Charles Lamb

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I had known him for a short time previously to 1818, having been
introduced to him at Mr. Leigh Hunt's house, where I enjoyed his company
once or twice over agreeable suppers; but I knew him slightly only, and
did not see much of him until he and his sister went to occupy the
lodgings in Russell Street, where he invited me to come and see him. They
lived in the corner house adjoining Bow Street. This house belonged, at
that time, to an ironmonger (or brazier), and was comfortable and clean,--
and a little noisy.

Charles Lamb was about forty years of age when I first saw him; and I knew
him intimately for the greater part of twenty years. Small and spare in
person, and with small legs ("immaterial legs" Hood called them), he had a
dark complexion, dark, curling hair, almost black, and a grave look,
lightening up occasionally, and capable of sudden merriment. His laugh was
seldom excited by jokes merely ludicrous; it was never spiteful; and his
quiet smile was sometimes inexpressibly sweet: perhaps it had a touch of
sadness in it. His mouth was well shaped; his lip tremulous with
expression; his brown eyes were quick, restless, and glittering; and he
had a grand head, full of thought. Leigh Hunt said that "he had a head
worthy of Aristotle." Hazlitt calls it "a fine Titian head, full of dumb
eloquence." I knew that, before he had attained the age of twenty years,
he had to make his way in the world, and that his lines had not been cast
in pleasant places. I had heard, indeed, that his family had at one time
consisted of a father and mother and an insane sister; all helpless and
poor, and all huddled together in a small lodging, scarcely large enough
to admit of their moving about without restraint. It is difficult to
imagine a more disheartening youth. Nevertheless, out of this desert, in
which no hope was visible, he rose up eventually a cheerful man (cheerful
when his days were not clouded by his sister's illness); a charming
companion, full of pleasant and gentle fancies, and the finest humorist of
his age.

Although sometimes strange in manner, he was thoroughly unaffected; in
serious matters thoroughly sincere. He was, indeed (as he confesses),
terribly shy; diffident, not awkward in manner; with occasionally nervous,
twitching motions that betrayed this infirmity. He dreaded the criticisms
of servants far more than the observations of their masters. To undergo
the scrutiny of the first, as he said to me, when we were going to
breakfast with Mr. Rogers one morning, was "terrible." His speech was
brief and pithy; not too often humorous; never sententious nor didactic.
Although he sometimes talked whilst walking up and down the room (at which
time he seldom looked at the person with whom he was talking), he very
often spoke as if impelled by the necessity of speaking--suddenly,
precipitately. If he could have spoken very easily, he might possibly have
uttered long sentences, expositions, or orations; such as some of his
friends indulged in, to the utter confusion of their hearers.

But he knew the value of silence; and he knew that even truth may be
damaged by too many words. When he did speak, his words had a flavor in
them beyond any that I have heard elsewhere. His conversation dwelt upon
persons or things within his own recollection, or it opened (with a
startling doubt, or a question, or a piece of quaint humor) the great
circle of thought.

In temper he was quick, but easily appeased. He never affected that
exemption from sensibility which has sometimes been mistaken for
philosophy, and has conferred reputation upon little men. In a word, he
exhibited his emotions in a fine, simple, natural manner. Contrary to the
usual habits of wits, no retort or reply by Lamb, however smart in
character, ever gave pain. It is clear that ill nature is not wit, and
that there may be sparkling flowers which are not surrounded by thorns.
Lamb's dissent was very intelligible, but never superfluously
demonstrative; often, indeed, expressed by his countenance only; sometimes
merely by silence.

He was more pleasant to some persons (more pleasant, I confess, to _me_)
for the few faults or weaknesses that he had. He did not daunt us, nor
throw us to a distance, by his formidable virtues. We sympathized with
him; and this sympathy, which is a union between two similitudes, does not
exist between perfect and imperfect natures. Like all of us, he had a few
prejudices: he did not like Frenchmen; he shrunk from Scotchmen
(excepting, however, Burns); he disliked bankrupts; he hated close
bargainers. For the Jewish nation he entertained a mysterious awe: the
Jewesses he admired, with trembling: "Jael had those full, dark,
inscrutable eyes," he says. Of Braham's triumphant singing he repeatedly
spoke; there had been nothing like it in his recollection: he considered
him equal to Mrs. Siddons. In his letters he characterizes him as "a
mixture of the Jew, the gentleman, and the angel." He liked chimney-
sweepers--the young ones--the "innocent blacknesses;" and with beggars he
had a strong sympathy. He always spoke tenderly of them, and has written
upon them an essay full of beauty. Do not be frightened (he says) at the
hard words, imposture, &c. "Cast thy bread upon the waters: some have
unawares entertained angels."

