His Wednesday-evening parties were assemblies of thinkers. They were
composed in large part of men who were not balanced by a profession, who
were devoted only to wit, fancy, or speculation, who cultivated each a
peculiar field and cherished each peculiar tastes and opinions, who
were interested in different quarters of the heavens, and yet who came
together, prompted by the spirit of sociality and kindliness, to lay
perhaps the backs of their heads together, and to talk always sincerely
and wisely, but in the form of sense or nonsense, as the case might be.
Lamb and his sister were always ready to appreciate every variety of
goodness, and doubtless their guests received an order something like
that which was addressed to the dwellers in Thomson's enchanting
castle:--
"Ye sons of Indolence! do what you will,
And wander where you list, through hall or glade;
Be no man's pleasure for another stayed:
Let each as likes him best his hours employ,
And cursed be he who minds his neighbor's trade!"
To these parties sometimes came Coleridge, who in conversation seems
to have been a happy mixture of a German philosopher and an Italian
_improvvisatore_.
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