The Catholic times. [volume] (Columbus, Ohio) 1951-current, 1955-08-26
Just Among Ourselves

Charles Lamb, dead these hundred and twenty
years, is distinctly oldtimer to the children of
this whizing era, and not so interesting old
timer either. We concede him place in the hall of
literary fame, that dusty temple of eminence which
we admire and avoid. We remember that our school
books gave us selection of Lambs roast pig;
it is RECALLED quirky bit amounting to much
ado about nothing Maybe remember something
of the old familiar faces which, unfortunately, are
all gone Almost certainly we have the memory Of
the Tales from Shakespeare (Which kind Aunt Min
ME gave us one Christmas) as book from which
the reader tear himself away with mnimal
effort.
Most assuredly, if we have ever done a
word, we know that Charles Lamb was known as
Ella And we know that he had sister Mary, who
not quite right mentally, to whom he was self
sacrficingly devoted. And that the TV boys say
(those masters of the phrase las matter Of factD
about wraps up our case for Lamb, The rhyme says
that Mary had little lamb but Mary could hard
1y have had so little of Lamb as most Of this gen.
GRAFTON have.
And yet il is quite certain that We would be
the better for more Lamb even in these times when
nothing seems Of Importance but what the Russians
up to, and the progress of the nuclearists and
the speed boys, Almost anyone who will resolve to
read for half hour in the essays the letters or
the verse of c. Lamb will find to his amazement
and provocative of pleasing thought,
Not that Lamb is free from cheap cynicsm
and occasional flippancy But we who read pert par
agrsphs in the papers and sophisticated snobbery
in the New Yorker, discount the faults that
remain dismally the in every age. And there
is good deal OF agelesS truth in the century-Old
essayist There is, for instance nothing dated about
this remark Newspapers always excite curiosity.
No one ever lays one down without feeling of dis
appointment" rt- .--# - -a..-E
When you feel exasperated at needless inter
rupting as you are telling favorite story, calm
yourself by thinking of Lambs remark "The grow
ing infirmities of age manifest themselves in moth
ing more strongly than in inveterate dislike of in
terruption" Realize Gf possible without shock
that your evaporation may be the sign that
you growing old Then you will overcome it.
For the great correctiyes of our time two aware
nesses: what makes seem old, and what puts
on fat.
Apparently Charles Lamb was not lover Of
music. He says, "Sentmentay, am disposed to
harmony; but organlcally, | am incapable Of tune
And even the sentimental disposition was not too
strong for Lambs Free Thoughts Several En-
inent Composers are these
Some cry up Haydn, some Mozart
Just as the whim bites. For my part,
| do not care farthing candle
For either of them, for Handel
Although Lamb left his "thirtythree years desk"
at the East India House with keen delight and
wrote TO friend Il come home for ever" he had
also this to say tin' his essay on the Superannuaed
man, Let me caution persons grown old in active
business, not lightly nor without weighing their
own resources, to forego their customary employ
ment all at once, for there may be danger in it,"
Lamb was only fifty when he laid his pen aside,
and gave up that dry drudgery at the desks dead
wood" Indeed he was but fifty-nine when he died.
Yet he is generous with advice to the aging and
the aged But after all, age swept on more swiftly
in day that knew no kind announcements about
ndtlresJ spelled backwards, and lotreg, ditto.
There is meat in Lambs remark: "He has left
off reading altogether to the great improvement
OF his originality" Bacon rightly says that reading
maketh full man, but he might have added that
sometimes il maketh him full of other mems words
only. Reading is too often promiscuous eating
without thought tor ability for digestion We recall
MIR. Dooley: Hogan is the bestread and most ignor-
ant man know. he has so doped himself with books
that he'd stumble over carpettack"
In his essay on the convalescent, Lamb does
give MS something of his own time and not ours
For he says, IF there be regal solitude, il is a
sick bed y In modern times, If there is center of
buzzng activity, and solitude whatever it is a
sick but manages the thing scientifically in an in
Stitution What with attendants and visitors, and
white ladies with charts and thermometers, and
blood.tests and medicamentS, and boys from the
flowerShop, and the mail and the trays, and physc-
anS and the kind girl TO change the water-supply
cily the patient has no more solitude than il he
we're hedded down in busy railway station.
At the ripe acc of twenty eight Lamb said this,
and many an Older will find il expresses
what he feels about himself Il have confessed
my utter inability to remember in any eompre,
hensiVe way what read vehemently applaud,
or perversely sickle al parts but | cannot grasp
at a whole"
Many remember Lambs description of Cole
ridge as "an archangel little damaged And some
remember hearing that description ruined and made
ridiculous in this form tunkndly attributed to Lamb
who could have said such thing "an arch
angel slightly delapidated" True, nothing at al
could damage an archange But the word delopidat'
means to have stones fall out Of place, and has
peculiar neptitude when applied to spiritua
being,