasted I had many many hours...

...has been somewhat ' diversified of late. The six weeks that finished last year and ' began this, your humble servant spent very agreeably in a ' madhouse...rational now, and ' don't bite any one. But mad I was.' This terrible affliction, which fell upon him thus as he emerged from boyhood, never recurred. A question...

...spent six weeks, " very agreeably," he says in a letter to Coleridge, " in a mad-house at Hoxton. * * Mad I was! And many a vagary my imagination played...with me, enough to make a volume, if all were told" In a subsequent letter he says, "I look back upon it at times with a gloomy kind of envy; for while...

...would."3 Lamb fears the lyric obligation to pour out his innermost feelings, so he mutes his focus: "mad I was — and many a vagary my imagination played with me, enough to make a volume if all told" (1:2). But "all" cannot be told; instead of that "volume," he presents Coleridge with an imagistically...

...Coleridge: "My life has been somewhat diversified of late. The six weeks that finished last year and began this, your very humble servant spent very agreeably in a madhouse at Hoxton. I am got rational somehow now and don't bite anybody. But mad I was, and many a vagary my imagination played...

...that finished last year and began this your humble servant spent very agreeably in a madhouse. I am somewhat rational now, and don't bite any one ; but mad I was.' And he tells his friend, ' At some future time I will amuse you with an account as full as memory will...

...finished last year and began this, your very humble servant passed very agreeably in a mad-house. I am somewhat rational now, and don't bite any one. But mad I was. It may convince you of my regard for you when I tell you that my head ran on you in my madness almost...