Читать книгу Winterslow - William Hazlitt - Страница 5

‘Oh memory! shield me from the world’s poor strife,

And give those scenes thine everlasting life.’

I saw no more of him for a year or two, during which period he had been wandering in the Hartz Forest, in Germany; and his return was cometary, meteorous, unlike his setting out. It was not till some time after that I knew his friends Lamb and Southey. The last always appears to me (as I first saw him) with a commonplace book under his arm, and the first with a bon-mot in his mouth. It was at Godwin’s that I met him with Holcroft and Coleridge, where they were disputing fiercely which was the best—Man as he was, or man as he is to be. ‘Give me,’ says Lamb, ‘man as he is not to be.’ This saying was the beginning of a friendship between us, which I believe still continues. Enough of this for the present.

‘But there is matter for another rhyme,

And I to this may add a second tale.’