Much injustice has been done to Lamb by accusing him of excess in
drinking. The truth is, that a small quantity of any strong liquid (wine,
&c.) disturbed his speech, which at best was but an eloquent stammer. The
distresses of his early life made him ready to resort to any remedy which
brought forgetfulness; and he himself, frail in body and excitable, was
very speedily affected. During all my intimacy with him, I never knew him
drink immoderately; except once, when, having been prevailed upon to
abstain altogether from wine and spirits, he resented the vow thus forced
upon him by imbibing an extraordinary quantity of the "spurious" liquid.
When he says, "The waters have gone over me," he speaks in metaphor, not
historically. He was never vanquished by water, and seldom by wine. His
energy, or mental power, was indeed subject to fluctuation; no excessive
merriment, perhaps, but much depression. "My waking life," he writes, "has
much of the confusion, the trouble, and obscure perplexity of an ill
dream. In the daytime I stumble upon dark mountains."

Lamb's mode of life was temperate, his dinner consisting of meat, with
vegetables and bread only. "We have a sure hot joint on Sundays," he
writes, "and when had we better?" He appears to have had a relish for
game, roast pig, and brawn, &c., roast pig especially, when given to him;
but his poverty first, and afterwards his economical habits, prevented his
indulging in such costly luxuries. He was himself a small and delicate
eater at all times; and he entertained something like aversion towards
great feeders. During a long portion of his life, his means were much
straitened. The reader may note his want of money in several of his
letters. Speaking of a play, he says, "I am quite aground for a plan; and
_I must do something for money_."

He was restless and fond of walking. I do not think that he could ride on
horseback; but he could walk during all the day. He had, in that manner,
traversed the whole of London and its suburbs (especially the northern and
north-eastern parts) frequently. "I cannot sit and think," he said. Tired
with exercise, he went to bed early, except when friends supped with him;
and he always rose early, from necessity, being obliged to attend at his
office, in Leadenhall Street, every day, from ten until four o'clock--
sometimes later. It was there that his familiar letters were written. On
his return, after a humble meal, he strolled (if it was summer) into the
suburbs, or traversed the streets where the old bookshops were to be
found. He seldom or never gave dinners. You were admitted at all times to
his plain supper, which was sufficiently good when any visitor came; at
other times, it was spare. "We have _tried_ to eat suppers," Miss Lamb
writes to Mrs. Hazlitt, "but we left our appetites behind us; and the dry
loaf, which offended you, now comes in at night unaccompanied." You were
sure of a welcome at his house; sure of easy, unfettered talk. After
supper you might smoke a pipe with your host, or gossip (upon any subject)
with him or his sensible sister.

Perhaps the pipe was the only thing in which Lamb really exceeded. He was
fond of it from the very early years when he was accustomed to smoke
"Orinooko" at the "Salutation and Cat," with Coleridge, in 1796. He
attempted on several occasions to give it up, but his struggles were
overcome by counter influences. "Tobacco," he says, "stood in its own
light." At last, in 1805, he was able to conquer and abandon it--for a
time. His success, like desertion from a friend, caused some remorse and a
great deal of regret. In writing to Coleridge about his house, which was
"smoky," he inquires, "Have you cured it? It is hard to cure anything of
smoking." Apart from the mere pleasure of smoking, the narcotic soothed
his nerves and controlled those perpetual apprehensions which his sister's
frequent illnesses excited. Of Mary Lamb, Hazlitt has said (somewhere)
that she was the most rational and wisest woman whom he had ever known.
Lamb and his sister had an open party once a week, every Wednesday
evening, when his friends generally went to visit him, without any special
invitation. He invited you suddenly, not pressingly; but with such
heartiness that you at once agreed to come. There was usually a game at
whist on these evenings, in which the stakes were very moderate, indeed
almost nominal.

