“I courted the fair Alice W——n; and, as much as children could understand, I explained to them what coyness, and difficulty, and denial meant in maidens—when suddenly, turning to Alice, the soul of the first Alice looked out at her eyes with such a reality of re-presentment, that I became in doubt which of them stood there before me, or whose that bright hair was; and while I stood gazing, both the children gradually grew fainter to my view, receding, and still receding till nothing at last but two mournful features were seen in the uttermost distance, which, without speech, strangely impressed upon me the effects of speech.”—Explain.

 These lines are extracted from Charles Lamb's autobiographical and romantic essay Dream Children. Lamb always indulged in reverie and fantasized the heavenly essence of family life which he never got in his life. Like a universal father Lamb was telling a tale to his dream children about his imaginary courtship with Alice Winterton. Lamb could not forget his 'Calf-Love' with Ann Simmons which lasted only for seven years Actually, Alice is Ann Simmons who had been Lamb's dream bride.

Suddenly turning to his dream daughter Alice, Charles was astonished to find that she resembles her mother to the full and her two tiny innocent eyes became the canvass where the exact and living portrait of her mother was painted. Lamb was stunned at the sight and for a moment became puzzled to perceive who it really was standing before him- the daughter or the mother? She even got the bright hair of her mother as a legacy and this resemblance reminds him of Ann more. Lamb stood perplexed and still staring at the two siblings in wonder when they began to fade and grow indistinct before his eyes: and at length nothing of them was to be seen but the two sad and gloomy figures which, though speechless seemed to him to be really speaking.