Dream children - by Charles Lamb
A Brief Life-Sketch
Birth and Parentage: Charles Lamb was born in Crown office, on 10th of Feb, 1775. His father, John Lamb was a clerk to a member of parliament. John Lamb was gifted with seven children of whom only three got blessings of God to remain in this world. Charles Lamb was the youngest child of the large family. John Lamb (1763-1821) was the elder brother of Lamb. Mary Anne (1764-1847), the Bridget Elia of the Essay was the elder sister of Lamb. His mother, Elizabeth Field, was the daughter of 'The great grand mother Field.' She lived in a great house. She was a housekeeper in Norfolk. Though she was not it's owner, she lived in such a to her beautifully in his remarkable pathetic essay 'Dream Children'.
His education and early surroundings : Lamb got his education at Christ's Hospital ( also called, the Blue Coat school and it was well endowed and admitted homeless children) from 1782 to 1789. Here he developed his friendship with S.T. Coleridge and this friendship proved to be gain of this period. Besides Coleridge he began many of those friendship which were to form the chief solace and pleasure of his later life.
The poverty of his family and infirmity of speech disallowed him to become a Clergyman as was expected from boys sent from the school to the university. The hardship of family, stood at his face, compelled him to earn his livelihood. So, as soon as it was possible he moulded himself for early circumstances. He was ready to face the very challenge by making some durable support. Before leaving school, he had learned some Greek much Latin and mathematics and general knowledge enough for his career as an accountant.
His disappointment in love and insanity : Little is known for his life during the years 1792-1795. During one of his frequent visits in Hertfordshire, he came in emotional contact with a young lady and turned to her with purpose of sharing his joys and sorrows of life. Canon Ainger has identified this lady with Ann Simmon, who married subsequently a pawnbroker named Bartram, residing in Prince's street, Leicester Square. Canon Ainger' s identification is now universally believed as correct.
Lamb, in his essays, calls her Alice Winterton but in his poems he refers her as Anna. His first sonnets were addressed to her.
At the end of 1795, his mental state was disturbed for Six weeks. So he had to be confined to an asylam, Hoxton. The cause of this misfortune probably was an unsuccessful love affair with with Ann Simmons, the Hertfordshire. It seems that his tender feelings and emotions were hurt and carried him to insanity.
Family Surroundings : Tensions, worries and hardship were prominent in his family. In 1796, Lambs were residing at 7, Little Owens Street, Holborn. His father felt weakness of mind caused by old age. His mother was a confirmed invalid. John did not support his family. He was indifferent towards them. He lived separately from them.
Closing Years : At Islington, Charles and Mary had been residing in their own house, but the great cares of house-keeping compelled to change their dwelling at Enfield in 1826. In the same year, they had to suffer with an unimagined loss at the death of Mr. Randal Norris. The Norrises had long Ford, where Mrs. Field, Lamb's grand mother was buried. In 1833, the second series of the essays 'The Last Essays of Elia' .
Lamb was always youthful. Even the hardships, his sister's increasing malady, and other sufferings never made him feel old. The total responsibility made him much more energetic. Death of Coleridge in 1834 came as a bolt from the blue to him and perhaps, affected him very deeply to his own death.
Lamb's Works
Lamb had early leaning dedication to literature. His first appearance of four sonnets, in association with Coleridge and Charles Lloyd, punished. A Tale of Rosamund Gray and Old Blind Margaret, came into light in 1728. A Five--act tragedy, John Wood appeared in 1801.
London Magazine under a fictitious name Elia : In 1820, Lamb started to contribute to London Magazine under the signature of Elia. His essays achieved a phenomenal gain and popularity. This provided him a genius figure and abiding place in literature. The provided him a genius figure and abiding place in literature. The first of his essays, The Sea House, successfully established Lamb as a character ---delineator. He gave recollections of his brief clerkship there. This essay was a good example of memories, after so long period of 28 years, seems wonderful and interesting. In this essay, he introduced with the feel of real life. The fictitious name was adopted from the surname of a fellow-clerk. His liking to chew the cud of memory was remarkably seen in this essay. Charles Lamb had always kept in mind a strong affection for him. Charles retained his dullness, expressed pathetically in his essay 'Dream Children', and Lamb meditative mood, reminds, "How he used to carry me upon his back when as a lame-footed boy, and how in after life he became lame-footed too."
 |
| Dream Children -by Charles Lamb Dream Children Introduction to the Essay |
This essay was first published in the London Magazine, January, 1822. It is one of the most beautiful, imaginative, pathetic and poetic of all his essays. Pathos is at every step, especially in the end when the dream children of Lamb vanish. It is full of reminiscenes and anecdotes.
