Mary Lamb

Her education in youth was not much attended to, and she happily missed all the train of female garniture which passeth by the name of accomplishments. She was tumbled early, by accident or providence, into a spacious closet of good old English reading, without much selection or prohibition, and browsed at will upon that fair and wholesome pasturage. Had I twenty girls they should be brought up exactly in this fashion. I know not whether their chance in wedlock might not be diminished by it, but I can answer for it that it maketh (if worse comes to worst) most incomparable old maids.--Essays of Elia

I sing the love of brother and sister. For he who tells the tale of
Charles and Mary Lamb's life must tell of a love that was an uplift to
this brother and sister in childhood, that sustained them in the
desolation of disaster, and was a saving solace even when every hope
seemed gone and reason veiled her face.

This love caused the flowers of springtime to bloom for them again and
again, and attracted such a circle of admirers that, as we read the
records of their lives, set forth in the letters they received and wrote,
we forget poverty, forget calamity, and behold only the radiant, smiling
faces of loving, trusting, trustful friends.

The mother of Charles and Mary Lamb was a woman of fine natural endowment,
of spirit and of aspiration. She married a man much older than herself. We
know but little about John Lamb; we know nothing of his ancestry. Neither
do we care to. He was not good enough to attract, nor bad enough to be
interesting. He called himself a scrivener, but in fact he was a valet. He
was neutral salts; and I say this just after having read his son's amiable
mention of him under the guise of "Lovel," and with the full knowledge
also that "he danced well, was a good judge of vintage, played the
harpsichord, and recited poetry on occasion."

When a woman of spirit stands up before a priest and makes solemn promise
to live with a man who plays the harpsichord and is a good judge of
vintage, and to love until either he or she dies, she sows the seeds of
death and disorder. Of course, I know that men and women who make promises
before priests know not at the time what they do; they find out
afterwards.

And so they were married, were John Lamb and Elizabeth Field; and probably
very soon thereafter Elizabeth had a premonition that this union only held
in store a glittering blade of steel for her heart. For she grew ill and
dispirited, and John found companionship at the alehouse, and came
stumbling home asking what the devil was the reason his wife couldn't meet
him with a smile and a kiss and a' that, as a dutiful wife should!

Elizabeth began to live more and more within herself. We often hear