When my thoughts turn backward, as they sometimes do, to these past days,
I see my dear old friend again,--"in my mind's eye, Horatio,"--with his
outstretched hand, and his grave, sweet smile of welcome. It was always in
a room of moderate size, comfortably but plainly furnished, that he lived.
An old mahogany table was opened out in the middle of the room, round
which, and near the walls, were old, high-backed chairs (such as our
grandfathers used), and a long, plain bookcase completely filled with old
books. These were his "ragged veterans." In one of his letters he says,
"My rooms are luxurious, one for prints, and one for books; a summer and
winter parlor." They, however, were not otherwise decorated. I do not
remember ever to have seen a flower or an image in them. He had not been
educated into expensive tastes. His extravagances were confined to books.
These were all chosen by himself, all old, and all in "admired disorder;"
yet he could lay his hand on any volume in a moment, "You never saw," he
writes, "a bookcase in more true harmony with the contents than what I
have nailed up in my room. Though new, it has more aptitude for growing
old than you shall often see; as one sometimes gets a friend in the middle
of life who becomes an old friend in a short time."

Here Charles Lamb sate, when at home, always near the table. At the
opposite side was his sister, engaged in some domestic work, knitting or
sewing, or poring over a modern novel. "Bridget in some things is behind
her years." In fact, although she was ten years older than her brother,
she had more sympathy with modern books and with youthful fancies than he
had. She wore a neat cap, of the fashion of her youth; an old-fashioned
dress. Her face was pale and somewhat square, but very placid, with gray,
intelligent eyes. She was very mild in her manner to strangers, and to her
brother gentle and tender always. She had often an upward look, of
peculiar meaning, when directed towards him, as though to give him
assurance that all was then well with her. His affection for her was
somewhat less on the surface, but always present. There was great
gratitude intermingled with it. "In the days of weakling infancy," he
writes, "I was her tender charge, as I have been her care in foolish
manhood since." Then he adds, pathetically, "I wish I could throw into a
heap the remainder of our joint existences, that we might share them in
equal division."

Lamb himself was always dressed in black. "I take it," he says, "to be the
proper costume of an author." When this was once objected to, at a
wedding, he pleaded the raven's apology in the fable, that "he had no
other." His clothes were entirely black; and he wore long black gaiters,
up to the knees. His head was bent a little forward, like one who had been
reading; and, if not standing or walking, he generally had in his hand an
old book, a pinch of snuff, or, later in the evening, a pipe. He stammered
a little, pleasantly, just enough to prevent his making speeches; just
enough to make you listen eagerly for his words, always full of meaning,
or charged with a jest; or referring (but this was rare) to some line or
passage from one of the old Elizabethan writers, which was always ushered
in with a smile of tender reverence. When he read aloud it was with a
slight tone, which I used to think he had caught from Coleridge;
Coleridge's recitation, however, rising to a chant. Lamb's reading was not
generally in books of verse, but in the old lay writers, whose tendency
was towards religious thoughts. He liked, however, religious verse. "I can
read," he writes to Bernard Barton, "the homely old version of the Psalms
in our prayer-books, for an hour or two, without sense of weariness." He
avoided manuscripts as much as practicable: "all things read _raw_ to me
in manuscript." Lamb wrote much, including many letters; but his hands
were wanting in pliancy ("inveterate clumsiness" are his words), and his
handwriting was therefore never good. It was neither text nor running
hand, and the letters did not indicate any fluency; it was not the
handwriting of an old man nor of a young man; yet it had a very peculiar
character--stiff, resolute, distinct; quite unlike all others that I have
seen, and easily distinguishable amongst a thousand.

No one has described Lamb's manner or merits so well as Hazlitt: "He
always made the best pun and the best remark in the course of the evening.
His serious conversation, like his serious writing, is his best. No one
ever stammered out such fine piquant, deep, eloquent things, in half a
dozen sentences, as he does. His jests scald like tears; and he probes a
question with a play upon words. There was no fuss or cant about him. He
has furnished many a text for Coleridge to preach upon." (_I. Plain
Speaker._) Charles was frequently merry; but ever, at the back of his
merriment, there reposed a grave depth, in which rich colors and tender
lights were inlaid. For his jests sprang from his sensibility; which was
as open to pleasure as to pain. This sensibility, if it somewhat impaired
his vigor, led him into curious and delicate fancies, and taught him a
liking for things of the highest relish, which a mere robust jester never
tastes.

