The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb — Volume 2: Elia and The Last Essays of EliaLamb, Charles
General
The Works of Charles and Mary Lamb — Volume 2: Elia and The Last Essays of Elia
Lamb, Charles
English essays
him from academical pursuits for ever. To a person unacquainted with
our Universities, the distance between the gownsmen and the townsmen,
as they are called--the trading part of the latter especially--is
carried to an excess that would appear harsh and incredible. The
temperament of W----'s father was diametrically the reverse of his
own. Old W---- was a little, busy, cringing tradesman, who, with his
son upon his arm, would stand bowing and scraping, cap in hand, to
any-thing that wore the semblance of a gown--insensible to the winks
and opener remonstrances of the young man, to whose chamber-fellow, or
equal in standing, perhaps, he was thus obsequiously and gratuitously
ducking. Such a state of things could not last. W---- must change
the air of Oxford or be suffocated. He chose the former; and let the
sturdy moralist, who strains the point of the filial duties as high
as they can bear, censure the dereliction; he cannot estimate the
struggle. I stood with W----, the last afternoon I ever saw him, under
the eaves of his paternal dwelling. It was in the fine lane leading
from the High-street to the back of ***** college, where W---- kept
his rooms. He seemed thoughtful, and more reconciled. I ventured to
rally him--finding him in a better mood--upon a representation of the
Artist Evangelist, which the old man, whose affairs were beginning to
flourish, had caused to be set up in a splendid sort of frame over his
really handsome shop, either as a token of prosperity, or badge of
gratitude to his saint. W---- looked up at the Luke, and, like Satan,
"knew his mounted sign--and fled." A letter on his father's table
the next morning, announced that he had accepted a commission in a
regiment about to embark for Portugal. He was among the first who
perished before the walls of St. Sebastian.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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