| CHARLES LAMB. | 41 |
Another characteristic instance of Lamb’s sacrifice of his own most cherished habits and feelings to those of other people was in the case of a favourite servant, “Beckey,” to whose will and pleasure both Charles Lamb and his sister were as much at the mercy as they were to those of Dash.
This Beckey was an excellent person in her way, and not
the worse that she had not the happiness of comprehending the difference between genius and
common sense—between “an author” and an ordinary man. Accordingly, having a
real regard for her master and mistress, and a strong impression of what was or was not
“good for them,” she used not seldom to take the liberty of telling them
“a bit of her mind,” when they did anything that she considered to be
“odd” or out of the way. And as (to do them jus-
| 42 | CHARLES LAMB. |
In performing the duties of housekeeping the Lambs were
something like an excellent friend of mine, who, when a tradesman brings him home a pair of
particularly easy boots, or any other object perfectionated in a way that peculiarly takes
his fancy, inquires the price, and if it happens to be at all within decent tradesmanlike
limits, says—“No—I cannot give you that price—it is too little—you cannot afford
it, I’m sure—I shall give you so and so”—naming a third or fourth more
than the price demanded. If the Lambs’ baker, for example, had
charged them (as it is said bakers have been known to do) a dozen loaves in their weekly
bill, when they must have known that they had not eaten
| CHARLES LAMB. | 43 |
Now this kind of logic was utterly lost upon Beckey, and she would not hear of it. Her master and mistress, she fully admitted, had a right to be as extravagant as they pleased; but they had no right to confound the distinctions between honesty and roguery, and it was what she would not permit.
There are few of us who would not duly prize a domestic who had honesty and
wit enough to protect us from the consequences of our own carelessness or indifference; but
where is the one who, like Lamb, without caring one
farthing for the advantages he might derive from Beckey’s
unimpeachable honesty, and her genius for going the best way to market, could not merely
overlook, but be highly gratified and amused by, the ineffable airs of superiority,
amounting to nothing less than a sort of personal patronage, which she
| 44 | CHARLES LAMB. |
Another notable instance may here be cited of Lamb’s habitual disposition to bend and vail his own feelings,
inclinations, and personal comforts to those of other people. When they left off
housekeeping, and went to reside at Enfield, they boarded for some time in the house of a
reputable old couple, to whom they paid, for the
plainest possible
| CHARLES LAMB. | 45 |
Yet this sort of thing Lamb bore
patiently,
| 46 | CHARLES LAMB. |
The Protectionists never pleaded harder for their “vested rights” than did Lamb for the claims of these people to continue to live upon him, and affront him every now and then into the bargain, because they had been permitted to begin to do so.
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