Large, sounding words, unless embodying great thoughts (as in the case of
Lear), he did not treasure up or repeat. He was an admirer of what was
high and good, of what was delicate (especially); but he delighted most to
saunter along the humbler regions, where kindness of heart and geniality
of humor made the way pleasant. His intellect was very quick, piercing
into the recondite meaning of things in a moment. His own sentences were
compressed and full of meaning; his opinions independent and decisive; no
qualifying or doubting. His descriptions were not highly colored; but, as
it were, sharply cut, like a piece of marble, rather than like a picture.
He liked and encouraged friendly discussion; but he hated contentious
argument, which leads to quarrel rather than to truth.

There was an utter want of parade in everything he said and did, in
everything about him and his home. The only ornaments on his walls were a
few engravings in black frames: one after Leonardo da Vinci; one after
Titian; and four, I think, by Hogarth, about whom he has written so well.
Images of quaint beauty, and all gentle, simple things (things without
pretension) pleased him to the fullest extent; perhaps a little beyond
their strict merit. I have heard him express admiration for Leonardo da
Vinci that he did not accord to Raffaelle. Raffaelle was too ostentatious
of meaning; his merits were too obvious,--too much thrust upon the
understanding; not retired nor involved, so as to need discovery or
solution. He preferred even Titian (whose meaning is generally obvious
enough) to Raffaelle; but Leonardo was above both. Without doubt, Lamb's
taste on several matters was peculiar; for instance, there were a few
obsolete words, such as _arride, agnize, burgeon_, &c., which he fancied,
and chose to rescue from oblivion. Then he did not care for music. I never
heard a song in his house, nor any conversation on the subject of melody
or harmony, "I have no ear," he says; yet the sentiment, apart from the
science of music, gave him great pleasure. He reverenced the fine organ
playing of Mr. Novello, and admired the soaring singing of his daughter,--
"the tuneful daughter of a tuneful sire;" but he resented the
misapplication of the theatres to sacred music. He thought this a
profanation of the good old original secular purposes of a playhouse.

As a comprehension of all delights he loved London; with its bustle and
its living throngs of men and women; its shops, its turns and windings;
the cries and noises of trade and life; beyond all other things. He liked
also old buildings and out-of-the-way places; colleges; solemn
churchyards, round which the murmuring thousands floated unheeding. In
particular he was fond of visiting, in his short vacations, the
Universities of Oxford and Cambridge. Although (he writes) "Mine have been
anything but studious hours," he professes to have received great solace
from those "repositories of 'mouldering' learning." "What a place to be in
is an old library!" he exclaims, "where the souls of the old writers seem
reposing, as in some dormitory or middle state." The odor of the "moth-
scented" coverings of the old books is "as fragrant as the blooms of the
tree of knowledge which grew in the happy orchard."

An ancient manor-house, that Vanbrugh might have built, dwelt like a
picture in his memory. "Nothing fills a child's mind like an old mansion,"
he says. Yet he could feel unaffectedly the simplicity and beauty of a
country life. The heartiness of country people went to his heart direct,
and remained there forever. The Fields and the Gladmans, with their homely
dwellings and hospitality, drew him to them like magnets. There was
nothing too fine nor too lofty in these friends for his tastes or his
affection; they did not "affront him with their light." His fancy always
stooped to moralize; he hated the stilted attitudes and pretensions of
poetasters and self-glorifying artists.

He never spoke disparagingly of any person, nor overpraised any one. When
it was proposed to erect a statue of Clarkson, during his life, he
objected to it: "We should be modest," he says, "for a modest man." He was
himself eminently modest; he never put himself forward: he was always
sought. He had much to say on many subjects, and he was repeatedly pressed
to say this, before he consented to do so. He was almost teased into
writing the Elia Essays. These and all his other writings are brief and to
the point. He did not exhale in words. It was said that Coleridge's talk
was worth so many guineas a sheet. Charles Lamb talked but sparingly. He
put forth only so much as had complete flavor. I know that high pay and
frequent importunity failed to induce him to squander his strength in
careless essays: he waited until he could give them their full share of
meaning and humor.