Text
Here Alice put out one of her dear mother's looks, too tender to be called upbraiding. Then I went onto say, how religious and how good their great-grand mother Field was, how beloved and respected by everyday, though she was not indeed the mistress of this great house, but had only the charge of it (and yet in some respects she might be said to be the mistress of it too) committed to her by the owner, who preferred living in a newer and more fashionable mansion which he had purchased somewhere in the adjoining country; but still she lived in it in a manner as if it had been her own, and kept up the dignity of the great house in a sort while she lived, which afterwards came to decay, and was nearly pulled down, and all its old ornaments stripped and carried away to the owner's other house, where they were set up, and, looked as awkward as if someone were to carry away the old tombs they had seen lately at the Abbey, and stick them up in Lady C.'s tawdry gilt drawing room. Here John smiled, as much as to say, " that would be foolish indeed." And then I told how, when she came to die, her funeral was attended by a concourse of all the poor, and some of the gentry too, of the neighbourhood, for many miles round, to show their respect for her memory, because she had been such a good and religious woman; so good indeed that she knew all the Psaltery by heart, any, and a great part of the Testament besides. Here little Alice spread her hands. Then I told what a tall, upright, graceful person their great-grandmother Field once was; and how in her youth she was esteemed the best dancer---here Alice's little right foot played an involuntary movement, till, upon my looking grave, it desisted---the best dancer, I was saying, in the country, till a cruel disease, called a cancer, came and bowed her down with pain.
But it could never bend her good spirits, or make them stoop, but they were still upright because she was so good and religious. Then I told how she was used to sleep by herself in a lone chamber of the great lone house; and how she believed that an apparition of two infants was to be seen at midnight gliding up and down the great staircase near where she slept, but she said "those innocents would do her no harm," and now frightened I used to be, though in those days I had my maid to sleep with me, because I was never half so good or religious as she and yet I never saw the infants. Here John expanded all his eyebrows and tried to look courageous. Then I told how good she was to all her grand-children, having us to the great house in the holidays, where I in particular used to spend many hours myself, in gazing upon the old busts of the twelve Caesars that had been Emperors of Rome, till the old marble heads would seem to live again, or I to be turned into marble with them; how I never could be tired with roaming about that huge mansion, with its vast empty rooms, with their worn-out hangings, fluttering tapestry, and carved oaken panels with the gliding almost rubbed out---sometimes in the spacious old fashioned gardens, which I had almost to myself, unless, when now and then a solitary gardening man would cross me--and how the nectarines and peaches hung upon the walls, without my ever offering to pluck them, because they were forbidden fruit, unless now and then,---and because I had more pleasure in strolling about among the old melancholy-looking yew-trees, or the firs, and picking up the red berries, and the fir-apple, which were good for nothing but to look at---or in lying about upon the fresh grass with all the fine garden smell around me---or basking in the orangery, till I could almost fancy myself ripening to alongwith the oranges and the limes in that grateful warmth---or in watching the dace that darted to and fro in the fish-pond, at the bottom of the garden, with here and there a great sulky pipe hanging Midway down the water in silent stage, as if it mocked at their impertinent friskings,---I had more pleasure in these busy-idle diversions than in all the sweet flavours of peaches, nectarines, oranges, and such like common baits of children. Here John slyly deposited back upon the plate a bunch of grapes, which not unobserved by Alice, he had meditated dividing with her, and both seemed willing to relinquish them for the present as irrelevant.
