I will be at the wedding, and keep the 30 July as long as my poor months last me, as a festival gloriously.

Your ever

ELIA._

We have not heard from Cambridge.  I will write the moment we do.

Edmonton, 24th July, 3.20 post mer. minutes 4 instants by Emma’s watch.

[There used to be preserved at Rowfant (it is now in America) a letter from Lamb to Moxon, postmarked July 28, 1833, mentioning Lamb’s anxiety about Martin Burney.  It is unnecessary to print this.]

LETTER 587

CHARLES AND MARY LAMB TO EDWARD AND EMMA MOXON

[No date. ?  July 31, 1833.]

Dear Mr. and Mrs. Moxon—­

Time very short.  I wrote to Miss Fryer, and had the sweetest letter about you, Emma, that ever friendship dictated.  “I am full of good wishes, I am crying with good wishes,” she says; but you shall see it.—­

Dear Moxon, I take your writing most kindly and shall most kindly your writing from Paris—­

I want to crowd another letter to Miss Fry[er] into the little time after dinner before Post time.

So with 20000 congratulations,

Yours,

C.L.

I am calm, sober, happy.  Turn over for the reason.

I got home from Dover St., by Evens, half as sober as a judge.  I am turning over a new leaf, as I hope you will now.

[On the next leaf Mary Lamb wrote:—­]

MY DEAR EMMA AND EDWARD MOXON,

Accept my sincere congratulations, and imagine more good wishes than my weak nerves will let me put into good set words.  The dreary blank of unanswered questions which I ventured to ask in vain was cleared up on the wedding-day by Mrs. W. taking a glass of wine, and, with a total change of countenance, begged leave to drink Mr. and Mrs. Moxon’s health.  It restored me, from that moment:  as if by an electrical stroke:  to the entire possession of my senses—­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.

MARY LAMB.

[At the foot of this letter Charles Lamb added:—­]

Wednesday.

DEARS AGAIN

Your letter interrupted a seventh game at Picquet which we were having, after walking to Wright’s and purchasing shoes.  We pass our time in cards, walks, and reading.  We attack Tasso soon.

C.L.

Never was such a calm, or such a recovery.  ’Tis her own words, undictated.

[The marriage of Edward Moxon and Emma Isola was celebrated on July 30.  They afterwards went to Paris.

“Mrs. W.”—­Mrs. Walden, I imagine.

Here should come an amusing but brief account of the wedding sent by Lamb to Louisa Badams on August 20 (printed by Canon Ainger).  “I am not fit for weddings or burials.  Both incite a chuckle:”  a sentiment which Lamb more than once expresses.