When I speak of his extreme liking for London, it must not be supposed
that he was insensible to great scenery. After his only visit to the Lake
country, and beholding Skiddaw, he writes back to his host, "O! its fine
black head, and the bleak air at the top of it, with a prospect of
mountains all about making you giddy. It was a day that will stand out
like a mountain in my life;" adding, however, "Fleet Street and the Strand
are better places to live in, for good and all. I could not _live_ in
Skiddaw. I could spend there two or three years; but I must have a
prospect of seeing Fleet Street at the end of that time, or I should mope
and pine away." He loved even its smoke, and asserted that it suited his
vision. A short time previously he had, in a touching letter to Wordsworth
(1801), enumerated the objects that he liked so much in London. "These
things," he writes, "work themselves into my mind: the rooms where I was
born; a bookcase that has followed me about like a faithful dog (only
exceeding him in knowledge) wherever I have moved; old chairs; old tables;
squares where I have sunned myself; my old school: these are my
mistresses. 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 with
anything."

Besides his native London, "the centre of busy interests," he had great
liking for unpretending men, who would come and gossip with him in a
friendly, companionable way, or who liked to talk about old authors or old
books. In his love of books he was very catholic. "Shaftesbury is not too
genteel, nor Jonathan Wild too low. But for books which are no books,"
such as "scientific treatises, and the histories of Hume, Smollett, and
Gibbon," &c., he confesses that he becomes splenetic when he sees them
perched up on shelves, "like false saints, who have usurped the true
shrines" of the legitimate occupants. He loved old books and authors,
indeed, beyond most other things. He used to say (with Shakespeare), "The
Heavens themselves are old." He would rather have acquired an ancient
forgotten volume than a modern one, at an equal price; the very
circumstance of its having been neglected and cast disdainfully into the
refuse basket of a bookstall gave it value in his eyes. He bought it, and
rejoiced in being able thus to remedy the injustice of fortune.

He liked best those who had not thriven with posterity: his reverence for
Margaret, Duchess of Newcastle, can only be explained in this way. It must
not be forgotten that his pity or generosity towards neglected authors
extended also to all whom the goddess of Good Fortune had slighted. In
this list were included all who had suffered in purse or in repute. He was
ready to defend man or beast, whenever unjustly attacked. I remember that,
at one of the monthly magazine dinners, when John Wilkes was too roughly
handled, Lamb quoted the story (not generally known) of his replying, when
the blackbirds were reported to have stolen all his cherries, "Poor birds,
they are welcome." He said that those impulsive words showed the inner
nature of the man more truly than all his political speeches.

Lamb's charity extended to all things. I never heard him speak spitefully
of any author. He thought that every one should have a clear stage,
unobstructed. His heart, young at all times, never grew hard or callous
during life. There was always in it a tender spot, which Time was unable
to touch. He gave away _greatly_, when the amount of his means are taken
into consideration; he gave away money--even annuities, I believe--to old
impoverished friends whose wants were known to him. I remember that once,
when we were sauntering together on Pentonville Hill, and he noticed great
depression in me, which he attributed to want of money, he said, suddenly,
in his stammering way, "My dear boy, I--I have a quantity of useless
things. I have now--in my desk, a--a hundred pounds--that I don't--don't
_know_ what to do with. Take it." I was much touched; but I assured him
that my depression did not arise from want of money.

He was very home-loving; he loved London as the best of places; he loved
his home as the dearest spot in London: it was the inmost heart of the
sanctuary. Whilst at home he had no curiosity for what passed beyond his
own territory. His eyes were never truant; no one ever saw him peering out
of window, examining the crowds flowing by; no one ever surprised him
gazing on vacancy. "I lose myself," he says, "in other men's minds. When I
am not walking I am reading; I cannot sit and think; books think for me."
If it was not the time for his pipe, it was always the time for an old
play, or for a talk with friends. In the midst of this society his own
mind grew green again and blossomed; or, as he would have said,
"burgeoned."

In the foregoing desultory account of Charles Lamb I have, without doubt,
set forth many things that are frequently held as trivial. Nothing,
however, seems to me unimportant which serves in any way to illustrate a
character. The floating straws, it is said, show from what quarter the
wind is blowing. So the arching or knitting of the brow is sometimes
sufficient to indicate wonder or pride, anger or contempt. On the stage,
indeed, it is often the sole means of expressing the fluctuation of the
passions. I myself have heard of a "Pooh!" which interrupted a long
intimacy, when the pander was administering sweet words in too liberal a
measure.

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