Antiquity! thou wondrous charm, what art thou? that being nothing art everything? When thou wert, thou wert not antiquity - then thou wert nothing, but hadst a remoter antiquity, as thou calledst it, to look back to with blind veneration; thou thyself being to thyself flat, jejune, modern! What mystery lurks in this retroversion? or what half Januses are we, that cannot look forward with the same idolatry with which we for ever revert! The mighty future is as nothing, being everything! the past is everything, being nothing!

Lucas suggests that sometime in 1781 Charles left Mrs. In one famous story Boyer was said to have knocked one of Leigh Hunt's teeth out by throwing a copy of Homer at him from across the room. " The essays "Dream Children" "New Year's Eve" and several others speak of the many years that Lamb spent pursuing his love that ultimately failed.

V. Charles Lamb (10 February 1775 – 27 December 1834) was an English essayist best known for his Essays of Elia and for the children's book Tales from Shakespeare which he produced with his sister Mary Lamb (1764–1847).