What Is The Tone Of Charles Lamb Letter To Wordsworth

In a previous letter, William Wordsworth invited Charles Lamb to come out to his home in the country. Lamb, knowing full well that he would never set foot in the countryside, wrote a letter of response to Wordsworth. With his skillfully placed uses of tone, compare and contrast, and imagery, he rejects Wordworth’s invitation to visit the hellacious countryside.

Throughout his letter, Lamb’s tone deviates. When he is describing the country that he finds so distasteful, his tone is negative and full of disgust. Since their “sun & moon and skies and hills & lakes affect” him no more, he feels no compassion for them. So would he go to the country? Never. But his fondness for London shows through his warm, heart rending
descriptions.
His love for London is shown as he say “… I often shed tears… from fullness of joy at so much (italics) Life.” Not once does is tone become derogatory, not even when describing
“Watchmen, drunken scenes, rattles”.
His tone is always showing the joy that comes from living in London, and the nothingness of the country, especially in his comparisons and contrasts. Lamb’s whole letter is a comparison and a contrast. He begins with the description of
London. He explains the way that London is “life awake, if you wake, at all hours of the night”, whereas the country is “dead nature”. Also, writes Lamb, “My attachments are all local… the room where I was born, the furniture…, … I have no passion”. While as the atmosphere of
London “impels me into night walks… and … I often shed tears… from fullness of joy at so much
(italics) Life.” While saying all of this, Lamb uses imagery to paint pictures of London as a great city, versus the lackluster and insignificant country.

By using his words to paint pictures, Lamb impresses the idea of the country being
“dead nature” and “groves and vallies”. But when he speaks of London, his words show things packed with vigor and life, such as “The lighted shops”, “trades, tradesmen, and customers”,
“The watchmen, drunken scenes, rattles”. Because of his imagery, Lamb’s vision of London is
of a beautiful city with many people and sources of entertainment, while as the country is dead, with nothing new to show.

So by making the country seem hellacious through his various uses of rhetoric, Lamb proves his point in not wanting to leave his breathtaking city for the dreary country. Lamb says he would rather be in “a gilded room with tapestry and tapers, where I might live with handsome visible objects”, than go to the country.