Daily Dose

From The Life of Charles Lamb, Vol. II, by E. V. Lucas

FANCY

“In other words, The Essays of Elia are perhaps as easily dispensed with as any work of fancy and imagination in the language; and a large number of persons not uninterested in English literature attain to great heights of ignorance concerning them. Their ‘facts’ are not of the utilitarian order; their humour leads rarely to loud laughter, rather to the quiet smile; they are not stories; they are not poems; they are not difficult enough to suggest ‘mental improvement’ to those who count it loss unless they are puzzled, nor simple enough for those who demand of their authors no confounded nonsense.”