How strong his affection and respect for her really were we may see from his own words: “I am a fool bereft of her co-operation. I am used to look up at her in the worst and biggest perplexities. To say all that I find her would be more than I think anybody could possibly understand. She is older, wiser, and better than I am, and all my wretched imperfections I cover to myself by resolutely thinking on her goodness. She would share life and death with me.”
A more lovable character than Lamb’s is hard to find. Full of fun he was when with his friends, punning, quibbling and joking in quaint and original ways that made him welcome wherever he went. “The best acid is assiduity” was one of his favorite puns, and “No work is worse than over-work” is one of his wise and witty remarks.
The stuttering which in some persons might have seemed an annoyance only served to add a certain spiciness to his good-natured quips. It is said that a certain gushing lady once went into a long description of her children and her own passionate love for them. Suddenly interrupting herself she said to Lamb, “And how do you like babies, Mr. Lamb?” With a sober face, but unable to conceal the humorous twinkle in his sharp eyes, Charles replied, “Bub-bub-boiled, Madam!”
Lamb’s friendship for Coleridge was fully returned, as we may see from many things the latter wrote. At one time he said: “Lamb’s character is a sacred one with me. No associations that he may form can hurt the purity of his mind.... Nothing ever left a stain on that gentle creature’s mind.”
In 1825 Lamb’s health became so poor that he was compelled to give up his clerkship, and thereafter he lived most of his time at Edmonton. The British government gave him an annual pension of £441, which sufficed for the simple wants of himself and his sister.
The immediate cause of his death was a slight accident that befell him a few months after the burial of Coleridge. Unconsciousness came before he had been long ill and before any of his intimate friends could reach him, yet it was their names that were last on his lips. They buried him in the churchyard at Edmonton, as he wished, where on his tombstone may be read:
“Farewell, dear friend—that smile, that harmless mirth,
No more shall gladden our domestic hearth;
That rising tear, with pain forbid to flow—
Better than words—no more assuage our woe.
That hand outstretch’d from small but well-earned store
Yield succor to the destitute no more.
Yet art thou not all lost. Through many an age,
With sterling sense and humour, shall thy page
Win many an English bosom, pleased to see
That old and happier vein revived in thee.
This for our earth: and if with friends we share
Our joys in heaven we hope to meet thee there.”
Besides the Tales from Shakespeare, Charles Lamb wrote many beautiful sketches which are known as the Essays of Elia. Elia was the name of one of the clerks in the South Sea House, where Lamb worked at one time.
A reader can easily form some idea of a writer’s character from his work, but Lamb was always so wholly himself, and he threw himself so freely into his essays, that you can tell just what manner of man he was as you read. A large part of the pleasure of reading him comes from this trait. We seem to be sitting with a charming friend whenever we hold one of his books, and to feel that the friend is pouring out his whole heart for our delight and inspiration. Naturally a person must keep alert when he is reading from Charles Lamb, for no one can predict what course the brilliant mind will take. When once a reader has learned to understand his oddities, delicate sentiment, bright wit and loving faithfulness, every word becomes a living thing, and every reading a new delight, a higher inspiration. In none of his essays is he seen to greater advantage than in Dream Children, which follows this brief sketch. The only people young or old who do not love this beautiful essay are those who have not read it or who have read it without really understanding it. You may need to read it once just to see what it is about; again with the aid of the notes and comments we make upon it; a third time to let it cast its spell upon you. If you do that you will not forget it, but will return to it often as years go on and the hard world buffets you with those stern experiences which make you men and women. Every time you read it you will find new graces, more touching sentiment.
Will you read it now for the first time, paying only so much attention to the footnotes as may be necessary for you to understand the language?