Then, in somewhat a more heightened tone, I told how, though their great-grandfather Field loved all her grandchildren, yet in an especial manner she might be said to love their uncle, John L--, because he was so handsome and spirited a youth and a king to the rest of us; and, instead of moping about in solitary corners, like some of us, he would mount the most mettlesome horse he could get, when but an imp no bigger than themselves, and make it carry him half over the country in a morning, and join the hunters when there were any out---and yet he loved the old great house and gardens too, but had to much spirit to be always pent up with in their boundaries and how their uncle grew upto man's estate as brave as he was handsome, to the admiration of everybody, but of their great grandmother Field most especially; and how he used to carry me upon his back when I was a lame-footed boy for he was a good bit older than me--many a mile when I could not walk for pain; and how in after life he became lame-footed too, and I did not always (I fear) make allowances enough for him when he was impatient and in pain, nor remember sufficiently how considerate he had been to me when I was lame-footed and how when he died, though he had not been dead an hour, it betwixt life and death; and how I bore his death as I thought pretty well at first, but afterwards it haunted and haunted me; and though I did not cry or take it to heart as some do, and as I think he would have done if I had died, yet I missed his kindness, and I missed his crossness and wished him to be alive again, to be quarrelling with him (for we quarrelled sometimes), rather than not have him again, and was as uneasy without him, as he, their poor uncle, must have been when the doctor took off his limb.
Here the children fell acrying, and asked if their little mourning which they had on was not for uncle John, and they looked up, and prayed me not to go on about their uncle, but to tell them some stories about their pretty dead mother. Then I told how for seven long years, in hope sometimes, sometimes is despair, yet persisting ever, I courted the fair Alice W---n; and as much as children could understand, I explained to them what coyness' and difficulty, and denial, meant in maidens---when suddenly turning to Alice, the soul of the first Alice looked out at her eyes with such a reality of re-presentment, that I became in doubt which of them stood there before me, or whose that bright hair was; and while I stood gazing, both the children grew gradually fainter to my view receding, and still receding, till nothing at last but two mournful features were in the uttermost distance, which, without speech, strangely impressed upon me the effects of speech : "We are not of Alice, nor of thee, nor are we children at all. The children of Alice call Bartrum father. We are nothing; less than nothing. and dreams. We are only what might have been, and must wait upon the tedious shores of Lethe millions of ages before we have existence, and a name" ---and immediately awaking, I found myself quietly seated in my bachelor arm-chair, where I had fallen asleep, with the faithful bridget unchanged by side---but John L. (or James Elia ) was going for ever.
Summary of the Essay
Children are greatly fond of listening to the stories about their elders and they are curious to know something about them when they were children. One evening Lamb's imaginary children gathered around him to know something about their great grandmother. Lamb told them that their great grandmother was a pious, religious, good and popular lady. She lived in a great house, though she was not it's owner because the house belonged to somebody else. She was only the house-keeper of the house. He told them that after her death, the house came to decay, and all its old ornaments were removed and taken to the owner's house where they looked out of place. He told his dream children that when she died, her funeral was attended by all the poor and some of the gentry of the neighbourhood as a mark of respect for her memory because she was a religious lady and had been good to all of them. In her youth, she was regarded as the best dancer in the country. Then she was afflicted by the cruel disease cancer which bowed her physically but which could never bow down her spirits. Next Lamb told she believed that an apparition of two infants was to be seen at midnight gliding up and down the staircase. Lamb as a child used to feel very happy when he was with his grandmother in that old house. He used to roam about in the garden without touching any fruit as he forbidden to do so. He used to lie down on the grass or spend his time watching the fish in the garden tank. Lamb next told the children something about their uncle John Lamb. John was a handsome and courageous youth and was very fond of ridding and hunting. Then Lamb spoke of John Lamb's death. At this the children began to cry and requested their father not to tell them anything more about uncle John but to tell them some stories about their pretty dead mother. Then Lamb told them how far seven long years he had courted the fair Alice Winterton, sometimes in hope and sometimes in despair. When suddenly he turned to Alice, he felt a close resemblance between the daughter and mother. As Lamb gazed at his children, he found that both of them gradually fainter. He saw two sad faces in uttermost distance, who appeared to be saying that they were not the children of Alice and Lamb. They were only dream children. Lamb woke up from his dream and found himself quietly sitting in his bachelor arm-chair where he had fallen asleep and had been day-dreaming.
Comments
Post a Comment