The Nevada journal., 1857-02-13
THE GENTLE eliza.

| to praise, none hold place SO near the
heart, as does Charles Lamb. The
" gentle Ella" who has not heard of the
ESSAYS of Ella ?' and who, that has
ever read one of them has been willing
to not read the rest /! Who that has
read them can forget their quaint style;
their humor, which the angels might
enjoy and join in without offending
Heaven; but above all, that worldwide,
soul-deep sympathy with the good, the
beautiful, and especially with the unfor-
tunate, which pervades everything he
wrote. Who has ever sat down and
read one of those genial overhows from
] the kindest of human hearts, graced
with the elegance of the scholar, and
! clothed with words arranged in an ori-
ginal way such as none of his predeces-
sors had invented, such as do successor
has successfully imitated-who has ever
sat and read one of those exquisite es-
says, so full of kindly humanity, without
arising better and happier man.
Yesterday at LeCount's we fell chance
ly upon "The Works of Charles Lamb"
There are more than six hundred pages
in tLis book, pages flowing full of most
delightful reading. 1t has an excellent
engraving of Ella himself as he sits
reading at his desk, with books of refer
ence before him, two candles lighted,
and a vase of flowers on his mantle close
by. 1t is a profile view, said to be the
best ever taken of him. TO us that
picture has double interest, for it is an
| o1, of al
cousin of John G. SAKE, the poet, him
self no mean votary of the muses-long
since in his grave. He was our Ella in
those happy, hopeful school days, and
we called him so not alone for his exact
profile identity with the lines of Lambs
picture, but more that in his tastes, his
kindliness of he art his broad and loving
sympathies, his habits and necessities of
daily toll between the intervals of which
his studies and his writings were per-
formed--he bore a close and striking
likeness to the gentle Ella who could
scarce have had finer sensibilities or a
more genial humor. But like Lamb he
has passed away, and yet this book of
Ella, this face of Lamb has brushed a
way the dust of years from memory, as
one brushes the notes from the portraits
of an old friend, and the original lives
again as fresh in our recollection, and
more truthfully, than when we listened
to his familiar eloquence, and joined in
his Lamb-like humor W ho has not
read Charles Lamb2 If any, let him
throw aside the modern novel, the fash
ionable trash of the day, and get the
works of Charles Lamb. Young lady,
weeping over the imaginary sufferings
and self-imposed duties of some hero of
romance-hing aside the mawkish sem
timent you are reading, and take up the
real history of life, of struggling soul,
of true hero to be found in the author
of whom we are speaL ing. We know of
no novel in the language superior in in
terest to that of this mans life for his
was the heroism of a lifetime patience, a
lifelong labor of love and affection, of
labor, and of goodness. Until he died
few were aware of the great secret of
his life, the great conquest he made of
self in his efforts to soothe another's ag-
ony of remorse. When he had passed
where the knowledge of his domestic
afiictior could jar his fine strong sensi-
bilities no more, the world became aware
that his life had been consecrated to his
sister. She had in fit of temporary
madness, seized a knife, and with a blow
slain their mother. From that hour
Lambs existence was lost in his tender
ness and gentle guardianship of that
sister. In the brother he sinks all hope
and thought of tender relationship
To her he became and continued min
istering angel. From the desk he occu-
pied for long scores of years in the same
counting house, when his days toll was
over, home to that sisters side, to that
sisters consolation, walked this hero,
who had given up his life to soothe the
mental anguish of hers. There is per-
haps no moro beautiful instance of fra
ternal love in the whole range of histo-
ry, no conservation of life to a nobler
purpose. And yet not a word of repin-
ing was ever heard to fall from his lips,
, not a word from his pen, not sentence
in which can be traced the phantom of a
regret. In his own heart he kept his
secret, in his own heart he bore the pain,
and never by word or look, or omission
gave that sister cause TO think that her
terrible deed was remembered. And
yet. in the snatches of time between his
hours of daily toll, he put down his
thoughts-no common ones-in the most
pleasing of styles, and imbued with that
gentleness of disposition catholicity of
heart, and sympathy with the weak and
downcast, of which his whole life was
an exemplifcation. No woader that
Coleridge and SoutAey, and Wadsworth
loved him. No wonder that Talfourd
almost adored him and grew doubly elo-
quent when writing of him. And no
wonder that his readers lay down his
book with a feeling akin to that felt
when bidding farewell to dear and ge-
nial brothers,. f. Chronicle
RAILROADS MAKING THEIR OWN IRON.
The New York Central Railroad Co.