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CHAPTER VII.
Mary in the Asylum again.—Lamb's Letter with a Poem of hers.—Her slow Recovery.—Letters to Sarah Stoddart.—The Tales from Shakespeare begun.—Hazlitt's Portrait of Lamb.—Sarah's Lovers.—The Farce of Mr. H.
1805-6.—Æt. 41-2.
The letter to Miss Wordsworth called forth a response; but, alas! Mary was in sad exile when it arrived and Charles, with a heart full of grief, wrote for her:—
"14th June 1805.
"Your long kind letter has not been thrown away (for it has given me great pleasure to find you are all resuming your old occupations and are better); but poor Mary, to whom it is addressed, cannot yet relish it. She has been attacked by one of her severe illnesses and is at present from home. Last Monday week was the day she left me and I hope I may calculate upon having her again in a month or little more. I am rather afraid late hours have, in this case, contributed to her indisposition. . . . I have every reason to suppose that this illness, like all the former ones, will be but temporary; but I cannot always feel so. Meantime she is dead to me, and I miss a prop. All
