reason; sometimes by persons who might and should have looked deeper. In
a notable instance, the heroism of his life has been meanly overlooked
by one who preached to mankind with the eloquence of the Prophets the
prime need and virtue of recognizing the hero. If self-abnegation lies
at the root of true heroism, Charles Lamb--that "sorry phenomenon" with
an "insuperable proclivity to gin" [6]--was a greater hero than was
covered by the shield of Achilles. The character of Mary Lamb is quickly
summed Up. She was one of the most womanly of women. "In all its
essential sweetness," says Talfourd, "her character was like her
brother's; while, by a temper more placid, a spirit of enjoyment more
serene, she was enabled to guide, to counsel, to cheer him, and to
protect him on the verge of the mysterious calamity, from the depths of
which she rose so often unruffled to his side. To a friend in any
difficulty she was the most comfortable of advisers, the wisest of
consolers." Hazlitt said that "he never met with a woman who could
reason, and had met with only one thoroughly reasonable,--Mary Lamb."
The writings of Elia are strewn, as we know, with the tenderest tributes
to her worth. "I wish," he says, "that I could throw into a heap the
remainder of our joint existences, that we might share them in equal
division."

The psychology of madness is a most subtle inquiry. How slight the
mysterious touch that throws the smooth-running human mechanism into a
chaos of jarring elements, that transforms, in the turn of an eyelash,
the mild humanity of the gentlest of beings into the unreasoning
ferocity of the tiger.

The London "Times" of September 26, 1796, contained the following
paragraph:--