Charles Lamb: A Memoir | Page 8

of things that they all drifted down to the terrible
year 1796. It was a year dark with horror. There was an hereditary taint
of insanity in the family, which caused even Charles himself to be
placed, for a short time, in Hoxton Lunatic Asylum. "The six weeks
that finished last year and began this (1796), your very humble servant
spent very agreeably in a madhouse, at Hoxton." These are his words
when writing to Coleridge.
Mary Lamb had previously been repeatedly attacked by the same
dreadful disorder; and this now broke out afresh in a sudden burst of
acute madness. She had been moody and ill for some little time
previously, and the illness came to a crisis on the 23d of September,
1796. On that day, just before dinner, Mary seized a "case-knife" which
was lying on the table, pursued a little girl (her apprentice) round the
room, hurled about the dinner forks, and finally, in a fit of
uncontrollable frenzy, stabbed her mother to the heart.
Charles was at hand only in time to snatch the knife out of her grasp,
before further hurt could be done. He found his father wounded in the
forehead by one of the forks, and his aunt lying insensible, and
apparently dying, on the floor of the room.
This happened on a Thursday; and on the following day an inquest was
held on the mother's body, and a verdict of Mary's lunacy was
immediately found by the jury. The Lambs had a few friends. Mr.
Norris--the friend of Charles's father and of his own childhood--"was
very kind to us;" and Sam. Le Grice "then in town" (Charles writes)
"was as a brother to me, and gave up every hour of his time in constant
attendance on my father."
After the fatal deed, Mary Lamb was deeply afflicted. Her act was in
the first instance totally unknown to her. Afterwards, when her
consciousness returned and she was informed of it, she suffered great
grief. And subsequently, when she became "calm and serene," and saw
the misfortune in a clearer light, this was "far, very far from an indecent
or forgetful serenity," as her brother says. She had no defiant air, no
affectation, nor too extravagant a display of sorrow. She saw her act, as

she saw all other things, by the light of her own clear and gentle good
sense. She was sad; but the deed was past recall, and at the time of its
commission had been utterly beyond either her control or knowledge.
After the inquest, Mary Lamb was placed in a lunatic asylum, where,
after a short time, she recovered her serenity. A rapid recovery after
violent madness is not an unusual mark of the disease; it being in cases
of quiet, inveterate insanity, that the return to sound mind (if it ever
recur) is more gradual and slow. The recovery, however, was only
temporary in her case. She was throughout her life subject to frequent
recurrences of the same disease. At one time her brother Charles writes,
"Poor Mary's disorder so frequently recurring has made us a sort of
marked people." At another time he says, "I consider her as perpetually
on the brink of madness." And so, indeed, she continued during the
remainder of her life; and she lived to the age of eighty-two years.
Charles was now left alone in the world. His father was imbecile; his
sister insane; and his brother afforded no substantial assistance or
comfort. He was scarcely out of boyhood when he learned that the
world has its dangerous places and barren deserts; and that he had to
struggle for his living, without help. He found that he had to take upon
himself all the cares of a parent or protector (to his sister) even before
he had studied the duties of a man.
Sudden as death came down the necessary knowledge: how to live, and
how to live well. The terrible event that had fallen upon him and his,
instead of casting him down, and paralyzing his powers, braced and
strung his sinews into preternatural firmness. It is the character of a
feeble mind to lie prostrate before the first adversary. In his case it
lifted him out of that momentary despair which always follows a great
calamity. It was like extreme cold to the system, which often
overthrows the weak and timid, but gives additional strength and power
of endurance to the brave and the strong.
"My aunt was lying apparently dying" (writes Lamb), "my father with a
wound on his poor forehead, and my mother a murdered corpse, in the
next room. I felt that I had something else to do than to regret. _I had
the whole weight of the family upon me;_ for my brother--little
disposed at any