We were talking about Lamb.
Some one suddenly asked: “Supposing that by some incredible chance all
the Essays except one were to be demolished, which one would you keep?”
This kind of question is always interesting, no matter to what author’s
work or to what picture gallery it is applied. But for the best
resulting literary talk it must be applied to Shakespeare, Dickens or
Elia.
“Why, of course,” at once said H., whose pleasant habit it is to rush
in with a final opinion on everything at a moment’s notice, with no
shame whatever in changing it immediately afterwards, “there’s no doubt
about it at all--Mrs. Battle. Absolutely impossible to give up Mrs.
Battle. Or, wait a minute, I’d forgotten Bo-Bo,--‘The Dissertation on
Roast Pig,’ you know. Either Mrs. Battle or that.”
The man who had propounded the question laughed. “I saw that second
string coming,” he said. “That’s what every one wants: one _or_
another. But the whole point of the thing is that one essay and one
only is to remain: everything else goes by the board. Now? Let’s leave
H. to wrestle it out with himself. What do _you_ say, James?”
“It’s too difficult,” said James. “I was going to say ‘The Old Actors’
until I remembered several others. But I’m not sure that that is not
my choice. It stands alone in literature: it is Lamb inimitable.
His literary descendants have done their best and worst with most
of his methods, but here, where knowledge of the world, knowledge
of the stage, love of mankind, gusto, humour, style and imaginative
understanding unite, the mimics, the assiduous apes, are left behind.
Miles. Yes, I vote for ‘The Old Actors.’”
“But, my dear James,” said L., “think a moment. Remember James Elia
in ‘My Relations’; remember Cousin Bridget in ‘Mackery End.’ You
are prepared deliberately to have these forever blotted out of your
consciousness? Because, as I understand it, that is what the question
means: utter elimination.”
James groaned. “It’s too serious,” he said. “It’s not to be thought of
really. It reminds me of terrible nights at school when I lay awake
trying to understand eternity--complete negation--until I turned giddy
with the immensity of dark nothingness.”
Our host laughed. “You were very positive just now,” he said. “But
have you forgotten a wistful little trifle called ‘Old China?’”
“Or, more on your own lines,” said W., who hates actors and acting,
“the ‘South-Sea House’ or the ‘Old Benchers’? I will grant you the
perfection--there is no other word--of the full-lengths of Dicky Suett
and Bannister and Bensley’s Malvolio. There is nothing like it--you
are quite right. Not even Hazlitt comes near it. One can see oneself
with a great effort doing something passably Hazlittian in dramatic
criticism, if one were put to it; but Lamb, Lamb reconstructs life
and dignifies and enriches it as he does so. That essay in my opinion
is the justification of footlights, grease-paint and all the tawdry
business. And yet,”--W.’s face glowed with his eloquence, as it always
does sooner or later every evening--“and yet if I were restricted to
one Elia essay--dreadful thought!--it would not be ‘The Old Actors’
that I should choose, but--I can’t help it--‘Captain Jackson.’ I know
there are far more beautiful things in Elia; deeper, sweeter, rarer.
But the Captain and I are such old friends that it comes to this, I
couldn’t now do without him.”
“Of course,” cried H. “I had forgotten. You remind me of something I
simply must keep--the Elliston.” He snatched the “Essays” from our
host’s hands and read the following passage, while we all laughed--a
double laughter--overtly with him, and covertly at him, for if there
is one man living who might be the hero to-day of a similar story,
it is H. himself, who has a capriciousness, an impulsiveness, a
forgetfulness, and a grandiosity that are Ellistonian or nothing.
“‘Those who knew Elliston,’” he read, “‘will know the manner in which
he pronounced the latter sentence of the few words I am about to
record. One proud day to me he took his roast mutton with us in the
Temple, to which I had superadded a haddock. After a rather plentiful
partaking of the meagre banquet, not unrefreshed with the humbler sorts
of liquors, I made a sort of apology for the humility of the fare,
observing that for my own part I never ate but of one dish at dinner.
“I too never eat but one thing at dinner,”--was his reply--then after
a pause--“reckoning fish as nothing.” The manner was all. It was as if
by one peremptory sentence he had decreed the annihilation of all the
savoury esculents which the pleasant and nutritious-food-giving Ocean
pours forth upon poor humans from her watery bosom. This was greatness,
tempered with considerate tenderness to the feelings of his scanty but
welcoming entertainer.’”
“Well,” said our host, reclaiming the book, “my vote if I had one would
be for ‘Mackery End in Hertfordshire’; and I make the declaration
quite calmly, knowing that we are all safe to retain what we will.
James will of course disagree with the choice; but then you see I am a
sentimentalist, and when Lamb writes about his sister and his childhood
I am lost. And ‘Mackery End’ delights me in two ways, for it not only
has the wonderful picture of Bridget Elia in it, but we see Lamb also
on one of his rapturous walks in his own county. I never see a field of
wheat without recalling his phrase of Hertfordshire as ‘that fine corn
country.’”
“All very well,” said James, “but if you talk like this how are you
going to let ‘Dream Children’ go?”
“Ah, yes,” sighed our host, “‘Dream Children’--of course! How could I
let that go? No, it’s too difficult.”
“What about this?” said the grave incisive voice of K., who had not yet
spoken, and he began to read:--
“In proportion as the years both lessen, and shorten, I set more count
upon their periods, and would fain lay my ineffectual finger upon
the spoke of the great wheel. I am not content to pass away ‘like a
weaver’s shuttle.’ Those metaphors solace me not, nor sweeten the
unpalatable draught of mortality. I care not to be carried with the
tide, that smoothly bears human life to eternity; and reluct at the
inevitable course of destiny. I am in love with this green earth; the
face of town and country; the unspeakable rural solitudes, and the
sweet security of streets.’
“Who is going to foreswear that passage?” K. asked sternly, fixing his
eyes on us as if we were one and all guilty of damnable heresy.
We all sighed.