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
He decided the orthography to be--as I have given it--fortifying his
authority with such anatomical reasons as dismissed the manciple (for
the time) learned and happy. Some do spell it yet perversely, _aitch_
bone, from a fanciful resemblance between its shape, and that of the
aspirate so denominated. I had almost forgotten Mingay with the iron
hand--but he was somewhat later. He had lost his right hand by some
accident, and supplied it with a grappling hook, which he wielded
with a tolerable adroitness. I detected the substitute, before I was
old enough to reason whether it were artificial or not. I remember
the astonishment it raised in me. He was a blustering, loud-talking
person; and I reconciled the phenomenon to my ideas as an emblem of
power--somewhat like the horns in the forehead of Michael Angelo's
Moses. Baron Maseres, who walks (or did till very lately) in the
costume of the reign of George the Second, closes my imperfect
recollections of the old benchers of the Inner Temple.
Fantastic forms, whither are ye fled? Or, if the like of you exist,
why exist they no more for me? Ye inexplicable, half-understood
appearances, why comes in reason to tear away the preternatural mist,
bright or gloomy, that enshrouded you? Why make ye so sorry a figure
in my relation, who made up to me--to my childish eyes--the mythology
of the Temple? In those days I saw Gods, as "old men covered with a
mantle," walking upon the earth. Let the dreams of classic idolatry
perish,--extinct be the fairies and fairy trumpery of legendary
fabling,--in the heart of childhood, there will, for ever, spring up a
well of innocent or wholesome superstition--the seeds of exaggeration
will be busy there, and vital--from every-day forms educing the
unknown and the uncommon. In that little Goshen there will be light,
when the grown world flounders about in the darkness of sense and
materiality. While childhood, and while dreams, reducing childhood,
shall be left, imagination shall not have spread her holy wings
totally to fly the earth.
* * * * *
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account