The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb — Volume 1: Miscellaneous ProseLamb, Charles
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The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb — Volume 1: Miscellaneous Prose
Lamb, Charles
English literature
And I will say, that when I think of the frequent instances which I have
met with in children, of a hard-heartedness, a callousness, and
insensibility to the loss of relations, even of those who have begot and
nourished them, I cannot but consider it as a proof of something in the
peculiar conformation of that school, favourable to the expansion of the
best feelings of our nature, that, at the period which I am noticing,
out of five hundred boys there was not a dry eye to be found among them,
nor a heart that did not beat with genuine emotion. Every impulse to
play, until the funeral day was past, seemed suspended throughout the
school; and the boys, lately so mirthful and sprightly, were seen pacing
their cloisters alone, or in sad groupes standing about, few of them
without some token, such as their slender means could provide, a black
ribband, or something to denote respect and a sense of their loss. The
time itself was a time of anarchy, a time in which all authority (out of
school-hours) was abandoned. The ordinary restraints were for those days
superseded; and the gates, which at other times kept us in, were left
without watchers. Yet, with the exception of one or two graceless boys
at most, who took advantage of that suspension of authority to _skulk
out_, as it was called, the whole body of that great school kept
rigorously within their bounds, by a voluntary self-imprisonment; and
they who broke bounds, though they escaped punishment from any master,
fell into a general disrepute among us, and, for that which at any other
time would have been applauded and admired as a mark of spirit, were
consigned to infamy and reprobation: so much _natural government_ have
gratitude and the principles of reverence and love, and so much did a
respect to their dead friend prevail with these Christ's Hospital boys
above any fear which his presence among them when living could ever
produce. And if the impressions which were made on my mind so long ago
are to be trusted, very richly did their steward deserve this tribute.
It is a pleasure to me even now to call to mind his portly form, the
regal awe which he always contrived to inspire, in spite of a tenderness
and even weakness of nature that would have enfeebled the reins of
discipline in any other master; a yearning of tenderness towards those
under his protection, which could make five hundred boys at once feel
towards him each as to their individual father. He had faults, with
which we had nothing to do; but, with all his faults, indeed, Mr. Perry
was a most extraordinary creature. Contemporary with him, and still
living, though he has long since resigned his occupation, will it be
impertinent to mention the name of our excellent upper grammar-master,
the Rev. James Boyer? He was a disciplinarian, indeed, of a different
stamp from him whom I have just described; but, now the terrors of the
rod, and of a temper a little too hasty to leave the more nervous of us
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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