“We are not of Alice, nor of thee, nor are we children at all. The children of Alice call Bartrum father. We are nothing; less than nothing, and dreams. We are only what might have been, and must wait upon the tedious shores of Lethe millions of ages before we have existence, and a name.”—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 Simrnons who had been Lamb's dream bride. In this line Lamb breaks his make-belief world and understood the reality that his children were only the possibilities, the future fruits.

Lamb realizes that his dream world is being shattered and that they cannot be his own children as they seemed to say that they are not the children of Charles Lamb. They are the fruits of his imagination, creatures of his fancy. Lamb fails to marry Ann. Naturally, they cannot be their children. They assure Lamb that if he would have waited for him upon the tedious shore of Lethe, the river of oblivion, they would be his own.