Charles Lamb: A Memoir | Page 2

many others, hold a
book needlessly large to be a great evil, it is my intention to confine the
present memoir within moderate limits. My aim is not to write the "Life
and Times" of Charles Lamb. Indeed, Lamb had no influence on his
own times. He had little or nothing in common with his generation,
which was almost a stranger to him. There was no reciprocity between
them. His contemplations were retrospective. He was, when living, the
centre of a small social circle; and I shall therefore deal incidentally
with some of its members. In other respects, this memoir will contain
only what I recollect and what I have learned from authentic sources of
my old friend.
The fact that distinguished Charles Lamb from other men was his entire
devotion to one grand and tender purpose. There is, probably, a
romance involved in every life. In his life it exceeded that of others. In
gravity, in acuteness, in his noble battle with a great calamity, it was
beyond the rest. Neither pleasure nor toil ever distracted him from his
holy purpose. Everything was made subservient to it. He had an insane
sister, who, in a moment of uncontrollable madness, had unconsciously
destroyed her own mother; and to protect and save this sister--a gentle
woman, who had watched like a mother over his own infancy--the
whole length of his life was devoted. What he endured, through the
space of nearly forty years, from the incessant fear and frequent
recurrence of his sister's insanity, can now only be conjectured. In this
constant and uncomplaining endurance, and in his steady adherence to

a great principle of conduct, his life was heroic.
We read of men giving up all their days to a single object--to religion,
to vengeance, to some overpowering selfish wish; of daring acts done
to avert death or disgrace, or some oppressing misfortune. We read
mythical tales of friendship; but we do not recollect any instance in
which a great object has been so unremittingly carried out throughout a
whole life, in defiance of a thousand difficulties, and of numberless
temptations, straining the good resolution to its utmost, except in the
case of our poor clerk of the India House.
This was, substantially, his life. His actions, thoughts, and sufferings
were all concentred on this one important end. It was what he had to do;
it was in his reach; and he did it, therefore, manfully, religiously. He
did not waste his mind on too many things; for whatever too much
expands the mind weakens it; nor on vague or multitudinous thoughts
and speculations; nor on dreams or things distant or unattainable.
However interesting, they did not absorb him, body and soul, like the
safety and welfare of his sister.
Subject to this primary unflinching purpose, the tendency of Lamb's
mind pointed strongly towards literature. He did not seek literature,
however; and he gained from it nothing except his fame. He worked
laboriously at the India House from boyhood to manhood; for many
years without repining; although he must have been conscious of an
intellect qualified to shine in other ways than in entering up a trader's
books. None of those coveted offices, which bring money and comfort
in their train, ever reached Charles Lamb. He was never under that
bounteous shower which government leaders and persons of influence
direct towards the heads of their adherents. No Dives ever selected him
for his golden bounty. No potent critic ever shouldered him up the hill
of fame. In the absence of these old-fashioned helps, he was content
that his own unassisted efforts should gain for him a certificate of
capability to the world, and that the choice reputation which he thus
earned should, with his own qualities, bring round him the unenvying
love of a host of friends.
Lamb had always been a studious boy and a great reader; and after
passing through Christ's Hospital and the South Sea House, and being
for some years in the India House, this instinctive passion of his mind
(for literature) broke out. In this he was, without doubt, influenced by

the example and counsel of Samuel Taylor Coleridge, his school-fellow
and friend, for whom he entertained a high and most tender respect.
The first books which he loved to read were volumes of poetry, and
essays on serious and religious themes. The works of all the old poets,
the history of Quakers, the biography of Wesley, the controversial
papers of Priestley, and other books on devout subjects, sank into his
mind. From reading he speedily rose to writing; from being a reader he
became an author. His first writings were entirely serious. These were
verses, or letters, wherein religious thoughts and secular criticisms took
their places in turn; or they were grave dramas, which exhibit and