Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1874-01-24
Looking at the other Side of Things.

Lamb has left US plenty of hints scattered up
and down his works for us to put him together
pleteness The truth IL, he says, he gave him
,elf too little concern about what he uttered
and in whose presence he uttered some of the
most random things. 1t was hit or miss with
him, and certainly more often a hit than miss
He tells us that he was a bundle of preiudices
made up OF likiDgs and dislikings. He couldn't
like all people alike, and he Thought truth was
precious-not TO be wasted upon everybody. In
presence of a certain kind of character nothing
delighted Lamb more than in giving the fullest
scope 10 his own piquant pecularities. Nothing
be liked better than to catch up some great
piece OF solemn fOolery, or impossible common
sense, and whirl il of its feet in merriest maze
anG maddest dance of contradiction. ''Y0u're
matter of fact man. said he; "I'm a matter
OF lie man; 'tiS odd if we two can't make some
Inn;' and of he went, making some of the
most cOmical mental capers possible. But he
doesn't blunder into his best wtticisms. He
sees straight and right enough, for all the APP
parent obiqulty of his vision. 1t was with the
mind of Lamb as it is with the lightning-zig-
gag Is its direct line for shifting. Zigzsg was
Lambs favorite way. lhaye sometimes thou ght
the only man who could have drawn a line in
parallel with Lambs mental motion was the
American Thoresu; only ThoTeau would have
done il 50 seriously you might rot have seen
any likeness. IL was characteristic OF Lamb
that he always looked at the other side OF things
from childhood upward. When, as a child,
walking IN a cburch-y ard with his sister Mary
passing over the tombstones and finding so
much praise lavished on the departed, Lamb
looked up and innOcently asked, where do
they bury all the naughty people?' In this
way he has word of humorous compassion for
a man who had stolen a sheep, but was taken
prisoner and his sheep taken too. Thus, as
Lamb puts it, the poor fellow lost his first, last
and only hope OF a mutton pie That was the
thought which struck Lamb, not that he abet-
ted ep-stealng, but that he always repre-
sented the unrepresented. II you take the par
able OF the ten virgins, the sympathies of most
people run rejoicingly alongside the five wise
ones whose lamps were ready trimmed and who
tripped OF so happily at the sound of the BRIDE
erooms voice. But Lambs sympathes would
have RI NAMED with those i've poor, foolish ones
trying to wake them out of their stupor and
thoughtless dreaming; trying to rub the sleep out
OF their eyes; trying TO get little oil for them
ANYHOW; Il ying to hurry them along like good
girls pleading for them at the gate that it would
not be too late after all; stsmmering out all
kinds of excuses for their delay. The world is
greatly in need of Lambs charitable mode of
looking at things. Perhaps the elimination of
Lambs mode of looking at the other side of
th1Dgs, and stating il, occurred in his conversa-
ton with the old lady who was dreadfully bor-
ing Lamb on the subject. In excuse tor her
lengthy laudation, and perceiving that Lamb
was getting fdgety, she said, 81 speak so of him
because l know him well-bless him. "Well
don't" said Lamb, ''but d-n him at ven
ture.'-GerOid Massey.