show me the Severn death-bed portrait of Keats, which he had just bought from Rosenbach.  I’d tell the story of the unpublished letter of R.L.S. which a young man sold to buy a wedding present, which has since vanished (the R.L.S. letter).  I’d tell the amazing story of how a piece of Walt Whitman manuscript was lost in Philadelphia on the memorable night of June 30, 1919.  I’d tell just how Vachel Lindsay behaves when he’s off duty.  I’d even forsake everything to travel over to England with Vachel on his forthcoming lecture tour, as I’m convinced that England’s comments on Vachel will be worth listening to.

The ideal man to keep the sort of diary I have in mind would be Hilaire Belloc.  It was an ancestor of Mr. Belloc, Dr. Joseph Priestley (who died in Pennsylvania, by the way) who discovered oxygen; and it is Mr. Belloc himself who has discovered how to put oxygen into the modern English essay.  The gift, together with his love of good eating, probably came to him from his mother, Bessie Rayner Parkes, who once partook of Samuel Rogers’s famous literary breakfasts.  And this brings us back to our old friend Crabb Robinson, another of the Rogers breakfast clan.  Robinson is never wildly exciting, but he gives a perfect panorama of his day.  It is not often that one finds a man who associated with such figures as Goethe, Wordsworth, Coleridge, Blake, and Lamb.  He had the true gift for diarizing.  What could be better, for instance, than this little miniature picture of the rise and fall of teetotalism in one well-loved person?—­

Mary Lamb, I am glad to say, is just now very comfortable.  She has put herself under Doctor Tuthill, who has prescribed water.  Charles, in consequence, resolved to accommodate himself to her, and since Lord-Mayor’s day has abstained from all other liquor, as well as from smoking.  We shall all rejoice if this experiment succeeds....  His change of habit, though it, on the whole, improves his health, yet when he is low-spirited, leaves him without a remedy or relief.

    —­LETTER OF HENRY CRABB ROBINSON To Miss WORDSWORTH, December 23,
    1810.

    Spent part of the evening with Charles Lamb (unwell) and his sister.

    —­ROBINSON’S DIARY, January 8, 1811.

    Late in the evening Lamb called, to sit with me while he smoked his
    pipe.

    —­ROBINSON’S DIARY, December 20, 1814.

Lamb was in a happy frame, and I can still recall to my mind the look and tone with which he addressed Moore, when he could not articulate very distinctly:  “Mister Moore, will you drink a glass of wine with me?”—­suiting the action to the word, and hobnobbing.

    —­ROBINSON’S DIARY, April 4, 1823.