ENGLISH COMPOSTION

Charles Lamb
Jocelynn Tyler 2B
The author uses tone rhetorical strategies to decline Wordsworth’s invitation through a harsh and inconsiderate tone and through the use of similes and metaphors.
Lamb presents the idea of being bound to the city and having no desire to go to the country with Wordsworth using a very insensitive and thoughtless tone. He writes “Have I not enough, without your mountains? I do not envy you, I should pity you, did I not know, that the Mind will make friends of anything. Your sun & moon and skies and hills & lakes affect me no more, or scarcely come to me in more venerable characters, than as a gilded room with tapestry and tapers, where I might live with handsome visible objects.” This tone is used to decline Wordsworth, but it is written to harshly snub his feelings. This is only amplified when earlier he writes “I have passed all my days in London, until I have formed as many and intense local attachments, as any of your Mountaineers can have done with dead nature.” Through this use of tone and metaphor, he basically tells Wordsworth that he believes nature to be ‘dead’ and it is implied that he sees his city connections as more important. This is the premise upon which he builds his argument against going on this nature trip with Wordsworth.
The author also works to develop the idea that nature is dead, boring, and otherwise not as interesting as his city life. He writes “Separate from the pleasure of your company, I don't much care if I never see a mountain in my life.” He uses this and other sentences to show that he has little care towards nature and spending time out of the city. He also writes “My attachments are all local, purely local. I have no passion (or have had none since I was in love, and then it was the spurious engendering of poetry & books) to groves and vallies.” He continually stresses that the city is the place for him, and spurns the idea of going out into nature, effectively declining Wordsworth’s kind offer.
With the cold-shouldered manner of rejecting Wordsworth through calling his nature ‘dead’ and how he sees his city life and connections as more important, it is very clear that he has no desire to venture into the mountains with Wordsworth, and more than likely will not be swayed. By using this tone and harsh metaphors, the author has ultimately insulted and cast off Wordsworth in such a manner to more than likely prevent such questions again.